PrincetonUniversity Communications Office, Stanhope Hall, Princeton, NJ 08544 USA Tel 609-258-3601, Fax 609-258-1301   Feedback Princeton in the News Enclosing directory   THE INDEPENDENT, January 31, 2001 Help make S Asia N-free zone for peace, experts tell seminar Speakers at a roundtable discussion in the city yesterday laid emphasis on making the countries of the South Asia a Nuclear Armament Free Zone with a view to bringing an end to mass destruction and ensuring sustainable development in the region... Organized by the Institute for Development Policy Analysis and Advocacy (IDPAA) of the PROSHIKA, an NGO working for human development, at the auditorium of the Center for Integrated Rural Development for Asia and the Pacific (CIRDAP) in the city, the roundtable discussion on "Nuclear Disarmament and Peace for Sustainable Development in South Asia" was chaired by Senior Vice-President of the PROSHIKA M Mahbubul Karim. Md Shahabuddin, Head of the IDPAA gave the introductory speech. The roundtable discussion was attended by State Minister for Foreign Affairs Abul Hasan Chowdhury as Chief Guest while Former Foreign Secretary Farooq Sobhan attended it as Special guest. The key-note speakers were Former Chief of the Indian Naval Staff Admiral L. Ramdas, Nuclear Scientist Dr. AH Nayyar of the Quid-i-Azam University of Pakistan, Physicist Dr. Zia Mian of the Princeton University of the United States and Peace Activist Dr. Sandeep Pandey. ... The Kansas City Star, January 31, 2001 A common substance with weird properties ... All right, then. When I tell you about water today, you will know that I am not simply an uninterested observer. Water and I go back a long way. The surprising (well, to me, who tends to get blindsided regularly in and by life) news about water is that scientists still spend large chunks of their time studying water. Water has been around for decades, if not centuries. What could be left to know about it? A lot, it turns out. ... An anomaly of water, for instance, is that it tends to move more freely as it is squeezed. That is, its molecules diffuse faster under pressure. These and other quirks of water, as I say, have been the subject of recent scientific study. A report in the Jan. 18 issue of Nature magazine describes what some Princeton University scientists have learned about the essential weirdness of water. The researchers report that as water changes temperature and structure, it reveals a wide range of eccentricities. In fact, water gets downright crotchety as it gets more structured. "The idea that order brings anomalies is a very interesting concept," says Pablo Debenedetti, a Princeton professor of chemical engineering who worked on this water research... The New York Times, January 31, 2001 9 Universities Will Address Sex Inequities Acknowledging that women face hurdles in the fields of science and engineering, the leaders of nine of the nation's top universities have vowed to work together and individually toward "equity and full participation" of their female faculty members. ... A statement issued after the Monday meeting of university provosts and presidents promised that the institutions would work toward diversity in their faculties, equity for women in compensation and resources and policies that did not unduly burden women with families. They also promised to produce and share annual reports on salaries, resources and hiring, and to include women in their analyses. ... The meeting included presidents, provosts and faculty members from M.I.T., Yale, Stanford, Princeton, Harvard, the University of Pennsylvania, the University of Michigan, the University of California and the California Institute of Technology. ... The News and Observer, January 31, 2001 Eating disorders spread among minority girls, women ... As minorities become more integrated into society, psychologists say, they have begun to suffer from such food compulsions at nearly the same rate as whites. "Some people still think this is an upper-middle-class, white-girl phenomenon, but that's really not true," said Catherine Steiner-Adair, a psychologist at Harvard University's Center for Eating Disorders. "No race or class is immune." Researchers are just beginning to study the problem, so it's hard to know how many minority women (fewer than 10 percent of those with eating problems are men) are affected. But Steiner-Adair estimates that one-quarter to one-half of those now being treated for food compulsions are not white. ... Asian-American women feel pressure to fit into stereotypes of them as submissive geisha girls or delicate china dolls, said psychologist Hue-Sun Ahn at Princeton University's Counseling Center. Families often require them to "look a certain way ... otherwise you're shaming the whole family," Ahn said. The Associated Press, January 30, 2001 Bush adviser at home in classroom and on the street John DiIulio, named Monday to head the White House office of religion-based community initiatives, is an Ivy League political scientist who spends as much time on the streets as in the seminar room. A colleague describes him as "Joe Pesci with a Ph.D." ... DiIulio's early work, which he continued after being hired to teach at Princeton University, focused on crime prevention. He was a strong advocate of building more prisons