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PrincetonUniversity Communications Office, Stanhope Hall,
Princeton, NJ 08544 USA Princeton in the NewsThe New York Times, May 9, 2001 New Jersey's Redistricting In the first major redistricting case following the 2000 census, a panel of three federal judges upheld New Jersey's newly redrawn legislative districts. The judges rejected Republican Party claims that by shifting some black and Hispanic voters out of three predominantly minority districts in and around Newark and spreading them to other, mostly white districts, the plan diluted minority voting strength in violation of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. The New Jersey ruling followed two days of hearings in which expert witnesses called by lawyers for New Jersey's Republican and Democratic Parties offered warring opinions about the impact of the state's redrawn legislative map for minority voting strength. The map was based on a revised Democratic map chosen by Prof. Larry Bartels of Princeton University, a nonpartisan authority on reapportionment who was appointed to break a partisan deadlock on the state's 10-member redistricting commission. … Chicago Tribune, May 9, 2001 Princeton elects female president Shirley M. Caldwell Tilghman, a member of the Princeton University faculty and an architect of the national effort to map the human genome, was elected last week the first female president of the university. ... "I plan to create a campus that has diverse opportunities for students who will find that Princeton is the right place to really blossom," Tilghman said in Nassau Hall after the announcement. ... The New York Times, May 8, 2001 New Districts Imperil G.O.P. In New Jersey Ten years ago, a withering revolt against higher taxes by New Jersey voters swept Republicans into control of the State Legislature for the first time since 1971. Now, the party's decade of dominance may be in jeopardy. A new map of legislative districts survived a Republican challenge in federal court last week, and it could become the blueprint for change in November. Leaders of both parties say the redistricting makes it likely that Democrats will trim Republican majorities in the Senate and Assembly, and Democrats say they expect to win control of at least one chamber… Each party submitted its own redistricting map to the tiebreaking member of the state apportionment commission, Larry M. Bartels, a professor of politics and public affairs at Princeton University… The Press, May 8, 2001 Codebreakers stay quiet on method Faced with possible litigation, Princeton University computer scientist Edward Felton has decided not to publish a paper on how his research team broke the code of copyright protection "watermarks" encrypted into digital music… Dr Felton's research stems from work done last year with the Secure Digital Music Initiative (SDMI), a creation of the recording industry. Digital watermarks place tags on music files that are theoretically hard to remove without damaging the quality of the music, but the Felton team said it easily broke the codes. This incident highlights a conflict between freedom of scholarship and the interests of the music industry… Computerworld, May 7, 2001 Researchers Struggle With Problems From Hiding Data Legal threats haunt experts on data tracking, secrecy Scientists attending the Fourth Information Hiding Workshop last month in Pittsburgh viewed demonstrations of how to conceal information from repressive regimes and how to build watermarks to track documents, and they got a lesson in how to use vague threats of a lawsuit to muzzle academic discussion... The tools for creating these "digital watermarks" were developed by members of the Secure Digital Music Initiative and released in a highly controlled contest that publicly challenged others to test their strength. But when a group of scholars from Princeton University, Rice University and Xerox Corp.'s Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) discovered ways to circumvent those tools for embedding copyright information in songs and planned to present a detailed paper at the workshop, tensions surfaced. The Recording Industry Association of America sent a letter encouraging the researchers to keep the information secret and noting that they could face legal action… Consumer Electronics, May 7, 2001 SDMI HACKERS BLINK BUT MAY GET LAST LAUGH -- FORRESTER Despite music industry's success in dissuading university researchers from revealing how they hacked watermarks developed for Secure Digital Music Initiative (SDMI), concerns over free speech and academic freedom will prompt federal court to declare anticircumvention clause of Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA) unconstitutional -- very clause that RIAA and SDMI invoked to deter publication of research. That's conclusion of statement issued by Forrester Research before 2nd U.S. Appeals Court in N.Y. began hearing arguments last week in MPAA's attempt to use DMCA to quash dissemination of DeCSS program that decrypts DVD's Content Scrambling System… Princeton U. scientist Edward Felten "makes an ideal DMCA martyr" because "defense can point to the practical chilling effect of the DMCA on academic free speech," Forrester report said. Felten was part of team that claimed success in SDMI's hacking challenge last fall… USA TODAY, May 7, 2001 From staff and wire reports Princeton has its first female president Thirty-two years after Princeton University first allowed women to study on campus, the Ivy League college has named a senior molecular biology professor to be its first female president. Princeton's Board of Trustees elected Shirley Caldwell Tilghman on Saturday to be the university's 19th president since the school was founded in 1746... The New York Times, May 6, 