Princeton in the News
Jul 22 to 28, 1999
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U.S. Newswire
Copyright 1999 U.S. Newswire, Inc.
July 28, 1999HEADLINE: Clinton Names Leary as Member of FTC
DATELINE: WASHINGTON, July 28The President today announced the nomination of Thomas B. Leary as a Member of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC).
Mr. Thomas B. Leary, of Washington, DC, is currently a senior partner at Hogan & Hartson, where he has practiced since 1983 representing clients before the FTC on both antitrust and consumer protection issues.
He is a member of the Bars of New York, Michigan, and the District of Columbia, and is admitted to practice before the United States Supreme Court.
Mr. Leary received his A.B. from Princeton University in 1952 and his J. D., magna cum laude, in 1958 from Harvard Law School.
The Federal Trade Commission is a bipartisan, independent agency responsible for enforcing competition and consumer protection throughout the U.S. economic community. The Commission works closely with the Antitrust Division of the Justice Department.
Business Wire
Copyright 1999 Business Wire, Inc.
July 28, 1999, WednesdayHEADLINE: Research & Development Company, Praelux Incorporated, Receives NJEDA Technology Financing to Help Company Develop New Products
DATELINE: LAWRENCEVILLE, N.J.
Praelux , a research and development company that develops ultra sensitive detection and assay technology for pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies, has received two loans totaling $750,000 through the New Jersey Technology Funding Program of the New Jersey Economic Development Authority (NJEDA). ...
The Praelux president said he is pleased the company is located in New Jersey because it is easy to recruit a well-trained and well-educated work force in the state, noting the proximity of Princeton University and access to the pharmaceutical companies that are the customer base for Praelux. ...
CNN
SHOW: CNN MONEYLINE NEWS HOUR
July 28, 1999HEADLINE: Compaq Reports Quarterly Loss of $184 million, Plans to Cut 8,000 Jobs; Fed Chairman Advises Against Tax Cut
GUESTS: Burton Malkiel, Preston Martin, Ken SeiffBYLINE: Willow Bay, Stuart Varney, Christine Romans, Peter Viles, Bruce Francis, Greg Clarkin, Pierre Thomas, Fred Katayama, Terry Keenan, Susan Lisovicz, Steve Young
VILES (voice-over): In the past week, Instinet, Fidelity, Charles Schwab and DLJ Direct have all placed bets in a fast-moving game of poker: Which electronic commerce network, or ECN, will gain critical mass and help define the stock market of the future? And will the Big Board and the Nasdaq be leaders or followers as stock trading catches up with technology? ...
We're joined now by an expert who thinks the ECN revolution is just a start, the first step toward truly global trading.
VARNEY: He is Burton Malkiel, a finance professor at Princeton University, and the author of the recently reissued business classic, "A Random Walk Down Wall Street."
Professor, welcome to the program. Good to see you with us.
PROF. BURTON MALKIEL, PRINCETON UNIVERSITY: Good to be here. VARNEY: The New York Stock Exchange has a specialist system, and in that system there is a human interface. Humans are right in the middle of a trade. Is that whole system threatened by the development of technology here with these ECNs?
MALKIEL: It already has been threatened, because while you do have individuals still on the floor, more and more of the New York Stock Exchange's business is being done by an electronic system where the order goes directly to the floor and is completed electronically without an individual.
VARNEY: Would you say that the New York Stock Exchange at this point is, frankly, flat out outdated?
MALKIEL: The New York Stock Exchange is outdated in what it did 10 years, 15 years ago, and the New York Stock Exchange is running hard to make sure that it is not going to be outdated in the new millennium. ...
Financial Times (London)
Copyright 1999 The Financial Times Limited
July 28, 1999, WednesdayHEADLINE: On the critical list: Despite efforts at reform, the US health system continues to suffer from some of the highest costs in the world and inadequate provision of medical care, says Deborah McGregor:
Dr Charles Houston, a retired doctor in Burlington, Vermont, recently lost his wife of 58 years to complications arising from pneumonia. He is convinced that his 84-year-old wife died because she did not receive adequate care from one of the health maintenance organisations (HMOs) that now dominate the US healthcare system.
Dr Houston's wife, a retired nurse, was sent home from hospital still weak and unwell. The medical attention she received in the final two weeks of her life was delivered over the phone, says Dr Houston. He describes his wife as "a victim of efforts to reshape medicine by managed care". Under US law, Dr Houston cannot sue his health insurer and there is no independent body to hear his complaint. ...
An already unpopular industry may therefore be about to become even more unpopular. In one study three-quarters of businesses expected health insurance rates to rise by an average of 9 per cent in 1999. There are already signs of employers responding by taking matters into their own hands. In Minnesota, more than 40 companies, employing a total of 140,000 workers, have joined together to form a group called the Buyers Health Care Action Group.
In 1997 the group dispensed with HMOs and bought healthcare direct from associations of general practitioners, specialist doctors and hospitals. As a result, its healthcare costs are less than half the rate of other insurers in Minnesota. The idea - known as direct contracting - has spread to Iowa and South Dakota, and some Californian cities are keen to try it.
Yet even direct contracting involves some limits on care. And for all the disgruntlement, most people accept that some form of management of US healthcare is here to stay. While patients may resent limits on treatment, nobody wants a return to the runaway costs of a decade ago. The only question, says Uwe Reinhardt, a health policy expert at Princeton University, is: "Who will be doing the managing?"
