PrincetonUniversity Communications Office, Stanhope Hall, Princeton, NJ 08544 USA Tel 609-258-3601, Fax 609-258-1301   Feedback Princeton in the News Enclosing directory   Newsweek International February 5, 2001 SOCIETY GALAPAGOS: HEARTBREAK POSTPONED FAVORABLE WINDS DISPERSE AN OIL SPILL IN THE GALAPAGOS, BUT THESE TREASURED ISLANDS, WHICH OPENED DARWIN'S EYES TO EVOLUTION, ARE STILL BEING THREATENED As oil spills go, the one that struck the Galapagos Islands on Jan. 16 was small change. The Ecuadoran tanker Jessica plowed into a coral reef a half mile off the coast of San Cristobal Island on the eastern edge of the archipelago and belched 185,000 gallons of diesel and bunker fuel into the Pacific Ocean. The Galapagos are, in a word, special. Created 3 million years ago by undersea volcanic eruptions, they are the newest members of a largely sunken archipelago that stretches 1,000 miles or so northeast to Central America. When the eastern islands began disappearing beneath the ocean millions of years ago, animals cut off from the mainland were forced to leapfrog westward from island to island. In isolation, they evolved into unique forms. Eighty percent of the 5,000 species of plants and animals that now live on the Galapagos are found nowhere else on Earth. Blue-footed boobies nest on its rocky shores. Giant tortoises amble over its hills. Even though the islands lie near the equator, penguins waddle on its beaches. One of two species of iguana on the islands dives into the ocean and eats seaweed, a diet it shares with no other reptile on Earth. An oil spill, even a small one, could wreak havoc on this diversity. Fortunately, on Jan. 23, the currents and winds shifted, pushing the spill northward and away from the rest of the archipelago. So far the oil-scrubbing rescue teams have had to treat only a few dozen boobies, sea lions and pelicans from San Cristobal and nearby Santa Fe Island. So will the Galapagos now revert to some pristine state? Hardly. For one thing, the spill may cause long-term damage that's not yet visible. If it blocks the sun's rays from reaching enough algae, the delicate marine food web could still collapse. "In another few months we'll know how to classify the accident ," says Peter Grant, a Princeton University biologist who has worked on the islands since 1973. THE INDIANAPOLIS STAR, February 2, 2001 A PROGRAM REVIVED Eli Lilly is a growing force in the cancer drug industry Pancreatic cancer treatment Gemzar and other drugs and compounds in pipeline hold promise for company. The Lilly name has re-emerged in the treatment of cancer, thanks to an antiviral drug, a chemist's shared finding, and a cancer scientist who died of the disease. "We're about to step forward and separate ourselves from the others" in the fragmented cancer drug market, said Garry A. Nicholson, executive director of Eli Lilly and Co.'s U.S. oncology business. Driving Lilly's cancer program are its 5-year-old drug Gemzar for pancreatic and lung cancers, a promising drug called Alimta bound for market next year, and another half-dozen compounds in testing. ... Alimta came to Lilly from the Princeton University labs of E.C. "Ted" Taylor, a leading researcher in folic acids, which are essential to the human body as vitamins and also to growing cancer cells. Taylor found a compound that prevents cancer cells from gobbling up folic acid. "We took it to Lilly, and the sparks started flying," said Taylor, an emeritus professor of chemistry at Princeton who has consulted with Lilly for more than 30 years. ... The American Banker, February 1, 2001 Lifetime Achievement: John Reed Looks Back Since retiring from Citigroup Inc., banking legend John S. Reed has been reflecting on the essence of a successful deal. His musings may eventually fuel a best-seller - imagine "The Reed Way" - but until then he revealed his main conclusion in an interview: "You should avoid lying during the courtship, if you can, because the trouble is, you have to then live through the breakdown of the lies." That's tough talk for the reserved Mr. Reed, who, with the freewheeling Sanford I. Weill, engineered the industry's most exciting merger: the 1998 marriage of Citicorp and Travelers Group. Their plan to be co-chief executive officers of the $700 billion-asset-plus company was met with skepticism, but Mr. Reed insists that both men knew their companies' cultures would conflict and that they, too, would clash. ... Mr. Reed is reading avidly, in part to enhance his lectures on management at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (his alma mater) and on cross-border finance at Princeton University. He also helps friends with their business strategies and advises on such topics as how to roll out products on the Web. He and his wife are shopping for a house on an island off the coast of France. ... The New