Princeton in the News
September 30 to October 6, 1999
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The Associated Press
October 6, 1999, Wednesday
HEADLINE: WASHINGTON TODAY: Clinton on verge of losing treaty
fight
BYLINE: By TOM RAUM, Associated Press Writer
DATELINE: WASHINGTON
History shows that presidents often expend huge amounts of energy on winning Senate ratification of treaties, and can sometimes pull off unexpected victories. This appears not to be one of those times.
Even strong advocates of the international ban on nuclear testing now before the Senate concede they are seriously short of Republican support in advance of next week's planned vote.
For now, President Clinton is vowing to fight on. But other Democrats are suggesting it's only a matter of time until a face-saving way can be found to back away from the brink.
U.S. rejection of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, which 154 nations have signed, would be a humiliating defeat for the Clinton administration. …
Why did Clinton have so much trouble marshaling support this time for a treaty that's been before the Senate for two years?
"In this case, the numbers weren't there," said Fred Greenstein, a political scientist at Princeton University. "It does seem to me he's never been very good at establishing priorities, narrowing damage and staying on top of issues over a sustained period of time."
HEADLINE: George W. has a good name, Unfortunately, Bush isn't
as qualified as his famous father
BYLINE: RICHARD SHENKMAN
GEORGE W. Bush is the Eliza Doolittle of American politics. He isn't ready to be president, but with the coaching of a couple of dozen would-be Professor Higginses, he probably can learn to talk like one.
You have to admire the man's chutzpah.
It takes chutzpah to put yourself forward as a candidate for the presidency after serving just a single term as governor of a state in which the lieutenant governor is the real power. (The lieutenant governor in Texas runs the legislature.)
Ah, but this governor has a famous last name. That is said to make up for the thinness of his resume. …
But what of other presidents relatively new to politics? There have been half a dozen.
Woodrow Wilson and Dwight Eisenhower are regarded by historians as successes, although perhaps neither should be considered political tyros. Wilson had served briefly as governor of New Jersey and ran Princeton University for nearly a decade. Before that, he had taught politics, becoming one of the first Americans to earn a doctorate in political science. …
HEADLINE: UNIVERSITY OF ROCHESTER
Joanna Scott receives Lannan Foundation Literary Award
Joanna Scott, novelist and Roswell Smith Burrows Professor of English at the University of Rochester, has been named a recipient of a 1999 Lannan Literary Award, presented by the Lannan Foundation of New Mexico for work of exceptional quality in poetry, fiction, or nonfiction.
Each of the 10 winners is given an award of $75,000.
Recipients are selected by the foundation's literary committee from recommendations made by writers, literary, scholars, publishers, and editors across the country.
Scott is the broadly acclaimed author of four novels: The Manikin, which was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in 1997; Arrogance, which received the Richard and Hinda Rosenthal Foundation Award, the Lillian Fairchild Award, and a nomination for the PEN/Faulkner Award; The Closest Possible Union, and Fading, My Parmacheene Belle. …
The recipient of prestigious MacArthur Foundation and Guggenheim Foundation Fellowships, Scott has been a full-time member of the University's faculty since 1988, teaching courses in creative writing, contemporary literature, and Charles Dickens. She has also taught at the University of Maryland, Princeton University, and Brown University. …
HEADLINE: 32 Nobel Laureates in Physics Back Atomic Test
Ban
BYLINE: By WILLIAM J. BROAD
A group of 32 Nobel laureates in physics urged the Senate yesterday to approve the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, calling it "central to future efforts to halt the spread of nuclear weapons."
United States approval is imperative, the scientists said, and would mark "an important advance in uniting the world in an effort to contain and reduce the dangers of nuclear arms."
The plea was conveyed by the American Physical Society, the world's leading group of physicists, which sent letters yesterday to every senator. Representatives of the group said they knew of no instance in which so many prominent American physicists had shown such unity. …
In addition to Dr. Kendall and Dr. Friedman, the group's president, the signers are Philip W. Anderson, Princeton University; Hans A. Bethe, Cornell University; Nicolaas Bloembergen, Harvard University; Owen Chamberlain, University of California; Steven Chu, Stanford University; Leon N. Cooper, Brown University; Hans Dehmelt, University of Washington; Val L. Fitch, Princeton University; Donald A. Glaser, University of California; Sheldon Glashow, Harvard University; Leon M. Lederman, Illinois Institute of Technology; David M. Lee, Cornell University; T. D. Lee, Columbia University; Douglas D. Osheroff, Stanford University; Arno Penzias, Bell Labs; Martin L. Perl, Stanford University; William Phillips, National Institute of Standards and Technology; Norman F. Ramsey, Harvard University; Robert C. Richardson, Cornell University; Burton Richter, Stanford University; Arthur I. Schawlow, Stanford University; J. Robert Schrieffer, Florida State University; Mel Schwartz, Columbia University; Clifford G. Shull, Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Joseph H. Taylor Jr., Princeton University; Daniel C. Tsui, Princeton University; Charles Townes, University of California; Steven Weinberg, University of Texas; Robert W. Wilson, Harvard University, and Kenneth G. Wilson, Ohio State University.
HEADLINE: Killing disabled infants anything but 'practical'
BY:Kathleen Parker
It's hard to imagine being puzzled about whether killing babies is right or wrong. Yet here we are at the end of the 20th century debating whether infants with disabilities deserve life.
Should parents be allowed to kill their badly formed children within 30 days of birth? Such is the question posed recently by Princeton professor Peter Singer, who, strangely, is charged with guiding a new generation through the moral intricacies of bioethics.
Singer is above all a practical man, as suggested by the title of his 1979 book, "Practical Ethics." In his view, infants under 1 month of age have no human consciousness; therefore, parents should be able to kill a severely disabled child.
Killing a defective infant is not morally equivalent to killing a person, Singer has said.
Protesters, many of them disabled, demonstrated their contempt for Singer's position by barricading Princeton University entrances last week. Even presidential candidate Steve Forbes, a member of Princeton's Board of Trustees, says he'll no longer donate to the school as long as Singer is on-board. Singer, meanwhile, has hunkered down in an unmarked office and a guarded classroom. …
We may understand why primitive peoples euthanized defective infants. The tribe could scarcely provide for its healthy members, all of whom were expected to contribute. But the evolution of mankind presupposes a commensurate evolution of the human spirit, the measure of which is largely compassion.
Compassion is almost never practical.
Parker is a columnist for Tribune Media Services.
HEADLINE: College Costs Rising Faster Than Inflation; But Average Increase In Tuition Slows
BYLINE: ARLENE LEVINSON, The Associated Press
DATELINE: NEW YORK
College tuition and fees rose an average of less than 5 percent this year, the smallest increase in four years, thanks in part to the booming economy. But the increase was still more than twice the rate of inflation.
The average tuition at a four-year private college in 1999-2000 is $15,380, a 4.6 percent increase over last year, according to a survey released Tuesday by The College Board. That doesn't include the average room-and-board cost of $5,959, up 3.6 percent from last year. …
In New Jersey, private colleges raised tuition by an average of 4.7 percent. The average increase for four-year state colleges was 7.1 percent, and for community colleges it was 1.6 percent.
Among individual institutions, Rutgers University raised its tuition by 4.4 percent, and Princeton University, the most expensive in the state, raised its by 3.4 percent. …
HEADLINE: Magazine rates Princeton in top 20 for women's
athletics
BYLINE: By Sophia Hollander, The Daily Princetonian
DATELINE: Princeton, N.J.
Mike Brady wandered into the Office of Athletic Communications last week, exasperated. The assistant men's track coach was preparing for an upcoming meet and in the crunch of competitions from different sports clogging the office, he had not yet received his game programs.
"Hey," he deadpanned, "do you have to be the field hockey team to get anything done around here?"
"Are you insulting the field hockey team?" asked one of the OAC assistants.
"No," he said, grinning. "I was insulting you."
It would have been hard to blame or begrudge the field hockey team, which has consistently challenged for a national championship over last five years. But Brady's comments were an acknowledgement of the Tiger sports perspective, similar to the Princeton outlook overall: success receives respect, regardless of gender.
For that and other reasons, Sports Illustrated for Women named Princeton the 14th-best school in the country for female athletes in its Aug. 26 issue, above perennial female powers like Tennessee (18) and Connecticut (17), but below Harvard (9). Stanford was named the top school. …
HEADLINE: Researchers Keep Working On Ways To Build A Better Mouse
BYLINE: Dave Addis
A couple of weeks ago we were discussing a story headlined, ''Scientist Creates a Smarter Mouse,'' in which it was revealed that researchers at Princeton University had toyed with the genetic structure of some mice and made them more intelligent.