Investor's Business Daily
Copyright 1999 Investor's Business Daily, Inc.
July 28, 1999HEADLINE: Segalas Likes His Stocks Large And Strong
BYLINE: By James Welsh, Investor's DailyAnyone who reads much into the slump that large- cap growth funds fell into during the second quarter should have a word with Spiros Segalas.
''It means nothing,'' the 66-year-old money manager said matter-of-factly.
As manager of the $6.7 billion Harbor Capital Appreciation Fund, the secret to his success rests in a belief that big, sturdy growth stocks will always be consistent market leaders, as long as inflation is under control. ...
Father and son would sit at the kitchen table checking up on the stocks. Because of his father's limited English skills, it became the job of the younger Segalas to read stock tables aloud from the newspaper.
After graduating from Princeton University, Segalas served as a naval officer, then worked briefly in the shipping industry. Eventually, he ended up back in New York City, unhappily working for his father. Segalas
He read investment publications voraciously. And even though he was a nonsmoker, he had put a $1,000 college-graduation present into shares of R.J. Reynolds.
''It went up by 50%, and I thought, 'Hey, this works!' '' Segalas recalls. ...
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
Copyright 1999 St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Inc.
July 28, 1999, WednesdayHEADLINE: HENRY DAN PIPER; RETIRED SIUC ENGLISH PROFESSOR ONCE WORKED ON A-BOMB
Henry Dan Piper, professor emeritus of English and a former dean at Southern Illinois University at Carbondale, died Sunday (July 25, 1999) at his home in Murphysboro, Ill., after a long illness. He was 81.
Professor Piper was dean of Liberal Arts and Sciences at SIU from 1962 to 1967. He also taught English and authored 13 books including "F. Scott Fitzgerald: A Critical Portrait" and "Land between the Rivers: The Southern Illinois Country." He taught English at SIU from 1962 until he retired in 1988.
Professor Piper was born in Haskell, N.J. He graduated with a bachelor's degree in chemistry from Princeton University in 1939. While at Princeton, he wrote Broadway theater reviews for the school newspaper while doing undergraduate research in paint chemistry. ...
University Wire
Copyright 1999 The Dartmouth via U-Wire
July 28, 1999HEADLINE: Former Dartmouth dean of freshmen assumes post at Oberlin College
BYLINE: By John S. Leyba, The Dartmouth
DATELINE: Hanover, N.H.After six years as dean of first year students, Peter Goldsmith has left his post to accept a position as dean of the college at Oberlin College in Oberlin, Ohio.
Goldsmith left Dartmouth last Thursday to take up his new duties as college dean, which encompass student and residential life, dining, counseling, the chaplaincy, the student union and safety and security. Goldsmith has spent the last month moving with his wife and two children, nine and 12, to Oberlin. ...
The Boston Globe
Copyright 1999 Globe Newspaper Company
July 27, 1999, TuesdayHEADLINE: Furor follows Princeton philosopher
BYLINE: By James Bandler, Globe CorrespondentNEW YORK - Peter Singer walks slowly down the supermarket aisle passing boxes of diapers and tidily wrapped packages of meat.
This philosopher and Princeton University professor earns his daily bread contemplating questions of life and death - and some of his answers have caused a furor. Pausing beneath a shelf of Pampers and beside a stack of Tobin's First Prize bacon, he expounds, a bit reluctantly at first, on the differences between newborn babies and pigs.
"I would guess that the pig is more self-aware," Singer said, measuring his words with care, "particularly if the infant has a brain disease and has no capacity to see itself as self-aware."
So which has more of a right to life: the infant or the pig?
"I think you'd have to say," Singer said, "that the pig has the greater claim."
Stark statements such as these have made this lanky Australian one of the most controversial voices in academia. Now anger over his appointment to a prestigious chair in bioethics at Princeton's Center for Human Values is bubbling up into the national political arena.
Steve Forbes, the Republican presidential candidate and a member of the Princeton board of trustees, has urged that Princeton rescind Singer's appointment.
"The Singer appointment," Forbes wrote in May to Princeton president Harold Shapiro, "sends a dangerous and debilitating message that anything goes, that there are no bounds when it comes to questions of life and death." ...
Justin Harmon, a Princeton spokesman, said he could not believe Forbes would demand that the university president rescind a faculty member's appointment to a tenured chair on ideological grounds.
"No one who understands their role as a trustee would ask to rescind the appointment of someone who is academically qualified," Harmon said, adding that what was at stake was nothing less than academic freedom. Princeton, he said, would not buckle to pressure. ...
M2 PRESSWIRE
Copyright 1999 M2 Communications Ltd.
July 27, 1999HEADLINE: THE WHITE HOUSE
The House Republican tax bill - Comments from editorial boards, economists & othersRECENTLY, A LARGE NUMBER OF ECONOMISTS, LEADING EDITORIAL PAGES, AND EVEN REPUBLICAN MEMBERS OF CONGRESS HAVE EXPRESSED SERIOUS CONCERNS ABOUT THE REPUBLICAN TAX CUT BILL.
ECONOMISTS AND OPINION LEADERS
* Alan Blinder, a Princeton University Economist who served as Fed vice chairman from 1994 to 1996 said a tax cut offset by higher interest rates today "would reverse the policy mix that we have followed in the 1990s with such splended effect: low interest rates and high corporate investment."
Chicago Sun-Times
Copyright 1999 Chicago Sun-Times, Inc.