and mandatory imprisonment. He still favors strong punishment, but now places more emphasis on prevention, with a religious tilt. ... The Boston Globe, January 30, 2001 THE TIME HAS DAWNED FOR 'MORNING-AFTER' CONTRACEPTION The time has come to do the obvious about the whole abortion mess: Provide emergency "morning-after" contraception over the counter. Right now. In every state. In every pharmacy. For every woman who needs it. And at a reasonable price. ... The need for safe, effective and accessible emergency contraception is unarguable. In the United States alone, about 3 million unwanted pregnancies occur a year, half of which are due to broken condoms or other contraceptive failures, according to The Alan Guttmacher Institute in New York, a private, nonprofit group. Half of unwanted pregnancies end in abortion. ... In fact, one in every two American women between 15 and 44 has had an unintended pregnancy, though only 1 percent has ever used emergency contraceptive pills, noted James Trussell, a professor of economics and public affairs at Princeton University and a leading scholar on contraception issues. ... Cox News Service, January 30, 2001 There's a new invention that may change the way you define it STEPHEN J. O'BRIEN Gingers have come and gone. The sultry one stranded on " Gilligan's Island," once a prime-time hit, now lives only in television reruns. The Spice Girl by the same name was a fleeting moment in pop history. The next Ginger may be different. It's a highly secret invention that has been called "revolutionary" and "historic" by those familiar with it _ whatever it is. ... Speculation about the invention started a month ago when information was leaked that physicist Dean Kamen had signed a $250,000 contract with Harvard Business School Press to publish the details of a new, ground-breaking invention next year. Kamen's track record as an inventor has fueled curiosity. He developed the first portable pump to dispense insulin for diabetics in 1978, and his company holds more than 100 U.S. patents. Ironically, the mystery surrounding Ginger has already made it more famous than many of Kamen's previous projects. Ginger has been the topic of radio talk shows and the subject of newspaper stories. Some scientists are skeptical Ginger will live up to the hype. At the same time, many are wondering what it could be. The prevailing opinion seems to be that Ginger is a new form of propulsion or energy source that can be harnessed easily at low cost with little or no pollution. ... Even when inventions have years to gain popularity, some still don't amount to much, said Edward Tenner, a visiting researcher at Princeton University and author of "Why Things Bite Back: Technology and the Revenge of Unintended Consequences." Other inventions, however, like the staple, don't seem significant at first but stay around forever and get used all the time. "What's a great invention? A Japanese public opinion poll said the 20th century's greatest was instant noodles," Tenner said. "To me the important ones are things like duct tape (which helped save Apollo 13) and paper clips that let people work out their own inventions." The New York Post, January 30, 2001 BUSH'S LEAP OF FAITH WHY JOHN DIIULIO IS AN INSPIRED APPOINTMENT GEORGE W. Bush pulled another surprise yesterday by naming one of the nation's foremost sociologists - and a Democrat, albeit a highly unconventional one - to run the centerpiece of "compassionate conservatism" - the new White House office of faith-based programs. John J. DiIulio's name had not even been mentioned in the press until yesterday morning. But to say DiIulio is an inspired choice, and that Bush is lucky to have him, understates the case. The burly, gregarious and immensely energetic DiIulio is the type of person that makes you wonder when he sleeps, given all that he does. The son of a Philadelphia cop, he is a husband and father, taught at Princeton University after he received his Ph.D. in 1986 at the age of 26 and is a fellow at the Manhattan Institute and the Brookings Institution and a prolific writer and editor. He is an expert on health care, criminal justice and welfare reform. He is the co-author of the standard academic text on the workings of the American government. ... TB & Outbreaks Week, January 30, 2001 Scientists Uncover Break-and-Entry Strategy of Disease-Causing Bacteria 2001 Jan 30 - (NewsRx.com & NewsRx.net) -- As bacteria become resistant to current antibiotics, scientists are searching for the root causes of infection in order to develop more effective treatments. Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louise, Missouri, have come one step closer to understanding how bacteria such as Streptococcus and Staphylococcus operate: these pathogens introduce their toxins by punching holes in the host-cell membrane. The January 12, 2001, issue of Cell features the research, which was conducted by J.C. Madden and colleagues ("Cytolysin-mediated translocation (CMT): A functional equivalent of Type III secretion in gram-positive bacteria," Cell, 20001;(104):1-20). Scientists have made great strides in understanding how gram-negative bacteria, such as Salmonella and E. coli, infiltrate host cells and establish infection. However, a second class of bacteria, the gram-positive bacteria, causes human diseases such as strep throat, necrotizing faciitis, toxic shock syndrome, and rheumatic fever. "Gram-positive bacteria are responsible for five of the top six bacterial infections that are now resistant to multiple antibiotics available today," said study leader Michael G. Caparon, PhD, Washington University. The first authors of the study are student John C. Madden, MD, PhD, and Natividad Ruiz, PhD, now at Princeton University... USA TODAY January 30, 2001 Princeton switches from loans to grants to reduce student debt Top-tier colleges may follow suit Princeton University's plan to drop loans from its undergraduate financial aid packages may force other highly selective institutions into making similar changes. But it probably won't have much impact on financial aid at most private colleges and universities, experts say. "Institutions that compete with Princeton for students inevitably are going to have to respond to this," says Jon Fuller, who tracks financial aid trends at the Washington-based National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities. But, "most institutions simply don't have the resources" to develop financial aid packages as generous as Princeton's. Even so, he says, at a time when more students are taking on larger amounts of debt to pay for college, Princeton's decision "reinforces the sense that we may be reaching some kind of tipping point in terms of loan burden. We're going to have to find other ways to keep the cost for students down." Princeton's new "no-loan policy," approved Saturday and set to begin in fall 2001, replaces loans with grants for all undergraduates receiving financial aid. ... Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, January 29, 2001 MICE GENETICALLY MODIFIED TO BE SMARTER MAY FEEL MORE PAIN Mice that have been genetically modified to boos their memory and learning abilities may not only be smarter than the average mouse, but painfully so. A new study by neuroscientists at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louise found that the same brain cell modification that made the so-called "Doogie" mice smarter may also have sensitized them to chronic pain. The study findings, being published in the February issue of the journal Nature Neuroscience, are not clearcut. The researchers found evidence that persistent pain seemed to be enhanced and that the mice even responded to what should have been non-painful touches. But it's also possible that the mice might have been displaying a learned response, rather than feeling actual pain. ... Based on that evidence, Tsien isn't sure that transgenic mice necessarily are feeling greater chronic pain. "I'm not sure if that produces a perception of pain or records a memory of pain," he said. They may simply have learned better than other mice what to expect of certain painful experiences. The Times, January 29, 2001 How to build a new family As the divorce rate rises and remarriages fall, there is growing concern about difficulties within step-families. Miranda Ingram looks at the pitfalls and the solutions Sarah Wilson was astonished and hurt when her teenage stepdaughter Chloe, with whom she had had an excellent relationship for eight years, suddenly accused her of ruining her life. "She couldn't blame me for breaking up her parents' marriage since they had separated before her father and I met," says Wilson. "But she blamed me for everything else." ... The complex relationships within step-families are a growing matter of concern. Already rising divorce rates mean that there are more than half a million step-families in Britain; these include about one million dependent stepchildren under 16. Four marriages in ten are a remarriage for at least one partner and at least 50 per cent of remarriages which form a step-family end in divorce. By 2010, divorce and repartnering is expected to be the norm. ... A survey from Princeton University in the US reveals that children develop more emotional problems after parental remarriage than they do after parental separation. Encourage children to talk about the absent parent and their feelings towards them, particularly if, as often happens with fathers, they are no longer in contact. TWICE, January 29, 2001 Thomson To Open New R&D Lab In New Jersey PARIS --Thomson Multimedia said it is creating a new research and development laboratory in Princeton, N.J., to develop convergence technologies to hasten the marriage of video with the Internet. The laboratory, which will be Thomson's sixth R&D facility worldwide, will work in collaboration with R&D centers in Rennes (France), Indianapolis, Hanover, Villingen (Germany) and Tokyo. The Princeton unit has been charged with developing broadband digital products and solutions for Thomson digital audio and video devices with broadband access and related services. ... The location of the facilities "will help reinforce the link between the group's patent and research activities. The laboratory will also benefit from the close proximity of research centers and universities including MIT, Princeton, Columbia and Carnegie-Mellon, where Thomson intends to develop partnerships and seek new talent," according to a company statement. ... The Washington Times, January 29, 2001 THE U.N. REPORT; LINING UP TO JUMP SHIP Is it