2001 Princeton Picks Professor As President Shirley M. Tilghman, a molecular biologist who was among the architects of the national effort to map the human genome and an early advocate for women in a field still dominated by men, was named the 19th president of Princeton University today. Dr. Tilghman, a popular Princeton professor and a prominent researcher, has become widely sought-after for national commissions and panels dealing with some of the thorniest ethical dilemmas in science, including embryonic stem-cell research and human cloning... Dr. Tilghman, 54, broke into a smile of relief after the announcement today, she said, "It is time for a woman president," she said. Noting that Princeton, with 6,300 students, started admitting women in 1969, she said "I am just excited to have the incredible privilege to be that person…" The Philadelphia Inquirer, May 6, 2001 Princeton elects genome pioneer as its first female president PRINCETON, N.J. _ Shirley M. Caldwell Tilghman, a member of the Princeton University faculty and an architect of the national effort to map the human genome, was elected Saturday the first female president of the university. Tilghman, who earned her doctorate in biochemistry from Temple University, is the 19th president of the Ivy League institution, which began admitting women 32 years ago. It was founded in 1746. … Tilghman, 54, was elected unanimously by the university board of trustees. She has taught at the university since 1986. "I plan to create a campus that has diverse opportunities for students who will find that Princeton is the right place to really blossom," Tilghman said in historic Nassau Hall after the announcement. The Washington Post, May 6, 2001 Princeton Names Its First Female President Shirley M. Tilghman, a pioneer in the efforts to map the human genome, was chosen yesterday to be Princeton University's first female president. Tilghman, an outspoken feminist and renowned molecular biologist, will succeed Harold T. Shapiro, who will retire next month after 13 years as university president, according to a Princeton news release. "She epitomizes the academic values of our university," said Robert H. Rawson Jr., chairman of the trustees' executive committee. "On top of that, she's enormously approachable." Rawson, who also chaired the search committee, said Tilghman's selection was unanimous… "Gender had nothing to do with the decision we made," Rawson said, nevertheless pleased at the historic nature of Tilghman's selection. "She simply stood out above all comers…" The Associated Press, May 5, 2001 Princeton University hires its first female president Thirty-two years after Princeton University first admitted women students, the Ivy League college has named a senior molecular biology professor as its first female president. Princeton's Board of Trustees on Saturday unanimously elected Shirley M. Caldwell Tilghman as the school's 19th president since it was founded in 1746... The Economist, May 5, 2001 Facing the music THE trouble with stirring up a hornet's nest is that you cannot complain when you get stung. Such a philosophical attitude, though, is beyond much of the music industry this week, as it faces public humiliation over flaws in its plans for the digital "watermarking" of music to prevent illicit copying. ... If digital watermarks can be detected, however--as is necessary for them to work at all--then it seems inevitable that somebody will be able to find a way of removing them. It was to pre-empt and test that inevitability that the SDMI issued its challenge. However, when Edward Felten, a researcher at Princeton University, and his colleagues at Rice University and Xerox's Palo Alto Research Centre, who had risen to the challenge, tried to tell the Fourth International Information-Hiding Workshop in Pittsburgh about their success, they were threatened with legal action by the SDMI. That tactic, which looked to many like an attempt to restrict academic freedom, backfired… The Economist, May 5, 2001 Inflated ideas THE Big Bang which began it all was less, it seems, a clamorous noise than a precise chord. Researchers studying the microwave radiation that permeates space, and is the cooled remains of the gamma rays from the original explosion, have confirmed that it is a series of harmonics. This is music to the ears of cosmologists everywhere, since it bolsters their favourite theory of how the universe came into being: inflation. According to inflation theory the early universe underwent a period of intense expansion for a fraction of a second after its creation, before settling down to its present, rather slower rate of growth. This idea solves several puzzles, the most pertinent being why matter is clumped together, rather than spread uniformly as a thin gas. Since this clumping is the reason that galaxies, stars, planets and--ultimately--people, exist, its origin is of some interest… The theory is not quite safe, even so. MAP, a satellite due to be launched by America's space agency, NASA, at the end of June, will measure the polarisation of the background radiation. That will test a theory put forward just a few weeks ago by Paul Steinhardt of Princeton University. Dr Steinhardt attempts to do away with inflation by proposing that the universe was "dormant" until struck by an offshoot of a hidden parallel universe... New Scientist, May 5, 2001 Snap to it Does the corona's secret lie in the Sun's crackling magnetic fields ? THE mystery of why the corona that surrounds the Sun is millions of degrees hotter than the surface just beneath it may have been solved. Theorists already suspected that the reason may be magnetic field lines snapping and reconnecting. Now an experiment has reproduced this phenomenon in the lab and confirmed that it produces huge amounts of heat. The corona