July 26, 1999, MONDAYHEADLINE: Bradley fund-raiser here will be a real team effort
BYLINE: Steve NealHe's got game.
Bill Bradley, who helped lead the New York Knicks to NBA championships in 1970 and 1973, is shooting for another title.
On Tuesday night, Bradley and other legends of the game will be taking center court at the Chicago Historical Society for "Hoopla," a fund-raiser for Bradley's Democratic presidential campaign. During Bradley's 18 years in the U.S. Senate, he seldom talked about his basketball past. But as one of the two major contenders for the 2000 Democratic nomination, Bradley is taking full advantage of his Hall of Fame career.
Los Angeles Lakers coach Phil Jackson, who won six NBA championships in eight years when he coached the Bulls, will be back in town Tuesday night to help his former Knicks teammate.
"The game has changed a lot since we played," Jackson wrote in the foreword to Bradley's recently published book, Values of the Game. "But what Bill brought to the game -- his industry, his leadership, his pure basketball intelligence -- hasn't lost any relevance." ...
Some local hoop legends are pitching in to aid Bradley. Former U.S. Attorney Jim Burns, who set Northwestern University's all-time scoring record in the 1960s and gained All Big Ten and Academic All-American honors before a professional career, is on Bradley's host committee. Nick Kladis, a prep star at Tilden Tech who went on to a Hall of Fame career at Loyola University, is DeBusschere's longtime pal and was among Bradley's first Chicago supporters. DePaul University's legendary men's coach Ray Meyer and his former player Doug Bruno, who coaches the Lady Blue Demons, are also on Bradley's committee. Businessman John Rogers, a former captain of the Princeton University basketball team, is a longtime Bradley ally.
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Copyright 1999 The Cincinnati Enquirer
July 26, 1999, MondayHEADLINE: Obituaries
William Boswell was president of family-owned oil companyHe served in Army during WWII
BYLINE: ERIN GIBSON
SOURCE: The Cincinnati EnquirerWilliam P. Boswell, a lifelong Cincinnati resident known as the city's " greatest gentleman" for his grace, sincerity and kindness, died Thursday at his home near Redbud Hollow. He was 79.
Mr. Boswell was born to Paul Wilson and Irene Picton Boswell Feb. 16, 1920. He attended Cincinnati Country Day School and the Hill School, and graduated from Princeton University in 1942. ...
THE ELECTRICITY DAILY
Copyright 1999 Elsevier Science
July 26, 1999, MondayHEADLINE: Fred Singer Takes Up Mahlman's Climate Bet
By 2009, S. Fred Singer hopes to be $1,000 better off.
Singer, director of the Science and Environmental Policy Project in Fairfax, Va., and a notorious skeptic about global climate change, has gleefully seized upon a remark in the August issue of Popular Science magazine in which Jerry Mahlman, director of the NOAA/Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Lab at Princeton University wrote, "I'll take ten to one odds against anyone who says this [global warming] is bogus.
And I'll take all the money they care to offer."
Singer has written to stake $100 to Mahlman's $1,000. As Singer understands Mahlman's article, the latter believes that global warming is well underway and that industrial output of carbon dioxide is responsible.
Like any prudent gambler, Singer suggests that he and Mahlman define the terms of the bet. Chiefly, these would involve: the index of climate change (say global average temperature, but at what altitude?); the time period of measurement; corrections from natural phenomena, such as volcanic eruptions or solar variations; various other determinates; and, most importantly, "who should be on the judging panel and arbitrate?"
Mahlman, as far as is known, has not yet decided whether to put his money where his mouth is. And Singer forgot to suggest that the bet should be linked to an inflation index.
National Review
Copyright 1999 National Review Inc.
July 26, 1999HEADLINE: Letters.
Going On the Record On Singer
I write to address an entry in "The Week" (July 12) concerning Princeton University's appointment of Peter Singer to a professorship. It quotes a letter Steve Forbes sent to Princeton spelling out his opposition to Mr. Singer's views. The entry disparages me, as a member of Princeton's board of trustees, for allegedly not taking "the bold step of publicly condemning postpartum baby- killing."
As one schooled in the Hippocratic oath, and as a leader in the fight against partial-birth abortion in the Senate, I would not think it necessary for me to condemn infanticide to prove my commitment to the preservation of life. Although your unfounded rhetorical challenge on "postpartum baby-killing" did not ask that I make my position on Mr. Singer publicly known, let me quote from a letter I have sent to a number of my Tennessee constituents who have inquired about it:
As you know, Mr. Singer's appointment has created a great amount of controversy. Like you, I am greatly disturbed by many of Mr. Singer's ideas, especially as they relate to the value and treatment of human life. As a physician, I have always fought to preserve life. I have also been a strong advocate for the rights of individuals with disabilities. I fundamentally disagree with Mr. Singer's positions and beliefs, and have strongly expressed my views on this matter with the administration of Princeton University.
I hope this clarifies my position on Mr. Singer and reiterates what should be an obvious position on "postpartum baby-killing."
Bill Frist, M.D.
United States Senator |
Washington, D.C.For the record, Sen. Frist's office had many opportunities to respond to our inquiries regarding his position on Peter Singer's appointment at Princeton. While we're delighted he's opposed to infanticide, we continue to encourage him to challenge Princeton publicly on the matter.