imagination, or are there tremors from the 38th floor? It appears that the management and policy team assembled by U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan is starting to scatter. ... Trusted Annan adviser John Ruggie is leaving for Harvard, to be followed quickly by chief strategist Andrew Mack. ... When Mr. Ruggie leaves in April, he is to be succeeded by Michael Doyle, a Princeton University professor who has also parked at the International Peace Academy, a New York-based think tank. Goran Lindahl will take over much of the work on the Global Compact. ... The New York Times, January 28, 2001 Princeton to Replace Loans With Student Scholarships As American students take on ever-larger mountains of debt to help pay for college, Princeton University said yesterday that it would replace student loans with scholarships so that its undergraduates eligible for financial aid would not have to worry about paying back thousands of dollars for their education. ... This is the second time in three years that Princeton, one of the wealthiest universities in the United States, has moved to improve financial aid for undergraduates. In 1998, it substituted grants for loans for its lowest-income students, from families earning less than $46,500. It also altered the formula it used to calculate a family's ability to pay for college so that middle-income students would be eligible for more aid. ... Princeton also said yesterday that it would reduce the amount students would be expected to contribute from their savings, and would increase grants to pay the $370 annual cost of the health care plan for students from families earning less than $66,500. The university also said it would pay more attention to the rent a family paid in determining its ability to pay for college. Three years ago it said it would not count a family's home equity when it assessed its financial assets. Graduate students will also receive more generous financial aid. Princeton said it would double the number of doctoral students in the humanities and social science that it supports during the summer, to 650 from 325. Stipends for graduate students and their health care coverage will also be improved. The university also said it would provide all first-year doctoral students with full tuition and a stipend to help cover living expenses. ... The Record, January 28, 2001 Princeton Boosts Grants To Create Debt-free Grads Princeton University undergraduates on financial aid will no longer have to borrow money to pay for college, university President Harold T. Shapiro announced Saturday. The plan, which will allow many students on financial aid to graduate without any debt, was among several changes announced in financial aid programs for graduate and undergraduate students. The policy, approved unanimously by the board of trustees on Saturday morning as part of a $ 57 million increase in endowment income spending, will affect all undergraduate students at the university beginning this fall. ... University Provost Jeremiah Ostriker said the plan will help attract students who may have been intimidated by the $ 33,613 cost of undergraduate tuition, room, and board. "We do fear that there are many students who don't apply, because they're not aware how much aid is available,"Ostriker said."They only see the sticker price of Princeton, which is very high." Sun-Sentinel, January 28, 2001 A Question of Life and Health Moral Concerns About Stem Cell Research Will Lead to a Review by President Bush and His New Secretary of Health and Human Services. Human embryonic stem cells could hold the cure for Parkinson's disease, reversing paralysis from spinal cord injuries, restoring eyesight, reversing diabetes, growing new bone and cartilage, and even new hearts, livers and kidneys. But because the cells are derived from the earliest form of human life, President George W. Bush has said he intends to review guidelines issued in August by the National Institutes of Health that would allow federal funding for such research. At stake are millions of dollars that would greatly expand the work now being done by only a handful of scientists whose work is paid for by private biotech companies or patient advocacy groups. ... Opponents, who believe that the cells are a human being from the point of conception, argue that destroying even one embryo, for any reason, is immoral. ... The National Bioethics Advisory Commission, appointed by President Clinton, sees it differently, however. The 17-member commission headed by Princeton University President Harold Shapiro, which earlier tackled such issues as human cloning, and advised against it, recommended the stem cell research go forward. ... Sunday Telegraph, January 28, 2001 Diplomatic pedigree Raymond Seitz reflects on a distinguished American's genealogical stocktaking George Kennan is America's foremost post-war diplomat, a man of towering accomplishment and matchless credentials. As a senior foreign service officer in Moscow in the late 1940s, his reports and analyses influenced and shaped American policy towards the Soviet Union as the chill of the Cold War spread over Europe and as America reassessed its international responsibilities. And when the global struggle between the two superpowers reached its pivotal and most dangerous point