I advised at the time that mice already seemed plenty smart, and that it might not be a good idea to encourage them.
Now comes news that researchers at Cornell University's medical school have toyed with the genetic structure of some mice and made them re-grow hair in places where their little follicles had gone to sleep, which left them with a condition that women call ''mousey-looking'' - but only when it occurs in women other than themselves.
Cornell is in upstate New York, and Princeton is in neighboring New Jersey. It is not inconceivable, then, that the researchers from the two schools might stumble upon one another, at a conference or somesuch, and conspire to combine these two experiments.
This might be good news for the networks, as it could provide a low-cost source of TV sports reporters - look out, Marv Albert! - and commentators for cable news-talk shows. After all, what could keep a half-bright rodent with really terrific hair from replacing Geraldo Rivera? Not much that I can think of. …
HEADLINE: For Forbes, a mission to make things happen
BYLINE: By JOHN HENDREN, AP National Writer
DATELINE: NEW YORK
Bertie Forbes spent a lot of the little money he had to convince people that he was what he was not: rich.
The young journalist bought a suit and booked a room at the Waldorf. It was the best way to meet the business leaders he wrote about, the impoverished Scottish immigrant told friends. "It was spending, but with a purpose," says his grandson, Steve Forbes.
Eighty years later, Steve Forbes has no problem persuading anyone of his wealth. His concern is showing them he can be president. To that purpose, he's spending like a sailor with a trust fund and a two-day pass. He exhausted $37 million of his family fortune pursuing the Republican presidential nomination in 1996. He's expected to spend $50 million on his 2000 bid.
Taking a cue from his grandfather, he spent $3 million on an advertisement that shows him in an Oval Office-style setting, looking like a president. The spots cost as much as the Bedminster, N.J., home he shares with wife, Sabina, and five daughters.
Such lavish spending is significant for a man friends say is tightfisted in his personal life. At home, he's the frugal Forbes - a guy who drives from his 495-acre farm to the local grocery store in an aging Ford station wagon. …
Steve Forbes has assumed his father's hobby of collecting political memorabilia, in addition to the clan's famed collection of gilded Faberge eggs. As a freshman at Princeton University, Malcolm Forbes spent 18 months' allowance for a handwritten note from Abraham Lincoln. …
HEADLINE: Washington signs Princeton player
DATELINE: WASHINGTON
The Washington Capitals said Monday they have signed defenseman Steve Shirreffs, who recently completed his fourth collegiate season with Princeton University, to a two-year contract.
The 6-3, 220-pound Shirreffs originally was a 1995 NHL entry draft selection of Calgary. Terms of his contract weren't disclosed.
In another move, the Capitals assigned forward Glen Metropolit to the Portland Pirates of the American Hockey League. He was second in preseason scoring with two goals and one assist in five games for Washington.
HEADLINE: Seoul urged to use US records to probe massacre
allegations
SOURCE: Source: 'Tonga-A Ilbo', Seoul, in Korean 1 Oct 99
A South Korean paper says that the USA keeps meticulous records of all events in which it participates. The USA therefore has better records of Korean events than either North or South Korea. The article notes that the US Foreign Broadcast Information Service has records of Korean broadcasts held by neither North or South themselves. The paper urges Korea to do the same, for example with its East Timor force, and investigate jointly the alleged massacre by US forces during the Korean War. The article adds that the US has a good record for apologizing for past errors. …
When Former ROK [Republic of Korea] President Syngman Rhee was a student, he inquired into Harvard University of the United States about its admission procedures in 1907. This letter still remains in Harvard University's archive of old documents. He also inquired into Princeton University in 1908. This letter, too, remains in Princeton University's archive of old documents. Can our readers believe these stories? However, they are true. Princeton University's archive still has a short memo that Syngman Rhee's thesis adviser sent to the university president in 1910. The memo says, "I hope you will exempt Mr Syngman Rhee from a fee for a doctorate certificate because he is very poor." The two universities stored all the documents concerning him even though at that time, Syngman Rhee was a small young man from a ruining country in the Far East. …
HEADLINE: The future looks tiny: Nanostructures will rule
21st-century electronics
BYLINE: Nancy Argyle, Technology & You
For those of us raised in the era of vacuum tubes and transistors, it's hard to imagine an electronic device so small it could float easily through your own bloodstream.
And while many of us struggle to grasp the ongoing evolution of the personal computer, a new field is already setting researchers' imaginations ablaze with its potential to revolutionize nearly every aspect of our lives -- including the household PC.
Coupled with breakthroughs in traditional sciences, nanotechnology is poised to breach many barriers in manufacturing, computing technology and biogenetics.
Best defined as the ability to manipulate individual atoms and molecules with precision, nanotechnology allows the building of microscopic devices or structures, atom by atom. …
Already, researchers at Princeton University (www. princeton.edu) have succeeded in storing a one-bit chunk of data on a single electron.
In addition to this incredible achievement, the single-electron transistor also operates at room temperature, overcoming a barrier that previously required an impractical super-cooled environment.
If these visionary researchers are right, then nanostructures may one day completely replace silicon chips in computers. …
HEADLINE: Globalization Needs a Dose of Democracy
BYLINE: By Richard Falk and Andrew Strauss; International Herald
Tribune
DATELINE: PRINCETON, New Jersey
The economic and political problems of the last year have driven home just how reliant the world has become upon effective international solutions to what would previously have been considered regional or local problems.
A foreign reserve shortfall in Thailand triggered an economic crisis in emerging markets that very possibly would have engulfed the whole of the world economy if not for extensive intervention by the IMF.
Human rights crises in tiny Kosovo and in East Timor were seen as having profoundly destabilizing implications and as calling for significant military responses by NATO and the United Nations.
Because of the urgent demands of a more interconnected, globalized world it seems inevitable that the international order will play a significantly enhanced role in the next century. There is, however, no structure in place to ensure that this order will be organized along democratic lines. …
Accepting the challenge to extend democracy beyond its familiar link to the state does not tell us how this might best be done. We believe that the most promising innovation would be a worldwide grassroots campaign to establish the first Global Peoples' Assembly.
To many this idea must seem fanciful. Certainly it seems unlikely that most governments would support a proposal that would threaten their monopoly in the global arena. But governmental reluctance need not be decisive. …
Mr. Falk is the Albert G. Milbank professor of international law and practice at Princeton University. Mr. Strauss is an associate professor of international law at the Widener University School of Law in Wilmington, Delaware. They contributed this comment to the International Herald Tribune.
HEADLINE: Inviolable Right To Express Opinion
COLUMN: YOUR VIEWS
BYLINE: The Record
Where do we live? In one week, the mayor of New York City threatens to pull public funding from a museum because he does not like an exhibit, and Princeton University needs to provide protection not only for one of its professors, Peter Singer, but also for 23 of his students because of his views on the value of life.
This is the United States.
For some reason, people forget that everyone is entitled to his or her own opinions. You do not have to agree, but you must respect their rights to say and think whatever they want. …
Michael J. Squeo
Midland Park, Oct. 2
October 5, 1999, Tuesday
HEADLINE: Super-laser set to yield some "big science'; Livermore Lab project under way despite escalating costs, staff turmoil
SOURCE: EXAMINER SCIENCE WRITER
BYLINE: KEAY DAVIDSON
DATELINE: PLEASANTON
Despite hefty cost overruns, a top official's embarrassing resignation and headline-making project overhauls, the world's biggest laser is still en route to construction at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.
Exploding stars and other astronomical spectaculars might be simulated on the super-laser, known as the National Ignition Facility or NIF, officials and scientists claimed on the opening day of a conference Monday.
Due for completion in 2003, NIF "is really big science" and might generate "some pleasant scientific surprises," Cal Tech provost Steve Koonin said in his keynote speech Monday morning. "It's hard to say what they will be; if I did, they wouldn't be surprises." …
E. Michael Campbell, associate director of lasers at Livermore, resigned from the post in late August after acknowledging that he never completed the dissertation for his doctoral degree in electrical engineering at Princeton University. …
HEADLINE: The Chubby Lawyer In The Middle Can Spring You From Death Row, And All That He Needs Is A Hair From Your Head
BYLINE: Louise Branson
DR JEFFREY MacDonald's blond hair has turned to silver, but the Princeton -educated, former Green Beret doctor still has the handsome face, military bearing and convincing charm that for years has split America. Is he the evil man who murdered his pregnant wife and two small daughters as portrayed in Fatal Vision, the best-selling book and now TV series? Or is he the victim of a terrible miscarriage of justice?