U.S. News & World Report
Copyright 1999 U.S. News & World Report
July 26, 1999HEADLINE: Lots of lifts are for dumbbells
BYLINE: By James M. Pethokoukis
HIGHLIGHT: You can pump iron all day to get big muscles. Or try 30 minutes insteadTo build muscles, you've got to live at the gym, right? That's often the weight-training message from fitness books and magazines. ...
Go for less. In a 1998 review of studies examining one-set vs. multiple-set workouts, Ralph Carpinelli and Robert Otto from Adelphi University's human performance lab found "no significant difference" in increasing strength or muscle size for both men and women. "By employing a single-set protocol, individuals can achieve similar results in less time and with less work and a decreased potential for injury," they conclude. "If someone tells me they had a two-hour workout, I know it wasn't intense enough," agrees Matt Brzycki, coordinator of health, strength, and conditioning at Princeton University and author of A Practical Approach to Strength Training. ...
Knoxville News-Sentinel (Knoxville, TN)
Copyright 1999 Knoxville News-Sentinel Co.
July 25, 1999, SundayHEADLINE: Winning Edge provides juniors last shot
BYLINE: By Jimmy HyamsThe annual Dale's Winning Edge Tennis Tournament, set for Aug. 9-22, also could be called the last-chance tournament.
It's the last junior tournament of the year before school starts. ...
Kareem Abu-Zied won the 18 singles. He has family in Knoxville and spends part of the summer here. He has practiced at the Smoky Mountain Tennis Academy for three years. He is on academic scholarship at Princeton and will play tennis at the Ivy League school.
The New York Times
Copyright 1999 The New York Times Company
July 25, 1999, SundayHEADLINE: The Art of Making Juggling Visual Music
BYLINE: By JAMIE MONAGANSITTING barefoot on his front porch, sipping iced tea within earshot of lowing cows along his infrequently traveled Cornwall road, Michael Moschen seems at first a picture of laid-back country contentment.
But in this town of pristine white clapboard homes, Mr. Moschen's Cape-style residence sports surprising shades of lavender, teal, purple and pink. A nearby maple tree is festooned with a cascade of welded metal barrel hoops, a cement orb about the size of a dinosaur egg lies in the grass, and a clutch of pastel wooden and wire sculptures undulate on a table on the front lawn. Adjacent sits an enormous studio that often resounds with bouncing balls.
For Mr. Moschen (pronounced, appropriately, "motion") is a juggler whose breath-taking coordination and virtuosic ability to imbue objects with a balletic, almost anthropomorphic quality has earned him a world-wide reputation as a "creator of visual music," "dancer-physicist" and "kinetic sculptor," to quote a few critics' attempts to describe his act.
The seeming effortlessness of Mr. Moschen's juggling reflects 30 years of experimentation, research and hours of daily practice. ...
Justin Werfel, a past president of the Princeton University Juggling Club, said Mr. Moschen is "the greatest modern innovator in the field."
"The thing that distinguishes his work is that he looks for the basic integrity in the object he manipulates," Mr. Werfel said. "He sees how the object wants to move, and allows it to guide him toward the movement. His approach is highly intellectual, which is very unusual for a juggler, to say the least." ...
The New York Times
Copyright 1999 The New York Times Company
July 25, 1999, SundayHEADLINE: Paid Notice: Deaths
WILLIAMS, FREDERICK W., DR.WILLIAMS-Frederick W., Dr. Died Wednesday in Trenton, N.J. Dr. Williams was a graduate of Princeton University and New York University. He worked in the U.S. Intelligence community and consulted for government and business. He published in the field of Psychology, Sociology and Art History. He is predeceased by his wife Ilse Zeisel-Williams, beloved uncle of three nieces and one nephew. Contributions may be made to Princeton University or the American Cancer Society. Farewell, Gentle Scholar.
The Palm Beach Post
Copyright 1999 Palm Beach Newspaper, Inc.
July 25, 1999, SundayHEADLINE: ELEMENTARY FORCE
BYLINE: Liz Stevens, Fort Worth Star-TelegramWendy Kopp allows the standing ovation to fill the auditorium for 10 seconds before she cuts in with a modest ''Hello.'' The applause continues, and she leans toward the microphone again: ''Hello.'' Not ''Thanks very much.'' Not ''Wow, this is great.'' Her gratitude shows itself in a restrained smile.
Kopp isn't here to bask in the adoration of the crowd. She hasn't come to Houston to toot her horn or gush about what an amazing 10 years it has been for Teach for America, the ''Peace Corps for teachers'' she created when she was fresh out of Princeton University. She's ready to get down to business.
Her speech lasts 14 minutes. No jokes. No cute remarks. The audience of 790 recent college graduates, which moments before was whooping and laughing at the other presentations during this opening ceremony, is entranced by Kopp's practiced oratory. She may lack the magnetism of some natural-born motivators, but what she's saying has them thoroughly mesmerized.
''You are not joining Teach for America to become part of a system where low achievement rates are viewed as unavoidable,'' Kopp stresses from behind the lectern. ''You are joining Teach for America to be part of an effort to reach the day when all children in this nation truly have the opportunity to attain an excellent education. ...
Kopp oils the TFA machinery from a semi-enclosed office with little more than a desk and a laptop computer. She keeps few mementos on her shelves: the framed Woodrow Wilson Award from Princeton, bestowed upon an outstanding undergraduate alumnus (Kopp was the youngest person and the first woman ever to receive it); and the group-shot photograph with Bill Clinton, taken during a recent dinner at the White House. ...