in the early 1960s, Kennan was a close adviser to young John Kennedy. After leaving government, Kennan embarked on a distinguished academic career. His knowledge of Russia and the Soviet Union was profound and his personal bent had always been scholarly. From his professorial chair at Princeton University, Kennan poured out a series of books on East-West relations which formed the nucleus of American attitudes right up to the end of the Cold War (even if Kennan often protested cantankerously that his views were too frequently misunderstood or ignored). He is a recipient of two Pulitzer Prizes and the National Book Award. This is a formidable record. Now, it seems, George Kennan is clearing his desk, prudently perhaps, as he is comfortably into his nineties. With a little up-dating, his autobiographical Sketches From A Life was re-published last year to renewed acclaim. And here we have a slender, occasionally evocative volume about the first three generations of Kennans who settled in America starting in the middle of the 18th century. ... The Toronto Star, January 28, 2001 Looking for Answers ... Dr. Reza Mehran, a Canadian Forces veteran who spent two tours of duty in the Balkans, wants to know why he's sick. Mehran, 39, has hairy-cell leukemia, a rare form of cancer that usually strikes those in their 50s. He also has lost part of his right leg to bone cancer. Mehran believes something in the Balkans might have made him ill - possibly, but not necessarily, depleted uranium (DU), an element used in armour- piercing weaponry that has attracted considerable controversy. Whatever the cause of Mehran's illness, Canada's military refutes any connection to its overseas efforts. Several prominent U.S. scientists have recently been quoted in the New York Times as saying it's "biologically impossible" for depleted uranium to cause leukemia. Princeton University physicist Dr. Frank von Hippel says depleted uranium isn't much of a radioactive hazard - because it's depleted. It's what's left when highly radioactive uranium 235 has been removed from its atomic cousin, uranium 238. ... Chicago Tribune, January 28, 2001 Two Researchers Rewrite Gutenberg's Role in Inventing Modern Typography Johann Gutenberg, the 15th Century German craftsman, has long been believed to be the father of modern typography. But the secretive inventor may have to share some of the paternity now. A 25-year-old physicist and a scholar of rare books at Princeton University, who used new technology to examine some of Gutenberg's texts, say he may not have created the seminal process after all, a finding that could revise the history of printing. ... "They have figured out that the whole history of early printing is wrong," said Anthony Grafton, a professor of history at Princeton and an expert on the history of the book. "There wasn't one, heroic discovery." Rather, Grafton said, the invention of modern printing was a more gradual process involving more than one person. The finding, Grafton said, means that Gutenberg was not the inventor of movable type in the way it is commonly understood, as bits of identical type that are created from metal molds. The new research, however, does not dislodge Gutenberg from his historic position as the inventor of the printing press and the first person to mass produce Bibles and other materials. The discovery was announced last week by Paul Needham, the librarian of the Scheide Library, a private library at Princeton, and Blaise Aguera y Arcas, a graduate of Princeton with a degree in physics, before a standing room only audience at New York's Grolier Club, a book collectors' club founded in 1884. ... The Independent, January 26, 2001 SCIENCE: THE URANIUM MINEFIELD SCIENTISTS DOUBT THAT DEPLETED URANIUM IS BEHIND THE MYSTERY ILLNESSES OF VETERANS OF THE GULF WAR AND BALKANS CONFLICT WRITES STEVE CONNOR, BUT PROVING IT IS MUCH HARDER It is almost impossible for science to prove a negative, whether it's to show that mobile phones are not the cause of brain tumours, to demonstrate that the measles, mumps and rubella combined-vaccine does not cause autism or to prove that depleted uranium is not the cause of illnesses suffered by veterans of the Gulf war and Balkans conflict. Disproving something is about the hardest request that can be made of a scientist. In the case of depleted uranium, however, scientists at least have the benefit of several studies, some going back 50 years, to investigate the health risks. This research may not provide all the facts necessary to answer the depleted uranium question, but at least it is a start. It is by understanding what these studies can, and cannot tell us, that has led many scientists to be sceptical of the claims that the depleted uranium shells and bullets fired in the Gulf War and the Balkans have caused illnesses ranging from respiratory disease to leukaemia. ... The difficulty of "disproving" a health risk with depleted uranium was ... highlighted in a study by Steve Fetter, from University of Maryland, and Frank von Hippel, an eminent nuclear scientist at Princeton University in New Jersey. Their review of the scientific literature was one of the most extensive undertaken, and they looked at both exposure to soldiers and civilians living in the area were depleted uranium was used. ...