In the next few days, DNA tests carried out on 29-year-old evidence could reveal the truth. MacDonald could be on his way to joining 69 condemned murderers and rapists recently exonerated - 12 of them released from death row - by DNA tests. MacDonald says he is so excited that he has trouble sleeping in the tiny prison cell where he is serving three life sentences for murdering his 26-year-old wife, Colette, and his two daughters, Kristen, 2, and Kimberley, 5, in 1970. "By keeping the pressure on, and constantly fighting and never saying die, the truth will come out," says MacDonald, now 55. …
Looking at cases such as the long-unsolved 1989 rape of Debbie Smith, a hair salon receptionist in Virginia, and it is easy to see the power of the DNA test. Her rapist was caught recently when he went to jail for robbery and his DNA was entered into the databank. It matched a semen sample recovered from Smith.MacDonald says he is now hoping for a similar end to his ordeal.
Though not part of the Innocence Project, Scheck has been representing MacDonald for free as part of a team of lawyers that includes Harvey Silverglate, MacDonald's acquaintance from Princeton University. …
HEADLINE: Nation's top colleges compete with each other for top
faculty
BYLINE: By Aliya Sternstein, Daily Pennsylvanian
SOURCE: U. Pennsylvania
DATELINE: Philadelphia
As the University of Pennsylvania's Political Science, English and Chemistry departments struggle to hire faculty, officials from peer institutions say their schools are in strikingly similar situations.
Majors, non-majors and graduate students in the nation's highest-ranking universities sit in the classrooms of shorthanded departments -- and officials don't expect this trend to change any time soon, saying it's more important to make the right hire rather than a quick one.
"We will choose to carry forward a recruitment for an additional year rather than offer a position to someone who is not at the top of our list," Penn Provost Robert Barchi said. …
In addition to Penn -- which has placed ads in nationally circulated professional journals and The Chronicle of Higher Education -- Cornell, Yale, Princeton and Duke universities will scour the nation this year for top faculty in those departments. …
According to Preston, the Political Science Department is striving for a collective group of roughly 27 full-time professors.
The larger Department of Politics at Princeton University will also look search for faculty this year. …
HEADLINE: Princeton club raises $1,500 for Taiwan
earthquake relief
BYLINE: By Jessica Hafkin, The Daily Princetonian
SOURCE: Princeton U.
DATELINE: Princeton, N.J.
In the aftermath of Taiwan's biggest earthquake since 1935, the Princeton University's Taiwanese-American Students Association sponsored an earthquake relief benefit dinner Saturday night at Whig Hall.
The quake, which occurred last Tuesday, registered 7.3 on the Richter scale.
It claimed 2,100 lives, injured more than 8,500 and left 100,000 homeless.
"Normally ethnic clubs like TASA focus on the social aspects at Princeton, so I am happy that the club was able to help people in Taiwan," TASA president Angela Lai '01 said. "It was a great way to bring together the Taiwanese in the community." …
HEADLINE: Candidates' Kids Pitch In On Campaigns
BYLINE: By Kris Mayes, The Arizona Republic
On the eve of the Iowa Straw Poll, with her dad Steve Forbes on the verge of a strong second-place showing, 21-year-old Moira Forbes burned up the phone lines pitching her father's presidential candidacy to 500 likely voters.
At the same time, Moira's sister Elizabeth, 12, was helping the Forbes cause by appearing with her father at dozens of campaign stops aboard the family's campaign bus.
Not far away, Gary Bauer's campaign was getting a lift from his daughter Elyse, 21, who, fresh out of college, has been acting as a travel aide and political confidante to her father. …
Moira Forbes, a junior at Princeton University, said voters warm to Forbes when they see him with his daughters -- and he has five of them.
"They definitely have a lot more sympathy for him," she said. …
HEADLINE: Topic of the Day
Take fanatics seriously
I think it is appalling that an Ivy League university such as Princeton would give credence to the brutal "survival-of-the-fittest" philosophy that Australian bioethicist Peter Singer espouses. His view that those with disabilities should be "eliminated" unless they can be of some use to society is horrifying.
As the mother of two children with disabilities, I take particular offense at, and issue with, his views. Far from being a burden, as Singer would lead us to believe, my children have infused my life with purpose and meaning. I take great pride and joy in their accomplishments, knowing how hard-won they are. …
History has taught us to take fanatics seriously. Singer's Hitler-esque views are an outrage, and have no place in a civilized society. It is inconceivable that Princeton would allow this man to influence young, impressionable minds under the guise of academic freedom.
Princeton's appointment shows a complete lack of social responsibility. All students of intelligence and integrity should boycott his classes and force Princeton to send him back Down Under.
Patricia Reininghaus Tavis
HOWELL
HEADLINE: The Internet Economy: the World's Next Growth
Engine
BYLINE: By MICHAEL J. MANDEL; With Irene M. Kunii in Tokyo
HIGHLIGHT: The U.S. boom is only the start of a global surge
Starting with the Middle Ages, the story of the human race has been marked by accelerating economic growth. In the 1400s, global per capita income rose at only 0.1% per year, estimates economist J. Bradford DeLong of the University of California at Berkeley. Over the next five centuries, that rate moved steadily upward, finally hitting nearly 3% in the second half of the 20th century. Now, it looks as though the global growth rate may be on the verge of ratcheting up again.
Why? We have entered the Age of the Internet, a globe-spanning technology that has taken hold amazingly quickly. Just as data flows across the Net in easily digestible packets, knowledge, in the broadest sense, can now be easily tapped and exchanged by people in every corner of the earth. The result: an explosion of economic and productivity growth -- first in the U.S., with the rest of the world soon to follow. …
In addition to spreading innovations and cutting costs, the Internet may also boost world trade. One reason is better information. Despite the global nature of the economy, most consumers and businesses still are much better informed on the products available in their own country. As a result, many potentially useful trades go unmade.
The Internet changes all that. Suddenly, it is possible for better or cheaper products to compete in a global market, especially if the products have relatively low shipping costs. ''The amount that you have to be better than the other guy will shrink,'' says Gene Grossman, an economist at Princeton University. …
HEADLINE: Although spending high, Rutgers not biggest
educational lobbyist
BYLINE: DEBORAH KALB; Gannett News Service
DATELINE: WASHINGTON
WASHINGTON -- From January 1996 through June 1999, Rutgers spent a total of $660,000 lobbying Congress on the university's top priorities -- especially money for RUNet 2000, a high-tech communications system linking Rutgers to inner-city classrooms.
While Rutgers' lobbying expenses may seem high, the university is not in the top echelon of big spenders among educational institutions, according to a survey compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics, a Washington watchdog group. ...
The university shares its office, which opened six years ago, with Princeton University. But Rutgers lobbied in Washington long before that …
Rutgers' staffers in Washington work with their Princeton counterparts on issues like student aid and research funding, but each university has its own priorities …
HEADLINE: The Way the Ball Bounces
BYLINE: By Andrew Phillips in Washington
HIGHLIGHT: Suddenly, Al Gore finds himself facing a tough presidential challenge from former basketball star Bill Bradley
Bill Bradley has been very, very famous for a long, long time. In 1965, when he was just 21 and an all-American on the Princeton University basketball team, The New Yorker devoted almost an entire issue to profiling the young man who seemed to embody every ideal -- athlete, scholar, social conscience and model of self-discipline. The article became a book, A Sense of Where You Are, in which author John McPhee singled out Bradley as the hope of a generation, not just another six-foot-five phenom but a man destined, perhaps, to become president of the United States. When Bradley joined the New York Knicks, helping them win two NBA championships in the early 1970s, his teammates, too, knew he was on his way up. They nicknamed him "Senator" and "Mr. President." …
HEADLINE: Keep Open Mind On Ethicist
BYLINE: BY POLLY B GEORGIOU
Polly B Georgiou column holds people should not be so judgmental about controversial Princeton University ethicist Peter Singer and his views on morality of infanticide and euthanasia; notes increasing number of people are beginning to see suicide and euthanasia as desirable in certain contexts; cartoon (M)
HEADLINE: HEROISM IN BRIEFS
Building a better mouse
Princeton University researchers recently announced that they managed to create smarter mice with a little genetic engineering. Late-night funny guy David Letterman looks forward to these mice growing up and going to graduate school. Here are his predictions of term paper topics that these genius mice will someday write.