The Associated Press
State & Local Wire
July 24, 1999, SaturdayHEADLINE: Carnegie Mellon University raises tuition 11.3 percent
DATELINE: PITTSBURGHFreshmen seeking a higher education at Pittsburgh's Carnegie Mellon University in 2000 will also have higher bills.
The school has announced a tuition increase of 11.3 percent, its largest in 14 years. ...
"This one-time increase will place our tuition at the average of the nation's leading private research universities," said University President Jared L. Cohon.
Carnegie Mellon's tuition is at the bottom of a list of peers including Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Princeton University and Cornell University. ...
The Commercial Appeal (Memphis, TN)
Copyright 1999 The Commercial Appeal
July 24, 1999, SATURDAYHEADLINE: HAPPINESS MAY BE LINKED TO 'SPARKS' IN AREA OF THE BRAIN, RESEARCHERS SAY
BYLINE: Pam Belluck The New York Times News ServiceThe secret to happiness might not be wealth or love, it might be your forehead - the left prefrontal cortex of your brain, to be exact.
The more the sparks fly from this sliver of gray matter, the more electrical impulses it generates, the happier you are.
That is the conclusion of Richard Davidson, a professor of psychology and psychiatry at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, and others who have examined adults, children, infants, even Rhesus monkeys. Over the last several years, they have tested perky, enthusiastic people and pessimistic, morose ones. The results are always the same. People blessed with effervescent left prefrontal cortices are much more likely to be smiling.
Davidson is part of a small band of pioneers who have set out to discover what many philosophers but few scientific researchers have bothered to ask: What is it that makes us happy? ...
"Look in a psychology textbook," said Daniel Kahneman, a professor of psychology and public affairs at Princeton University. "There are a lot of pages devoted to anxiety and depression. Happiness might not even be there." ...
NOTE: This story first appeared in The New York Times.
The Chronicle of Higher Education
Copyright 1999 The Chronicle of Higher Education
July 23, 1999HEADLINE: On Andean Peaks, Astronomers Find Vantage Points of the First Magnitude
BYLINE: KIM A. McDONALDChile may be known the world over for its wines, fruit, and salmon. But to astronomers, who regard this coastal nation as the best vantage point in the Southern Hemisphere, its most valuable commodity is its exceptionally dark and clear night sky.
Astronomical observatories operated by the United States and a number of European nations have taken advantage of the Chilean view, occupying some of the most prized peaks in the northern Andes since the 1960s. Now, with the completion of an entirely new generation of state-of-the-art telescopes, the astronomical potential of Chile is about to be revealed as never before. ...
The lure of Chilean telescope time also drew Princeton University into a collaborative postdoctoral program with Santiago's Catholic University this year. "The university came knocking on our door," recalls Michael A. Strauss, an associate professor of astrophysics at Princeton. "We talked about it for two seconds and said Yes." ...
Dayton Daily News
Copyright 1999 Dayton Newspapers, Inc.
July 23, 1999, FridayHEADLINE: SPORTS DIGEST
* Leafs sign grandson of Hall of Famer Apps:
The Toronto Maple Leafs signed free agent center Syl Apps, whose father and grandfather both played in the NHL, to a four-year contract. Apps, 23, spent the past four years at Princeton University where he served as a team captain this past season. Over 122 games with the Tigers, Apps had 30 goals, 40 assists and 180 penalty minutes. Apps's grandfather, Syl Apps Sr., played 10 seasons with Toronto between 1936 and 1948, winning three Stanley Cup titles with the team.
The Independent (London)
Copyright 1999 Newspaper Publishing PLC
July 23, 1999, FridayHEADLINE: SCIENCE: IF YOU REALLY WANT TO KNOW, LOOK IN THE MIRROR;
COSMOLOGISTS BELIEVE THEY MAY HAVE FOUND A TRUE REFLECTION OF THE WAY THE UNIVERSE REALLY WORKS.
BYLINE: John Gribbin
Have you ever stood in a lift with mirrored walls, and looked at the images of yourself reflecting away to infinity on all sides? Some cosmologists say this may be a good representation of what the Universe is really like - a relatively small box (like the lift cage) that is copied hundreds of times to make up what we see as the visible Universe. When we look back (using microwave detectors on satellites) to the background radiation that is interpreted as the remains of the Big Bang itself, we think we are looking across some 15 billion light years of space. But if the Universe is multiply connected, as the buzz-phrase goes, we may be seeing light that has indeed spent 15 billion years on its journey, but has been bouncing around from one copy of the Universe to another for all that time, like light bouncing around between the mirrors in the lift. ...
But where's the evidence? Look for images of the same galaxy in different parts of the sky - like looking for different views of your own face. The snag is that, as the light arrives by different routes, it takes longer (maybe billions of years) to travel some routes than others. And since galaxies, like faces, change as they age, we can't be sure whether a young galaxy in one part of the sky really is the same as an old one in another part. But Princeton University researchers say that we may be able to see the effects at work in two years, when the next generation of microwave satellites launch.
Neil Cornish and David Spergel have calculated how the Universe's topological structure could affect the way we see the microwave background radiation itself - famously mapped by the Cobe satellite. As light (or radio) waves travel repeatedly through the same box of space as time passes, they're in effect travelling through the Universe at different stages of its own evolution. How the light is deflected on curving paths produces an effect rather like that of the gravitational lens, when light from a very distant object (eg a quasar) travels by different routes around a galaxy lying between us and the quasar, and makes several images in our telescopes. .. .