reaches temperatures of millions of kelvin, while the Sun's surface is only 10,000 kelvin. Last year, scientists saw strange magnetic loops on the surface of the Sun, which hinted strongly that magnetism is at work in the corona ("New Scientist", 7 October 2000, p 17)… Now Masaaki Yamada, Scott Hsu and colleagues at Princeton University have cracked the problem. They positioned two flux cores - magnetic field sources - in a plasma of helium ions at a temperature of 40,000 degrees kelvin . The field generated by the flux cores encircles both of them, but when the researchers suddenly decrease the field from the cores, the field lines contract until they eventually snap and reconnect around each core. No one is yet sure where this burst of energy comes from, but Yamada thinks the colliding fields may be setting up turbulent waves in the plasma that cause particles to vibrate extremely fast... The Associated Press State & Local Wire, May 4, 2001 Tribunal issues rationale for upholding Democratic redistricting plan Two days after upholding the Democratic-backed political map for New Jersey, a special tribunal on Friday explained it was acceptable because it showed little evidence of racial discrimination… All 120 seats from the 40 legislative districts are up for election. The filing deadline for candidates was moved to May 10, and the party primaries have been pushed back three weeks to June 26. … The time crunch came about because the 2000 census figures, which must be used to redraw the state's 40 legislative districts, did not become available until March 8. Less than a month later, the state's bipartisan redistricting committee was deadlocked, so New Jersey's chief justice appointed a tiebreaker, Princeton University professor Larry M. Bartels. He testified Tuesday how he encouraged both sides to make improvements to proposed maps and why he decided to support a Democratic plan, which was adopted April 11… The San Francisco Chronicle, May 3, 2001 DIGITAL DECODING; Recent cases show entertainment industry's difficulties in locking out hackers … Technology experts say DeCSS, the subject of a lawsuit that resumed in a New York courtroom this week, and other recent examples of code cracking spotlight how difficult it is to find a digital lock that's hacker-proof… Another instance of code cracking made headlines last week when Princeton University computer scientist Edward Felten decided against publicly revealing details about how he and other researchers thwarted new digital music copyright technologies. The Associated Press State & Local Wire, May 2, 2001 Tribunal upholds N.J. redistricting plan A three-judge federal panel on Wednesday upheld a new political map for New Jersey, setting the stage for a likely showdown before the U.S. Supreme Court. The Democratic-backed redistricting plan had been challenged by the state Republican Party, which charged it violated minority civil rights. Less than a month after getting the census figures, the state's bipartisan redistricting committee was deadlocked, so New Jersey's chief justice appointed a tiebreaker, Princeton University professor Larry M. Bartels. He testified Tuesday how he encouraged both sides to make improvements to proposed maps and why he decided to support a Democratic plan, which was adopted April 11… BBC Monitoring Middle East &emdash; Political, May 2, 2001 French journalist views future of Iran-US relations Text of report on interview with French Journalist Eric Rouleau by unidentified Nowruz correspondent: "The Iranian People's Penchant for Political Participation and Democracy is Extraordinary" by Iranian newspaper Norooz on 15 April From the International Desk - The Iranian people have a penchant for political participation and democracy which is unique. Even the people of France and the United States do not pay so much attention to political participation and democracy with such intensity. Eric Rouleau, editor in chief of Le Monde Diplomatique who is visiting the Islamic Republic of Iran, stated this while speaking to the Nowruz correspondent yesterday(Saturday) 14 April . He said: In the United States only half the population pays any attention to elections. In France as well. 30 to 40 per cent do not participate. However, it is very strange that in Iran, which has a long-standing precedent of an arbitrary despotic regime, the people go to the ballot boxes to cast their votes in a peaceful and amicable manner, thus displaying their belief in democracy and their own decisive role in the administration of their affairs. Rouleau, who is currently teaching as a professor at Princeton University in the United States, mentioned that George Bush's administration is the most conservative rightist government in the past 30 years... BIOWORLD Today, May 2, 2001 FEDS' BIOETHICS GROUP WANTS CHANGES FOR OVERSEAS TRIALS … The National Bioethics Advisory Commission concluded its 18- month study on ethical issues in international research and is calling for a range of changes in the conduct. The non-binding recommendations are part of a report, "Ethical and Policy Issues in International Research: Clinical Trials in Developing Countries," submitted to President Bush April 18… The study was initiated following public suggestions and in view of "the current landscape of international research that reflects the growing importance of clinical trials conducted by pharmaceutical, biotechnology and medical device companies," according to a prepared statement by the commission. "The potential for exploitation is cause for a concerted effort to ensure that protections are in place for all persons participating in international clinical trials," Harold Shapiro, president of Princeton University and chairman of the NBAC, said in a prepared statement… |
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