* Our Pearl Harbor: The Day Glue Traps Were Invented
* A Sociological Study of Why Cats Suck
* Selling Out for Fame, Drugs, and Cheap Women: The Tragic Story of Mickey Mouse
* The Most Rodent Friendly Company on Earth: Dunkin' Donuts
* Outsmarting the Mousetrap: Just Take the Cheese off Really, Really Fast
* Velveeta: Don't Eat That Waxy, Artificial Stuff
* Rats: Just Big Mice?
HEADLINE: Digital 50: The Most Important People Shaping Technology Today
BYLINE: Maryanne Murray Buechner, Lev Grossman, Anita Hamilton, Bill Syken, Owen Thomas, Nathaniel Wice and Rebecca Winters
Net-worth figures are based on publicly available data and estimates of other holdings
1 Jeff Bezos (alumnus) The Storekeeper Amazon.com Founder and CEO AGE: 35 NET WORTH: $7 BILLION E-MAIL: jeff£amazon.com
If 1999 was the Year of E-commerce --and it was, oh, it was!--then the guy who built Amazon.com must be the year's prime mover. Fearless multibillionaire leader of the Web's biggest store, Bezos designed a company that adds customers so fast that it doesn't have time to make money.
In the process, he has made life miserable for anyone else trying to sell goods online. Having staked out the book market, to the horror of off-line leader Barnes & Noble, Amazon has spent the past year using its giant customer base--and its one-click ordering system, Amway-like affiliate network and here-everyone-knows-your-name customer service--to expand Microsoft-like into nearly everyone else's business. Music and video competitors CDNow and N2K had to merge to fight off Amazon's challenge (and later recombined with Columbia House). A summer move into toys and electronics helps explain why the virtual company has been building a bricks-and-mortar network of 800,000-sq.-ft. warehouses across the country. The company's infrastructure is optimized for 10 times as many sales as it does today. …
5 Meg Whitman (alumna) The New Auctioneer eBay President and CEO AGE: 43 NET WORTH: $900 MILLION WEB: www.ebay.com
Anyone who has heard the words new economy but hasn't a clue what they mean can get the first lesson from eBay. Originally founded to trade Pez dispensers, the online auction site has spawned a new business phenomenon that could become a $52 billion industry by 2002, according to Forrester Research. Leading the charge is Meg Whitman, who's working to move eBay beyond rocking chairs and used baby clothes to a broader marketplace for personal and commercial goods. Whitman began dressing up eBay's image early this year by having the company take out an insurance policy to protect buyers and sellers from fraud. And she's courting traditional retailers so people can buy new things, not just garage-sale-type stuff.
While many were worried that service outages this summer could weaken eBay's legendary customer loyalty, others saw it as a healthy growing pain. Of course, Whitman's main job these days is keeping track of the competition, including Amazon's new auction site and Priceline's new car auctions. With more than 5.6 million users and an estimated $2.7 billion worth of goods changing hands by year's end, eBay wants to stay the undisputed online-auction leader.
42 Julio Gomez Rank King Gomez Advisors CEO AGE: 39 WEB: www.gomez.com
In the crowded young marketplace of the Web, which teems with six-month-old brokerage houses and no-name retailers, someone is making sense of it all. Julio Gomez and his advisers rank e-businesses for their value, customer service and cool features. Today Gomez's influence is written on the city buses and Wall Street Journal ads of businesses boasting a high rating from his company, which is fast becoming e-commerce's answer to Consumer Reports. The Cuban-born and Princeton University-educated son of a minister, Gomez spent 10 years in investment banking before moving to Forrester Research, where he worked as an analyst. He founded his company in 1997.
HEADLINE: Singer's final solution
BYLINE: By John Leo
As a thinker, Peter Singer is consistent, clear, and as subtle as a tank rolling over a wheelchair. The world's best-known advocate of infanticide thinks that parents should be allowed 28 days after the birth of a severely disabled baby to decide whether to kill it. As a utilitarian, he thinks actions are moral if they increase pleasure and happiness and reduce pain and suffering. And he thinks there will often be more pleasure and less pain all around if parents decide to dispatch a handicapped baby and try to have a healthy one in its place. …
Odd theory can also take you to Princeton University, where Singer has been installed as the first full-time professor of bioethics at the University Center for Human Values. Unsurprisingly, the university is coming under heavy fire for making the appointment. Last week some 200 students, disability activists, and pro-lifers protested Singer's first classes on campus. Presidential candidate Steve Forbes, a Princeton trustee, fanned the flames by announcing he will stop contributing money to the university unless it gets rid of the professor.
How about some balance? Singer, it should be said, has solid academic credentials, writes well, and has had a major impact with his animal writings. The wretched excess here is not that he was hired but that Princeton's only full-time professor of bioethics is someone so far out that he really doesn't have much credibility in his own field. Princeton President Harold Shapiro must know this, since he is chairman of President Clinton's National Bioethics Advisory Committee. …
… Apparently it did not occur to the university that many people would resent the mainstreaming of his infanticide philosophy. Those who dismiss this argument would undoubtedly react differently if the university had picked a pro-life creationist as its star bioethicist. Princeton is surely not going to fire Singer, but it should make sure other views and other less narrow bioethicists are heard on campus. …
NOTE: This nationally syndicated column appeared in other newspapers in the United States and Canada, including The Washington Times.
SECTION: EDITORIAL
HEADLINE: Colleges or prisons?
BYLINE: Staff Editorial, Michigan Daily
DATELINE: Ann Arbor, Mich.
Michigan Gov. John Engler's $1.8 billion higher education budget went into effect on Oct. 1, giving the University 4.8 percent more funding than last year, coupled with an additional 2 percent designated to technological improvements. Accordingly, the University Board of Regents approved the lowest tuition increase in more than 10 years.
Should we rejoice? Well, not so fast. Beneath the glittering
statistics lies the reality: The University still needs more state
funding. Comparatively, the 1999-2000 tuition increase is marginal
- a 2.8 percent increase from last year. Still, this increase in
tuition heightens the financial burden on students and their
families, forcing them to seek aid from the University or an
outside source.
Also included in Engler's proposal was a five-tier system that
groups universities according to the amount of funding received
from the state. The University was placed in the top level - "the
research tier" - grouped together with Michigan State and Wayne
State universities based on a funding floor of $9,000 per
student.
Grouping universities together in this manner overlooks the individual needs of each one. The University is consistently ranked among the top five research universities in the country, placing it ahead of such Ivy League schools as Yale and Princeton. If the other two state universities in our "research tier" receive similar funding, yet participate in fewer research projects, is it justified for legislators to group them together? …
HEADLINE: Freshman Atkinson helps spark Princeton to
life
BYLINE: ELLIOTT DENMAN; STAFF WRITER
PRINCETON - Three games into the season, Princeton University's previously winless, previously touchdown-less, previously claw-less Tigers finally got it together, reached the end zone and won a game, routing Fordham, 27-0, before 11,705 fans yesterday.
Coach Steve Tosches' Tigers had been humbled - by a combined 51-3 score - by Cornell and Lehigh the last two weeks.
Yesterday the Tigers scored early and late.
"Obviously, this was a good win for this program," said Tosches. "There's no doubt this is what we needed. After the first two weeks, the mood was a little frustration. Any little confidence starts getting dented a bit. …
HEADLINE: Falun Gong Movement Gains Popularity In America While China Considers The Group To Be Subversive
ANCHORS: JOHN ROBERTS
REPORTERS: JEFFREY KOFMAN
JOHN ROBERTS, anchor:
As China prepared to mark 50 years of communism last week, police broke up a protest by members of the banned Falun Gong movement in Tiananmen Square. China considers the group subversive, but as Jeffrey Kofman tells us, it's gaining popularity in this country. …
Ms. GAIL RACHLIN (Falun Gong Practitioner): I feel like, you know, I--I've been reborn in terms of my physical health. My energy level, and so on, is much more balanced.
KOFMAN: On Friday, followers of Falun Gong could be found in front of Congress, protesting China's decision to outlaw the group. Meanwhile, support here for Falun Gong's mixture of mysticism and movement is growing, with recruiting drives like this. …
The movement claims millions of followers in China. Last spring, they rattled the country's leadership with this silent protest, demanding recognition as a religion. Instead, Falun Gong was labeled a dangerous cult.