This has been known for a couple of years, but the surprising thing about Cornish and Spergel's work - recently posted on the Internet - is that a statistical analysis of the pattern of this radiation as observed by Cobe really does match the predictions for a Universe with the simplest possible multiply connected topology better than it does the conventional model of an infinitely big Universe. ...
The Moscow Times
Copyright 1999 Independent Press
July 23, 1999HEADLINE: The System Is the Same
BYLINE: By Cynthia HooperMembers of an investigative panel decry the ability of go-between "businessmen" to funnel off a stunning percentage of the nation's industrial output for private sale. They complain that such people deliver truckloads of caviar, champagne and other scarce luxury items to local political leaders, allowing bureaucrats to live far above their official salaries. In return, these "traders" are given protection. "Occasionally, a state prosecutor will file a case," they cavil, "but it always will, unaccountably, lie for month after month untouched."
And the subject of such conversations? Potential Duma candidate Boris Berezovsky, accused of channeling more than half a billion dollars from companies like LogoVAZ and Aeroflot through a complicated system of overseas holding companies overseas? Or Sibneft head Roman Abramovich, charged with diverting a large shipment of diesel oil to Lithuania in a 1993 case that has lain unprocessed for the last six years? Actually, the above tales come from a high-level Communist Party Control Commission, discussing problems in Soviet state practices in 1934, just before the greatest purges of the Stalin era.
Frank discussion of government corruption during the early 1930s provides an illuminating comparison to Russia's situation today. Whether during an era of mass arrests and executions or of fast cars and foreign travel, the exploits of the country's power elite have a troubling consistency. Labels have changed, as have profit-making possibilities, but the political system remains much the same. ...
Cynthia Hooper, a Ph.D. student at Princeton University, is in Moscow on an International Research and Exchange Fellowship. She contributed this comment to The Moscow Times.
The Ottawa Citizen
Copyright 1999 Southam Inc.
July 23, 1999, FINALHEADLINE: Sidelines
Leafs Sign Famed Name PlayerForward Syl Apps, 23, whose grandfather captained three championship Toronto Maple Leafs teams in the 1940s, has signed with the NHL team. Apps, who played at Princeton University the past four years, is the third generation of the family to carry the Apps name to the NHL. His father, Syl Apps Jr., played in the 1970s for the New York Rangers, Pittsburgh Penguins, and Los Angeles Kings.
The Toronto Sun
Copyright 1999 Sun Media Corporation
July 23, 1999, FridayHEADLINE: LEAFS GIVE SYL WINDOW OF OPPORTUNITY
BYLINE: TIM WHARNSBY, TORONTO SUNOnly time will tell whether Syl Apps III becomes a third generation NHLer.
But already the 22-year-old Apps, the latest signing by the Maple Leafs, has a solid reputation.
Last Dec. 22, the Princeton University centre returned home to Unionville for a brief Christmas break. The following day he travelled to Kingston to visit his legendary grandfather Syl Apps, only to see the former Leafs captain die that evening.
Apps III was close to the man who led the Leafs to three Stanley Cups during the 1940s, was a five-time all star, won the Calder and Lady Byng trophies and eventually was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame.
Apps III was distraught about his grandfather's passing. But three days later, he decided to join his Princeton teammates in Minnesota for a holiday tournament. The 6-foot, 195-pounder scored the game-winner in the semi-final and the winner in the final to earn tournament MVP honours. ...
The Washington Times
Copyright 1999 News World Communications, Inc.
July 23, 1999, FridayHEADLINE: Forbes doesn't sway Princeton on radical Singer
BYLINE: Andrea Billups; THE WASHINGTON TIMESPresidential candidate Steve Forbes says Princeton University President Harold T. Shapiro did not respond to a letter he wrote in May asking the university to rescind the appointment of bioethicist Peter Singer.
Mr. Singer, known as "Professor Death" for his radical views advocating the killing of physically handicapped infants, has taken up residence at Princeton, where he will begin teaching this fall.
His appointment to an endowed chair in human values drew angry protests from disabled persons, right-to-life advocates and religious groups, who like Mr. Forbes, called on the Ivy League school to withdraw its job offer to the Australian-born philosopher who advocates killing certain disabled infants. ...
Asahi News Service
Copyright 1999 Asahi News Service
JULY 22, 1999, ThursdayHEADLINE: CRITIC ETO COMMITS SUICIDE
DATELINE: TOKYOJun Eto, a top literary critic, was found dead in the evening of July 21 in his home in Kamakura, apparently after committing suicide, police officials said. He was 66.
Officers from Kamakura's emergency headquarters arrived at the home after a call from Eto's maid. Eto was found lying unconscious with cuts in his wrists in a bathtub filled with hot water, the police said.
Eto was said to have been suffering from failing health and depression following the death of his wife, Keiko, from cancer last November. ...
Eto was born in 1932 in Tokyo and majored in English literature at Keio University. He then studied at Princeton University before becoming a professor of literature at Tokyo Institute of Technology and Keio University. From 1997, he was a professor of literature at Taisho University.
The Guardian (London)
Copyright 1999 Guardian Newspapers Limited
July 22, 1999HEADLINE: Beyond Fermat's last theorem;
Keith Devlin on the 21st century uses of a 17th century puzzleBYLINE: Keith Devlin
When British mathematician Andrew Wiles proved Fermat's last theorem in 1994, he ended a saga that had begun in the middle of the 17th century. But like a good storyteller, he left unanswered a tantalising question. Now, five years later, four mathematicians have managed to answer that question.