York Times, February 1, 2001 Making Books: Why the Classics Are Retranslated I confess that it's been years since I thought about rereading "Beowulf" or "The Inferno," but now I have new translations of each before me so it seems the moment to re-examine them, both as a reader and as a columnist. I remember them from high school as rousing tales in their own ways, with blood and guts and dragons, beasts and passion and lust. Both very different from "Silas Marner," for instance, which was the literary castor oil that generations of high school students were also forced to choke down. ... Now there's also a new bilingual translation of "The Inferno" (Doubleday) by Robert Hollander, a Dante scholar at Princeton University, and the poet Jean Hollander, his wife. It went on sale in late December with a first printing of about 25,000 copies. Gerald Howard, executive editor of Doubleday, said: "There's a very complicated worldview underlying the poem, and different aspects of that come to the fore in different translations. No translation can ever be perfect." ... The Philadelphia Inquirer, February 1, 2001 Princeton to drop the need for loans, with scholarships filling gaps Beefing up a commitment to make a Princeton education more accessible to low- and middle-income students, the university's Board of Trustees this week pledged that come September, no undergraduate receiving financial aid will have to take out loans to pay for school. Instead, scholarship money will now cover that portion of a financial-aid package that students previously had to borrow. The new "no-loan" policy, which Princeton officials believe is the first of its kind at a university, was approved unanimously by the board as part of a $5.6 million financial-relief package to be funded by the school's endowment fund. Officials said that the aid enhancements were made possible by a healthy endowment fund of more than $8 billion. The measures were approved as part of $57 million in new spending from the endowment fund and is part of an overall $760 million university budget. "We feel that with today's initiatives that Princeton now is available ... to any family, if the student has the ambition and academic achievement," University President Harold Shapiro said... The Seattle Times, February 1, 2001 Universities: Women still face barriers The heads of nine leading research universities have issued a statement acknowledging that female professors in science and engineering still face significant barriers because of gender. The university leaders, who gathered at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) for a workshop on gender equity, promised to work to build faculties that better reflect the diversity of their students. "Institutions of higher education have an obligation, both for themselves and for the nation, to fully develop and utilize all the creative talent available," they said in a statement issued after this week's workshop. "We recognize that barriers still exist to the full participation of women in science and engineering." The university leaders also agreed to analyze the salaries and resources provided to their female faculty members, and said they would gather again in about a year to discuss their progress. Approving the statement were the presidents of MIT, California Institute of Technology, University of Michigan, Princeton University, Stanford University and Yale University; the chancellor of the University of California, Berkeley; and provosts representing Harvard University and the University of Pennsylvania. Restaurants & Institutions, February 1, 2001 Work Study Princeton University dining staff learns about service with a smile for new Frist Campus Center. Leave Princeton University to get an education at a bus station? Sounds unlikely, but each morning for five days in August, Gail Porter and five Princeton University Dining Services co-workers boarded a train bound for the Port Authority Bus Terminal in Manhattan. There, they worked at Villa Pizza. The goal was to learn as much as possible about running a Villa Pizza operation so they could open one in the food court of the university's newly built Frist Campus Center. Transforming long-time university cafeteria workers into polished restaurant-style service providers is a challenge that universities across the country face as they upgrade foodservice programs to meet competition from other universities and from commercial alternatives. It is a large undertaking, which is why Princeton opted to call in experts. Dining Services used trainers from manufacturers and operators such as Villa Pizza and Seattle's Best Coffee. To act as ringmaster for the entire training show, Hospitality Works Inc., a Lincolnwood, Ill.-based foodservice consulting and training firm specializing in teaching restaurant service, was brought in...