Mr. PERRY LINK (Princeton University): To a certain extent, I find it cultish, yes.
KOFMAN: Asia expert Perry Link says that while the practices are harmless, the size of Falun Gong's following is seen as a threat to China's Communist Party, and so are the claims of its founder, Li Hongzhi.
Mr. LINK: He claims that he stands very high in the history of religious leaders; above, for example, Buddha; above Jesus Christ. …
HEADLINE: College costs might not be as bad as you expect
BYLINE: Greg Barrett
By GREG BARRETT
Gannett News Service
Marlboro College senior Kermit Woods received his annual bill for tuition and fees last month. He owes nothing; a financial aid package so complex that he can't recite it paid it.
Woods needs only the $6,590 required for room and board, and a student loan covers two-thirds of that.
Only 54 of Marlboro's 289 students pay the full annual tuition and fees: $20,325.
Two dramatically different bills. Same small liberal arts college in southern Vermont. Nearly identical educational experiences priced as differently as first-class and coach.
The disparity lies at the heart of a truth in college today: Higher education is increasingly expensive, particularly for private schools, but if you navigate a thicket of scholarships, grants and loans, the financial blow is more sting than stagger.
That's not to say it doesn't hurt. …
Hartle worries that lower-and middle-income families see such Web sites or media reports of, say, the annual tuition at Princeton University ($23,820) and suffer sticker shock. They fail to realize that one student's tuition is another's financial aid; the former typically balances the latter. And the average freshman grant at Princeton, for example, where all scholarships are based on need and paid by endowments, is $16,500. …
HEADLINE: BUSINESS;
Can 'Neurobics' Do for the Brain What Aerobics Do for Lungs?
BYLINE: By ABBY ELLIN
THREE years ago, in chatting with a guest at the Holiday Inn she manages in Binghamton, N.Y., Candace Jones found herself confiding in him about her problems renovating the hotel and managing her staff.
The guest, Anthony Dottino, president of the Dottino Consulting Group in Old Tappan, N.J., suggested that she let him take a crack at solving the problems. Ms. Jones agreed, joining a list of clients -- including I.B.M., Consolidated Edison, British Airways and Johnson & Johnson -- that have sought Mr. Dottino's help with business applications of brain research.
Contending that managers need to make use of "intellectual capital," Mr. Dottino has created what he calls a comprehensive mental literacy program to help employees unleash their creative energies. "The human being has unlimited creativity if focused and nurtured properly," he said.
And he is far from alone. Although some neuroscientists dismiss the trend, business people are increasingly using pop neurology or "neurobics" -- brain teasers, puzzles and cognitive exercises -- in the belief that mental workouts enhance job performance, just as aerobic workouts build fitness. …
Prof. Elizabeth Gould, a neurobiologist in Princeton University's psychology department, said that while mental exercises were likely to enhance brain functioning, "reading, playing the piano or doing any number of different hobbies that don't involve passive participation are probably enough." …
HEADLINE: Rush For Patents On Organisms Alarms Scientists
BYLINE: By RON SOUTHWICK; NEWHOUSE NEWS SERVICE
When Princeton University scientist Joe Tsien said last month he had found a way to genetically engineer mice to make them smarter, he was asked if he had patented the mice.
Tsien said he wasn't seeking to own or patent the gene tied to increasing intelligence or to the "Doogie" mice named after the brainy teenage doctor in the TV show "Doogie Howser, M.D." He then offered harsh words for scientists racing for riches by claiming ownership of the genes of animals and men.
"It's like a gold rush," Tsien said. "I don't think scientists or pharmaceutical companies should try to get a piece of a gene and own it."
Still, many private companies are claiming ownership of human and animal genes to develop new drugs. Companies have filed thousands of patent applications to claim the rights to genes and gene fragments, hoping to literally gain a new lease on life.
Now, some are taking a new tack. They are seeking patents for whole organisms - viruses, plants and even animals. …
HEADLINE: When To Act On Global Warming Is A Riddle
BYLINE: By Ron Haybron
With all the attention being paid to the possibility that the climate is heating up due to accumulating greenhouse gases, an observer might expect scientists and politicians to be converging on an agreement about what to do.
Should we take action, for instance, to limit combustion of fossil fuels, or take comfort from the claims that the weather extremes we have recently experienced are due to natural cycles beyond our control?
In his book, "Is the Temperature Rising?" (Princeton University Press), Princeton University geoscientist S. George Philander tries to provide guidance for understanding the situation.
The bulk of the book is devoted to the science relating to the issue of global warming, but Philander devotes Part 1 to a discussion of why the scientific community and our policymakers can't get together. …
In regard to the question of global warming, Philander notes that an increasing proportion of the scientific community agrees we can expect climate change and are "gambling that the benefits will far outweigh any possible adverse consequences." He says our behavior, wherein concentrations of some greenhouse gases are doubling, is "a dangerous situation that calls for action long before there is clear evidence of impending trouble." …
HEADLINE: 'Mystery, Alaska' Leaves Viewers Out In The Cold
BYLINE: John Beifuss The Commercial Appeal
There's more hooey than hockey in Mystery, Alaska, a would-be rouser about a ragtag team of misfits from the frozen North who take on the New York Rangers in a nationally hyped promotional match televised from the underdogs' remote, ice hockey-obsessed hometown.
The film is so hokey that in a supposedly dramatic courtroom scene, the town lawyer (Maury Chaykin) suffers a heart attack just as he is about to utter the word "heart."
Says the lawyer to the judge: "It's not about money, it's about - GAAAACK!" Cut to: the lawyer's funeral. Believe it or not, this is not played for laughs.
Which is unfortunate, because the only way this material could have worked is as satirical farce, as is demonstrated when Little Richard shows up to sing the national anthem before the big game. Instead, rallying cries like "This is our pond!" are played straight. …
The credited screenwriters are Sean O'Byrne and television auteur David E. Kelley, creator of Chicago Hope, The Practice and Ally McBeal. The men are former teammates on the Princeton University hockey team, so they should know better. …
HEADLINE: To have and have more: The bull market is the greatest and least understood story of the '90s: With the Dow Jones Industrial Average hovering around 10,000, American stock markets are enjoying an unprecedented boom -- defying the laws of economics and the historic lessons of Wall Street. From Internet moguls to middle-class investors to the homeless, everyone has benefitted. How did it happen? Can it last?
BYLINE: Luiza Chwialkowska
DATELINE: NEW YORK
NEW YORK - The truly savage and frenetic part of New York is not Harlem,' the Spanish poet Gabriel Garcia Lorca told a Madrid lecture audience in 1932. 'In Harlem, there is human warmth and the noise of children, and there are homes and grass, and sorrow finds consolation and the wound finds its sweet bandage.'
'The terrible, cold, cruel part,' he declared, 'is Wall Street.'
Wandering through its 'limestone canyons' in October, 1929, Lorca observed the great stock-market crash that would help usher in the Great Depression. 'A rabble of dead money went sliding off into the sea. Ambulances collected suicides whose hands were full of rings.'
The spectacle was terrifying, Lorca told his countrymen: 'But devoid of greatness.' …
'Computers do wonderful things,' the Times wrote. 'But in purely economic terms, their contribution has been less than a transforming force: They have failed to bring back the strong growth that characterized so many decades of the American Century.'
Alan Krueger, a Princeton University economist, said: 'It is a pipe dream to think that computers will lead us back to a promised land.' But it was Nobel-prize winning Massachusetts Institute of Technology economist Robert Solow who best summed up the economic disappointment. 'You can see the Computer Age everywhere,' he wrote in the early 1990s, 'but in the productivity statistics.' …
HEADLINE: Security At Princeton Tightened For Bioethicsscholar Under Fire
BYLINE: LORI HINNANT, The Associated Press
DATELINE: PRINCETON
Two weeks into the school year, Princeton professor Peter Singer works in an unmarked office, posts no office hours, and teaches bioethics in a guarded classroom.
The 53-year-old scholar has come under fierce criticism because of his view that parents should be able to euthanize severely disabled infants. His appointment as a tenured professor at the university's Center for Human Values has led to threats, a barrage of e-mail, and demonstrations. …
"I think it's a good thing to stimulate people to think,"Singer said in an interview at his office Thursday."You can't separate debate and learning."
Even presidential candidates are being drawn into the controversy.