Brian Conrad and Richard Taylor of Harvard University, Christophe Breuil of the Universite de Paris-Sud, and Fred Diamond of Rutgers University announced recently that they had finally managed to build on Wiles's work to prove the Shimura-Taniyama conjecture. To understand what this means, it's best to start at the beginning of the Fermat story. ...
The Shimura-Taniyama conjecture concerned geometric objects about which a great deal was known. Indeed, by then there was good reason to believe the conjecture. There were also some obvious - but daunting - ways to set about finding a proof. At last, mathematicians had a powerful framework with which to approach the last theorem.
Among those who took up the challenge was Andrew Wiles, who by then was a professor of mathematics at Princeton University in New Jersey. Wiles had been fascinated with Fermat's last theorem since childhood, when he had attempted to solve the problem using high school mathematics. For the next seven years, Wiles concentrated his efforts on finding a way to prove the Shimura-Taniyama conjecture. By 1991, he felt sure he could prove not the entire conjecture, which applies to all elliptic curves, but a special case of the conjecture that applies to elliptic curves of a particular kind. In 1993, after a further two years effort, he eventually succeeded in doing just that. ...
The Herald (Glasgow)
Copyright 1999 Scottish Media Newspapers Limited
July 22, 1999HEADLINE: The company he keeps
BYLINE: Hugh Macdonald Publication Of A Hemingway Manuscript Has Angered The Author's Granddaughter, Lorian Hemingway
A controversial figure while alive, Papa is still causing ructions even though he's long-dead. Hugh MacDonald watches as Hemingway, the literary figure become Hemingway the marketable commodity
First there is the story. Then there is the book. And then, most intriguingly, is the story behind the book.
Throw in the odd Hemingway (or three) and there is more than enough to concoct a delicious, simmering brew which exudes the heady aroma of commercialism, morals and accusations of literary betrayal. As ever with Hemingway, there is also the whiff of buckshot and the presence of shotguns, plenty of them and available at an outlet near you.
But first the story. In 1954 Ernest Hemingway returned home to Cuba with his fourth wife, Mary Welsh, and began work on an autobiographical novel which would centre on an African safari undertaken a year earlier.
Understandably distracted by Cuban revolutions and dogged by poor health, he eventually put the unfinished 200,000-word manuscript in a drawer.
He finally abandoned the book and life in July 1961, just short of his 62nd birthday, when he took a shotgun and blew off the top of his head with both barrels.
The story he left behind was poignant, uncharacteristically funny, and fittingly haunting. It was retrieved from Cuba by his widow and deposited in the John F Kennedy Library in Boston. Another copy was placed in Princeton University. There, it was read by a chosen few and its fate seemed to be sealed in the very vaults that held it.
However, the writer's middle son, Patrick, exhumed the manuscript and edited the 800 pages into a novel, True at First Sight, in which Hemingway suggests he took an African mistress, unwittingly reveals his problem with alcohol, and lays bare a dark night of the soul which no frenetic stalking of lions could lighten. He writes of despair: "I have seen it close enough to touch it but I have always turned it down." ...
Investor's Business Daily
Copyright 1999 Investor's Business Daily, Inc.
July 22, 1999HEADLINE: Playwright Eugene O'Neill:
BYLINE: By Anna Bray Duff, Investor's DailyFew would've expected the young Eugene O'Neill to amount to much. By age 24, O'Neill had already lived a life of drunken excess that had him headed for failure. He'd tried to kill himself once, and he suffered from tuberculosis.
While trying to recover from tuberculosis in 1912, though, O'Neill realized that he needed to do something constructive with his life. He'd already seen so much - what if he could turn some of those experiences into plays that would educate and entertain readers and audiences? Inspired, he started writing. ...
O'Neill's success is striking in contrast with his early years. As a freshman, he was thrown out of Princeton University for cutting classes. He married young but soon left his pregnant wife for a mining expedition in Honduras. ...
Journal of Commerce
Copyright 1999 Journal of Commerce, Inc.
July 22, 1999, ThursdayHEADLINE: Spies and all, energy agency lumbers on
BYLINE: BY DANIEL S. GREENBERG"Dysfunctional'' seems to be the descriptive word of choice among the many diagnosticians who have been looking into the U.S. Department of Energy.
The "d'' word regarding the department is much uttered these days, as Congress muddles on about what to do with the $18 billion-a-year behemoth that has contaminated vast acreages with nuclear offal, left its doors unlocked to spies and outdone Kafka in developing a bureaucratic maze.
Unfortunately, the Energy Department mess is so big, and the agency's dug- in beneficiaries are so many, that the status quo holds the advantage. ...
William Happer, a former Energy research chief, now at Princeton University, employed fresher terms, describing the department as a "bureaucratic morass, with many paper-pushing regulatory offices'' bound by a penchant ""to avoid responsibility for anything that may go wrong.'' ...
M2 PRESSWIRE
Copyright 1999 M2 Communications Ltd.
July 22, 1999HEADLINE: UNIVERSITY OF ROCHESTER
Name change for department oveseeing recreation, sports
The University of Rochester's sports department has been renamed the Department of Athletics and Recreation effective July 1.
The name change took effect with the appointment of George Vander Zwaag as director.