Republican Steve Forbes, a member of Princeton's board of trustees, has said he will no longer donate to his alma mater for as long as Singer teaches there. The wealthy publisher and his late father, Malcolm, have been among the university's most generous donors; an undergraduate residence hall at Princeton is named after the younger Forbes. …
HEADLINE: Accelerating the Cosmos: Cosmologists have discovered
a new kind of energy that is speeding up the universe's
expansion.
BYLINE: Glanz, James
There are times -- very rare ones -- when a journalist feels that he or she has been lucky enough to see the making of great science through a helmet cam. These miniature videocameras, mounted in the helmets of football running backs and baseball catchers, often reveal balls and bodies tumbling through the field of view, followed by huge grasping hands or approaching shoulder pads. The video image wobbles crazily before slamming to a stop against a piece of chewed-up turf.
I write about physics and astronomy for Science and my view of the discovery of the cosmological constant over the last two years has been as jarring as any athlete's in the heat of competition. The discovery, which astronomers made by observing the apparent brightness of distant, exploding stars called supernovae, has shaken astronomy to its core. Indeed, the discovery of the cosmological constant looks like one of the more important developments in any field of science in the 20th century.
The research leading up to the discovery has been no humdrum, two-yard dive into the line. As the results accumulated over the past year and a half, I have been carried along on the equivalent of a breathtaking open-field touchdown run, complete with stiff-arms, head jukes, and 360-degree spins. The helmet cam's audio has picked up the approving and disapproving roars from the scientific crowd on the field and the sidelines. …
One of those first supernovae, however, turned out later to be an "outlyer," a statistical oddball. "Their preliminary analysis of one supernova already casts doubt on a strongly accelerating expansion -- the mark of a cosmological constant in a low-density universe," I wrote in Science. Almost exactly a year later, with those conclusions still regarded as preliminary, I was writing about a series of debates on the campus of Princeton University dealing with cosmological questions. In one Princeton debate, (Michael) Turner, the Chicago theorist, was arguing for a position that then seemed unlikely, to put it mildly: He maintained that theoretical and observational evidence suggests that the universe has a low density of matter, which would favor the expansion of the universe. He also argued that the cosmological constant supplements the expansion. Turner conceded that if (Saul) Perlmutter's early conclusions held up, this heretical view could not possibly be right. But in the most striking example of a theorist's hubris (and, as it turned out, foresight) I have ever witnessed, Turner warned Perlmutter that because the supernova results were still not definitive, they should not be presented during the Princeton debates.
At one point, a chattering crowd of astronomers and cosmologists were climbing a flight of stairs to an auditorium after a break in the action. Turner was a few steps below Perlmutter. I walked on one side of Turner, and on the other side walked astronomer Wendy Freedman of the Observatories of the Carnegie Institution of Washington. As if he were feigning to speak to Freedman, Turner raised his voice slightly in commenting on Perlmutter's plan to announce his preliminary results (I alter the language slightly for reasons of politeness): "I don't think Saul is that unenlightened." Perlmutter did not seem to hear. Turner then shouted: "I said I don't think SAUL is that UNENLIGHTENED." …
HEADLINE: Universal Display Corporation Announces Issuance of the Fourteenth Patent in the Organic Light Emitter Project
DATELINE: BALA CYNWYD, Pa.
Oct. 1, 1999--Universal Display Corporation(UDC)(NASDAQ:PANL; PHLX:PNL), a developer of flat panel display technology, announced today that US Patent Number 5,953,587, entitled "Method for Deposition and Patterning of Organic Thin Film" was issued to its research partners, Princeton University and The University of Southern California. This is the fourteenth US patent issued in the Organic Light Emitter Project. More than 40 patents are pending in the United States and corresponding international patent applications have been filed. …
HEADLINE: Home ownership and unemployment are linked
BYLINE: Jonathan Lipow
On the agenda. The writer is a development economist at the Hebrew University.
Prior to independence, Israel enjoyed a vibrant market for residential real estate. Unfortunately, one of the government's first housing initiatives was to enact rent control via the Tenant's Protection Law of 1954. Rent control's primary effect was to destroy the rental market. Landlords suffered (and many continue to suffer) huge losses as a result of the controls.
Other government programs, most notably the time- limits of immigrant mortgage subsidies, create further incentives for people to purchase their own homes rather than rent from others. As a result, there is no meaningful private construction of housing specifically aimed at the rental market in Israel.
There have been attempts to offset the bias towards home ownership, such as the construction of rental units by government-owned firms such as Amidar.
These policies, however, have failed to overcome the disincentives created by the government's anti-rental policies. …
According to evidence published by noted labor economist Prof. Andrew Oswald of Princeton University, absence of a well developed rental housing market is the best explanation for chronic high unemployment. Oswald considered a number of variables often believed to be associated with high unemployment, such as monetary policies, minimum wage laws, labor union influence, and taxation. None of the variables proved an important determinant of unemployment rates. Only the absence of rental housing appears to really matter. …
HEADLINE: Frank McCourt, Author, Discusses His Latest Book And His Past Life Experiences, Including Going To College Without A High School Diploma
ANCHORS: BOB EDWARDS
BOB EDWARDS, host:
This is NPR's MORNING EDITION. I'm Bob Edwards.
Writer Frank McCourt's first book, "Angela's Ashes," was published in 1996 and described McCourt's childhood, growing up in poverty in Limerick, Ireland. "Angela's Ashes" was a literary sensation, winning the Pulitzer Prize and topping the best-seller list for two years. The sequel called "Tis" picks up McCourt's story in 1949 when he arrived in New York City. Once there, McCourt found himself in a series of blue-collar jobs, starting at New York's Biltmore Hotel.
Mr. FRANK McCOURT (Author): The Biltmore was famous in those days. It's mentioned in Scott Fitzgerald and John Cheve(ph) and even Updike, and it was a gathering place on the weekends for the Ivy League kids that come in from Princeton or Harvard and Yale. And they'd meet the girls from Swarthmore and Bryn Mawr and Vassar. And I was the one who went around the lobby cleaning up, emptying ashtrays and disposing of swizzle sticks and envying them. I was in a constant state of envy. I was 19. And they were around the same age, but they were God's elect, the golden people of America.
EDWARDS: So they were your contemporaries but not your peers.
Mr. McCOURT: But they were not my peers at all. I was just in a state of envy and lust because--they're two of the seven deadly sins. I only have five to go. …
HEADLINE: Wright's poetry unites emotional, intellectual
BYLINE: Lynn Cline, photos by Dorothy Alexander and Jenny
Anderson
Greg Glazner interviews him at SITE
When the minds of two esteemed poets meet, the boundaries imposed by language can give way to rivers of words that flow into realms unexpected and often unexplored.
Such should be the course of conversation between Jay Wright, a lyric poet who probes myth and culture with a rich rhetoric, and Greg Glazner, who examines, with a polished brilliance that gleams like river rocks, life at the end of this century.
Wright reads from his work at 7 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 6, at SITE Santa Fe, as part of the Lannan Foundation's readings & conversations series. Following the reading, Glazner interviews him. Glazner is director of the creative-writing program at The College of Santa Fe and is an editor of the literary journal Countermeasures.
"Wright has had the effect on me all ambitious poets have," Glazner said. "What he wants to do, basically, is everything. He wants to unite the emotional, the intellectual and the bodily in his poems. As a container around that, he wants the entire cultural wisdom and through that container, you see the cosmos."
Wright, who lives in Vermont, was born in Albuquerque in 1935 and grew up in New Mexico. He started school in Albuquerque, played semiprofessional baseball and served a stint in the Army before embarking on a scholarly journey that took him to the University of California at Berkeley for his bachelor's degree and then to Union Theological Seminary in New York for a brief period.
After graduate studies at Rutgers University, Wright served as a Hodder Fellow at Princeton University and a fellow in creative writing at Dundee University in Scotland. He also taught at Yale University and received MacArthur and Guggenheim fellowships. …
HEADLINE: The Seminal Astrophysicist; Review; book reviews
BYLINE: Mihalas, Dimitri
From White Dwarfs to Black Holes: The Legacy of S. Chandrasekhar
G. Srinivasan, ed. (University of Chicago Press, 1999). 240 pages. ISBN 0-226-76996-8. $40.00.
This book is a collection of 11 essays about the scientific contributions of Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar, one of the greatest, perhaps the greatest, astrophysicist of the 20th century. It can be thought of as the scientific companion volume to the more personal biography Chandra: A Biography of S. Chandrasekhar, written by Kameshwar S. Wali in 1990.