Vander Zwaag was a longtime athletic administrator at Princeton University before coming to the University. He assumed responsibilities July 1. ...
The New York Times
Copyright 1999 The New York Times Company
July 22, 1999, ThursdayHEADLINE: Economic Scene: Cream in Labor Market'sChurn;
Why Job Losses Are Rising Amid Job Hunters' NirvanaBYLINE: By MICHAEL M. WEINSTEIN
At a time when joblessness has fallen to just 4.3 percent of the work force and employers are loudly complaining about labor shortages, companies are also announcing record numbers of layoffs. It doesn't seem to make sense, does it?
Yesterday, for example, Eastman Kodak disclosed plans to cut up to 2,500 more jobs on top of the 17,700 it had already planned to eliminate by the end of the year. Not long ago, Procter & Gamble announced a mass layoff of about 15,000, with 2,400 in North America, as it reorganizes its worldwide operations. ...
But economists and labor market analysts, including those at Challenger itself, say it is not contradictory at all. ...
Prof. Henry Farber, an economist at Princeton University, calculates that about 13 percent of the work force was displaced from jobs between 1991 and 1993. That compares with 15 percent between 1993 and 1995 and 12 percent between 1995 and 1997. His estimates are far higher than the Government's in part because he does not limit his sample to workers who have been working at least three years for their current employers.
Professor Farber says his data suggest that "somewhat more jobs were lost in the recent expansion than at similar points in the expansion of the late 1980's."
"The reasons are unclear," he added in a recent interview. "But the evidence is that workers are now coping better, and a higher fraction can find jobs. Also, the average wage loss by displaced workers is smaller than it used to be." ...
The Ottawa Citizen
Copyright 1999 Southam Inc.
July 22, 1999HEADLINE: New treatment wipes out tumours: Ottawa biotech firm holds licence to 'revolutionary' tool to battle breast, ovarian cancer
BYLINE: Pauline Tam
DATELINE: MONTREALMONTREAL -- A new molecule that targets the abnormal blood vessels feeding tumours is being hailed as a revolutionary way to fight breaast and ovarian cancer.
An international research group, led by McGill University and the Ottawa-based biotech company, Adherex Technologies Inc., has reported dramatic results following preliminary tests on lab mice injected with cancerous human ovarian and breast tumours. Researchers believe the technique could also be used to destroy other types of cancer cells.
The results, announced yesterday, show that the molecule, called Exherin, can dissolve the molecular glue binding together the cells of blood vessels inside cancer tumours. When Exherin is injected into mice, it attacks tumour blood cells almost instantly, causing the lining of the blood vessels inside the tumour to rupture within 24 hours.
''We're on the cusp of a new era in cancer treatment,'' said Orest Blaschuk, chief scientist at Adherex and the McGill biologist leading the study. ...
Mr. Blaschuk and his team have found the molecular glue holding tumour cells together is weaker than that keeping healthy cells together. That means a small molecule like Exherin can separate the glue binding tumour cells while keeping the glue on normal cells intact. ...
Scientists familiar with Mr. Blaschuk's work say they are cautiously optimistic. ''They are striking results but they're still at an early stage of research,'' says Malcolm Steinberg, professor of molecular biology at Princeton University, who is considered a leading expert in cell adhesion. ...
Sacramento Bee
Copyright 1999 McClatchy Newspapers, Inc.
July 22, 1999EDITORIAL
HEADLINE: FUTURE TEACHERS(Cheers) The latest installment in an ongoing UCLA study of the attitudes of college freshmen nationwide bears good tidings for American schools: A growing number of college students, including those from elite institutions, say they want to be teachers. More than 10 percent of 300,000 freshmen surveyed in 1998 at 600 colleges and universities said they wanted to teach in elementary or secondary schools.
That's the highest percentage since the early 1970s and nearly twice the percentage found in 1982, when the profession's prestige and attractiveness were apparently at low ebb. Of course, plenty of freshmen change their minds about career choices as they progress toward a degree. But other indicators are also strong: Applications to many of the nation's top graduate schools of education are up. Teach for America, an organization that recruits college graduates for low-income districts, reports a significant rise in interest, with many candidates from prestigious schools such as Spelman College, the University of Michigan and Cornell, Stanford and Princeton universities. In California, where the need for smart, energetic teaching candidates has never been higher, that kind of news could hardly be more welcome.
The Seattle Times
Copyright 1999 The Seattle Times Company
July 22, 1999, ThursdayHEADLINE: ROTC CADETS GET BATTLE-READY -- COLLEGE STUDENTS' FT. LEWIS DRILLS STRESS LEADERSHIP
BYLINE: ELI SANDERS; SEATTLE TIMES STAFF REPORTERDATELINE: FORT LEWIS
FORT LEWIS - A red light blinks on: one minute until the ground assault begins.
In the belly of a Chinook helicopter, about 30 jittery college students from the Army's ROTC program await their final exam - a simulated attack on a bunker.
Booted feet shuffle. Hands clutching automatic rifles twitch involuntarily. Shouts meant to call up courage compete with the deafening whir of the chopper's rotor blades.
This is what's called "advanced camp," a five-week training program for ROTC cadets held at Fort Lewis, the nation's primary training ground for male and female college students from around the country who have agreed to spend up to eight years serving in the Army.
In exchange for their service, they get up to $16,000 a year in college tuition. ...
"The training they receive is as close to combat as we can make it," said Matthew McCarville, who heads the ROTC program at Princeton University. ...
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