Chandra was a scientist of incredible depth and breadth. He brought to astrophysics all the skills of a consummate applied mathematician, and he set the standards in all the fields in which he worked. His seminal contributions to each of his major fields of endeavor are reviewed and assessed by recognized experts in these fields. In addition there is an essay about Chandra and his students at Yerkes Observatory, where he was in residence from 1937 to 1964; subsequently he was on the campus of the University of Chicago until his death in 1995. …
Donald E. Osterbrock's article on Chandra and his students at Yerkes is delightful. I think that he missed one point however. While Chandra was the pillar on which theoretical astrophysics at Chicago rested, there was much more to the department than that. I refer to my late good friend William W. Morgan, who was as different from Chandra as any scientist could be, and of the same quality. Both of these men were truly "gray eminences" in the department, with styles and interests so different that any young astronomer could fit comfortably between them! Chandra was purely deductive: he posed a problem and then dissected it by pure reason. Morgan was purely inductive: he looked at the phenomena he studied and (in his words) "let the specimens 'tell' me how they should be arranged into a coherent pattern."
Chandra is often described as aloof or remote. I never found him such. He was always willing to engage but did it best with people who were his manifest peers. I remember once when Chandra came to Princeton University to give an informal seminar. We all went to hear him, and even without understanding his analysis in detail (I think he was in his "equilibrium figures" era) we were all thrilled to hear an astronomer speak not just in coherent sentences but in coherent paragraphs. One does not have to play the violin to appreciate the mastery of Itzhak Perlman!
At one point a quiet voice from the audience said "Chandra, I don't quite follow your last step. Could you please explain it?" Chandra turned around from the blackboard to face the audience and see who had asked the question; it was Lyman Spitzer. Chandra simply said, "Lyman, you can work that out for yourself!" and went on. Had the inquirer been a student, Chandra would have supplied more detail, but for a genius like Spitzer to do so was a waste of his time! …
HEADLINE: Take Michael Volkman's warnings seriously
BYLINE: JOHN M. KERRY; Executive Director New York State Catholic
Conference Albany
I hope the citizens of New York state take seriously the warnings of Michael Volkman (''The obligation of freedom of speech,'' Sept. 21) regarding the writings and insidious philosophy of Peter Singer, (holder of an endowed chair in bioethics at) the Center for Human Values at Princeton University.
Volkman is wise to warn the disabled about Singer's utilitarian philosophy because they will be among the first so-called, nonessential and burdensome groups to be targeted in Singer's new world order.
In Singer's view, the severally disabled are less valuable not only than other human beings, but even than certain farm animals. As Orwellian as this many seem, Singer promotes unbridled abortion, infanticide up to 28 days after birth, suicide and euthanasia.
While advancing 18th- and 19th-century versions of utilitarian philosophy, he attempts to discredit thousands of years of ethical and moral principles that have protected human life from unjust aggression since the time of the Hebrew Prophets and the Greek city-states. …
HEADLINE: Buzzwords For Healing The Body And Soul
Shelf Life
Jennifer Bain
It feels strangely exhilarating to say the word healing out loud, to write it, and even to simply think it. It's empowering to think of intuition, synchronicity and coincidence as benevolent forces that can guide us through our lives.
These powerful buzzwords have resonance with so many people now, it's impossible to avoid them. As Y2K approaches, there is much to learn about mental and physical healing.
FUTURE HEALER: In a world where people are starved for meaning, purpose and spiritual fulfillment, Dr. Larry Dossey offers a cure: tapping into our ''nonlocal minds'' where thoughts can be sent outwards to the world to make things happen.
Who hasn't marvelled at tales of pets separated from their owners who make inexplicable, miraculous journeys home?
Then there are those among us who've dreamed about the future, experienced a medical miracle or had a sixth sense about the health of a child or loved one. This, apparently, is the nonlocal mind at work.
But lest you think Dossey's way out there, he backs up Reinventing Medicine: Beyond Mind-Body To A New Era Of Healing (HarperSanFrancisco, $35) with scientific evidence from Harvard, Stanford and Princeton universities.
In detailing what he sees as the three eras in modern medicine (first regarding health as purely physical, then recognizing the role of the mind on bodily functions, and now tapping into the potential of the human consciousness to act non-locally), Dossey's compelling argument will appeal to medical minds and laypeople alike. …
HEADLINE: SEE ROBIN RUN
Robin Ficker says he will drop his bid to win the Republican nomination for U.S. Senate in Maryland if two reporters outrun him today in a noon jog up and down 26 flights of stairs at Cole Field House at the University of Maryland in College Park.
Just another publicity stunt by the irrepressible tax activist?
Not one to miss a step, Mr. Ficker answered why his fitness frenzy was relevant to whether he should stay in the race to represent Maryland in 2000.
"Maryland needs young energetic leadership rather than Sen. Strom Thurmond's," said Mr. Ficker, 56, referring not to the South Carolina Republican but to Paul S. Sarbanes, 66, who now holds the seat.
"The senator will be older than the retirement age for state judges during the next term," said Mr. Ficker, an avid runner since high school. "I want to demonstrate that I'm in excellent health and that I won't be lazy in representing the people of Maryland."
Mr. Ficker said he has met, talked with and handed numbered cards to 530,000 of Maryland's more than 4 million residents.
Mr. Sarbanes spokesman said he would have "no comment on a Republican primary."
A Rhodes scholar, Mr. Sarbanes played basketball for his alma mater, Princeton University.
OBITUARIES
HEADLINE: OBITUARIES
KAYLOR
CHAPEL HILL -- Cornelius T. Kaylor, a retired professor of anatomy at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine, died September 26, 1999, at the Carol Woods Retirement Community. He was 90 years of age.
Dr. Kaylor was born August 8, 1909, in Naugatuck, Conn. His parents were Cornelius T. and Emily Velsor Kaylor. When he was three years old, his father died, and his mother, with three young children, moved to Cold Spring Harbor, N.Y., to live with her widowed mother.
Dr. Kaylor graduated from Wesleyan University in 1931 with an A.B. degree in biological sciences. Later that year, he was a graduate student and teacher at Rutgers University in the biological field. In 1937 he earned his Ph.D. in comparative anatomy at Princeton University. From 1937 to 1939, he was an instructor in anatomy at N.Y. University School of Medicine. He was an assistant professor of anatomy at Syracuse University (now the N.Y. State School of Medicine) from 1939 to 1947. …
HEADLINE: When Academe Is a Family Affair
BYLINE: ALISON SCHNEIDER
What do John Kenneth Galbraith, Derek Bok, and Milton Friedman all have in common?
Their kids. All of them have gone into the family business.
For a profession that thrives on endless analysis, academic families are like a Freudian fantasy come true. The Oedipal jokes alone could fill a monograph. But if success in academe is based on intellectual merit, does it matter if your last name happens to be Galbraith or Friedman? …
For Hilary Bok, an associate professor of philosophy at Pomona College, the stakes were even higher. "The real problem was when I was in 12th grade, and everyone assumed I had an inside track on getting into college" -- all because her father, Derek, was president of Harvard University, her mother, Sissela, a prominent philosopher, and two of her grandparents Nobel Prize winners.
As an undergraduate, she stayed away from her dad's stomping ground. "Why would I put myself in a position where I would have to wonder why I got in, and no one would know if I deserved the grades I got?" Ms. Bok says. "It's not that my dad would do anything. But think about it. If you were an admissions officer, would you want to be the one to turn me down?" Only after proving herself at Princeton University as an undergraduate -- having established "an explanation not connected to my father for why I got in" -- did she go to graduate school at Harvard. …
HEADLINE: Bowing to Critics, Clinton Declines Invitation to
Give Prestigious Humanities Lecture
BYLINE: PATRICK HEALY
President Clinton last week turned down a controversial invitation to give the prestigious Jefferson Lecture in the Humanities next year, after several leading scholars criticized the offer by the National Endowment for the Humanities as politically shortsighted and an affront to great ideas.
"We regret this very much," said William R. Ferris, chairman of the N.E.H., which sponsors the award. Asked why the White House had declined, he said: "They simply don't want our work called into question." …
While Mr. Clinton is a strong supporter of the N.E.H. and is said to love histories and Presidential biographies, several scholars scoffed at appending the humanist label to him -- indeed, to most Presidents. None of them is believed ever to have been offered the Jefferson Lecture before. Several scholars said that while President Woodrow Wilson, a former Princeton University professor and president, would have been well suited for the address, they were somewhat skeptical of Mr. Clinton as a humanist. …
HEADLINE: Mellon Fund, From the Top Down, Conducts the 'R&D
of Education'
BYLINE: JOHN L. PULLEY
For the better part of the past three decades, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation has been the bashful giant of American philanthropy. Operating largely beneath the radar of public awareness, the country's ninth-largest philanthropic foundation has given away hundreds of millions of dollars, primarily to higher education.
Last year, however, there was nowhere to hide following publication of The Shape of the River, a Mellon-sponsored tome that explored the effects of race-sensitive admission policies in American higher education. Written by Mellon's president, William G. Bowen, and Derek Bok, the former president of Harvard University, it was one of those scholarly books that causes a stir.
Supporters of racial preferences praised the volume for providing hard data that they said confirmed the value of affirmative-action polices. Detractors characterized it as a scholarly whitewash that predictably reflected the bias of its authors.
Lost in the din was the steady hum of scholarship emanating from Mellon. Since Mr. Bowen's arrival at the foundation, in 1987, from Princeton University -- where he had served as president since ascending to the post, at age 38, 15 years earlier -- he has established a crack research department whose work guides the foundation's grant-making activities to a degree that is rare among large philanthropies. …
HEADLINE: NIH Abandons Proposal to Create a Ph.D. Program in
Biomedical Research
BYLINE: WILL WEISSERT
The National Institutes of Health has shelved a proposal to create its own Ph.D. program in biomedical research, in response to complaints that it would have overlapped with university programs and put new pressure on N.I.H. scientists to teach courses while they were vying for research funds.
The plan would have used the N.I.H.'s Bethesda, Md., headquarters as a campus, and some of the 1,100-plus researchers as faculty members, for a 15-student program designed to attract minority applicants. …
N.I.H. officials say they will soon begin meeting with administrators and faculty members at prospective partner institutions, said Michael M. Gottesman, deputy director for intramural research.
Members of the advisory committee to the N.I.H. director, Harold E. Varmus, are expected to approve the plan at a December meeting, said one panel member, Shirley M. Tilghman.
The new programs would be based on current N.I.H. affiliations in place at three institutions not far from its Bethesda hub -- George Washington and the Johns Hopkins Universities and the University of Maryland at College Park -- as well as at Duke University. Those partnerships vary in form, but in general, the agency covers tuition costs for students who use N.I.H. resources in working toward their degrees, and provides mentors and instructors for the students.
Creating new affiliations between the N.I.H. and colleges would give students "the best of both worlds," said Ms. Tilghman, a professor of molecular biology at Princeton University. …
HEADLINE: A Naturalist in Vermont Shinnies Up Trees to Look
Inside the Raven's Mind
BYLINE: PETER MONAGHAN
When ravens aren't flying upside down, cheekily tweaking the tails of wolves, or sliding down snow banks, they may be ganging up on eagles or pecking out the eyes of mud-bogged bison.
For ravens, voracious carnivores, those apparently make quite tasty treats. …
To fathom the vagaries of this curious corvid, Mr. Heinrich, a professor of biology at the University of Vermont, would seem to be the ideal man. Like any good biologist, he is prepared to stalk his prey through rain, hail, sleet, and snow, for days at a time if necessary. But not every biologist has Mr. Heinrich's capabilities.
How many, nearing 60, could shinny up trees with only bare hands and climbing spurs? And in the dark, sub-zero? …
His work has won praise from leading cognitive ethologists -- scientists of animal thinking -- including Donald R. Griffin, an associate at the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard University, and the author of Animal Minds (University of Chicago Press, 1992), and James L. Gould, a professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at Princeton University, and author with Carol Grant Gould of The Animal Mind (W.H. Freeman & Company, 1994). …
HEADLINE: Oak IX Expects $1 Billion Wrap
BYLINE: Alissa Leibowitz
WESTPORT, Conn. - Oak Investment Partners raised more than $1 billion in 10 working days for its latest fund, Oak Investment Partners IX, after a more than $500 million first close in the second week of September.
The firm expected a final close at the end of the month.
While Oak did not want to pressure its limited partners to invest on short notice, the firm felt compelled to expedite its fund raising effort so it could secure a deal with a telecommunications infrastruture company before an early September deadline. …
Oak invests in early- to late-stage information technology, health-care and retail companies throughout the United States and abroad. Since January, it has narrowed its focus to only those companies that conduct a portion of their business on the Internet.
Return investors include The Ford Foundation, pension funds such as 3M and Hewlett Packard, and endowments such as Princeton University, Stanford University and Dartmouth College. They were joined by a number of corporate investors interested in possibly acquiring some of the firm's portfolio companies. …
HEADLINE: Sequoia IX Slated For September Close
BYLINE: Shawn Neidorf
MENLO PARK, Calif. - Sequoia Capital was anticipating a mid-September first and final close on Sequoia IX, which, along with a side fund, would not exceed $450 million, said General Partner Douglas Leone.
The firm expected $335 million to $350 million from new and existing limited partners, some $60 million from general partners and about $50 million from a side fund that was nearing a launch at press time.
The Sequoia Capital Technology Partners Fund, which will take capital from company presidents, vice presidents and engineering managers, is seeking investors who can bring deal flow, provide assistance with technical analysis, serve on the boards of companies and help Sequoia "see the future," Leone said. …
Sequoia IX, which features a 70%/30% carried interest split and management fees that Leone characterized as standard, welcomed previous limited partners as well as a few new investors. Most Sequoia L.P.s are endowments and foundations, and the group has no state funds among its investors. Backers include the endowments of Harvard University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Stanford University, Yale University and the University of California. Nassau Capital, the group that handles the Princeton University endowment, also invested, along with the Rockefeller Foundation and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Leone said.
HEADLINE: Utilitarian Danger
BYLINE: BRIAN W. DONNELLY, M.D.; ROSS
In the Perspectives piece "A Professor of Infanticide" (Sept. 14), syndicated columnist Nat Hentoff reviews the utilitarian positions, including infanticide, espoused by Peter Singer, Princeton University's first full-time tenured professor of bioethics. Singer claims that Dr. Leo Alexander, an expert witness at the Nuremberg trials, misses the "utilitarian point."
It is extremely unlikely that Dr. Alexander did not understand utilitarianism. It appears that he understood it more completely than does Mr. Singer.
Dr. Alexander pointed out that once the Nazis accepted the premise that there was such a thing as "life not worthy to be lived," it was much easier to comply with the orders to eliminate the "undesirables" of their day - the disabled, the mentally ill, the Gypsies, the communists, the Jews. As Germany's economic strength increased, the utilitarian approach became more firmly entrenched. …
HEADLINE: UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA
UBC astronomers a step closer to solving dark matter mystery
UBC scientists may be a step closer to finding the answer to one of astronomy's most perplexing questions: What is the galaxy made of?
"We may have identified a component of the unknown dark matter in the galaxy - the 90 per cent of the mass of the galaxy which we thought was invisible," says Prof. Harvey Richer, an astronomer in UBC's Physics and Astronomy Dept. Research released by a four-member team which included Richer and fellow UBC astronomer Asst. Prof. Douglas Scott, indicates that ancient white dwarf stars - the burned-out remains of normal stars like the Sun - may make up more than half of the invisible "dark matter" in the Milky Way Galaxy. The team of researchers, which also included Rodrigo Ibata from Germany and Roland Gilliland from the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, arrived at the conclusion after they compared images of the Hubble Deep Field - the deepest optical image of the sky - from the Hubble Space Telescope in 1995 and 1997. They found that five objects moved slightly in the foreground between the two images. The scientists believe that the objects may be old white dwarf stars. …
The team's results will be published in the October issue of The Astrophysical Journal Letters. Meanwhile, the team has plans to check their work this December when they will again use the Hubble Space Telescope to look at the same field and see if the previously detected motion in the five objects is confirmed. A large consortium including astronomers from UBC, Victoria, Princeton University and Germany are also using the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope in Hawaii to search for more local examples of these ancient white dwarfs.
HEADLINE: TAYLOR, WILLIAM ROBINSON
William Robinson Taylor, 93, of Lyme, died at home on Sunday, (October 3, 1999) surrounded by his loving family. Mr. Taylor was born May 2, 1906 in Brooklyn, NY, the son of Joseph Brown Taylor and Charlotte Pitcher Taylor. A graduate of Princeton University in 1928, he was an independent investment counselor and a former partner of W. E. Burnet and Company, in New York City. He was also a published genealogist. …