News

Gates, Merck fight AIDS in Botswana

Six years ago, Botswana had the highest HIV prevalence in the world. Nearly two in five adults ? as many as three in five in some regions ? were HIV-positive, and in less than a decade, life expectancy had crashed from the mid-60s to slightly over 30 years.In a lecture yesterday, Jeff Sturchio '73, vice-president of External Affairs in Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Canada at Merck Pharmaceuticals, and Todd Summers, senior policy officer for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, discussed the work their organizations have done to fight AIDS.The Gates Foundation and Merck Company Foundation have each committed more than $50 million in five years to combat the prevalence of HIV in Botswana, launching the African Comprehensive HIV/AIDS Partnerships (ACHAP), the world's first country-based program to fight the disease.Begun in January 2001 and set to run until December 2009, ACHAP focuses on Botswana both because of its severe HIV/AIDS problem and its small population and comparatively high income and literacy rates, factors that contributed to the success of the program.Sturchio and Summers explained ACHAP's "three-pronged attack" on AIDS, which focuses on prevention, counseling and testing, and treatment for those who are already HIV-positive.Prevention has included the national distribution of millions of condoms from nearly 2,000 dispensers in as many as 10 districts.

At club event, teens rule Congress

The usual clientele at the Hyatt Regency in Washington's were replaced by teenagers this past weekend as high school students descended on the nation's capital to participate in Princeton Model Congress.The latest congregation of the Princeton Model Congress (PMC), which was established in 1982, drew more than 1,100 students from high schools across the country.

Sahner '07 named Rhodes Scholar

Christian Sahner '07, an art and archaeology major and a founder of the Anscombe Society, a socially conservative campus group, is the University's sole recipient of a 2007 Rhodes Scholarship, joining 31 other students from across the country."It was sweet disbelief," the Maplewood, N.J., native said in an interview yesterday.

Alum gives $10.5 million for athletics, financial aid

As the flames of Friday night's bonfire still glow in students' memories and the celebrations of Saturday's Ivy League co-championship continue, the football team can now revel in yet another piece of good news: a $10 million gift to the University's football program from investor and former University football player William Powers '79, the University's Office of Development announced yesterday afternoon.Powers' gift ? which, on top of the core $10 million, includes an additional $500,000 for need-based financial aid for athletes ? has already funded a resurfacing of the stadium field.

Special pullout: The Bonfire, Nov. 17, 2006

Professor rises from poverty to win 'Nobel for historians'

Raised in a rural community in southeastern China and uneducated until his mid-teens, Ying-Shih Yu seems an unlikely recipient of the John W.

Refugee recalls flight from civil war

African refugees face a difficult transition to the United States, a Sudanese refugee and a film director said at a screening of "The Lost Boys of Sudan" on Friday.Joseph Deng, a U.S.

Students lead local blood drive efforts

In response to serious blood shortages at both the Red Cross of Central New Jersey and at the University Medical Center at Princeton (UMCP), three students are organizing a blood drive in an effort to boost local supplies.

'Not for ourselves, but for the entire Princeton community'

The first bonfire in 12 years blazed Friday night on Cannon Green as thousands of students, faculty, staff and community members looked on.

Volunteer groups lobby to go abroad

Student leaders of international service groups presented recommendations aimed at broadening opportunities for volunteering abroad at yesterday's USG meeting.

After 12 years, Old Nassau to see blaze on Cannon Green

After 12 years in the dark, thousands of students, alumni and community members will assemble this evening on Cannon Green to reignite a hallowed University tradition known simply as "The Bonfire."The football team is providing the occasion for the celebration, having completed their sweep of rivals Harvard and Yale ? the first time since 1994 ? on Saturday.

Emotion influences learning, memory

Emotion shapes nearly every aspect of human activity ? from learning to memory to decision-making ? and even influences evolution, University of Southern California neuroscience professor Antonio Damasio said in a lecture in McCosh 50 Thursday night."Emotion, whichever way you look at it ... is involved in homeostasis," he said, and "the business of running our life."Damasio's talk focused on the processes involved in triggering and experiencing emotions and feelings.Though Sigmund Freud and William James investigated the science of emotion more than 100 years ago, such research had largely been abandoned by the turn of the 20th century, he said.In the past 10 years, however, significant progress has been made in identifying what Damasio termed the "body loop" theory of emotion production.Damasio explained that "emotional programs" are built from simpler drives and motivations."To have an emotion is a very big deal, and it actually involves a lot of changes [throughout] the body proper, as well as the brain itself," he said.People used to think, Damasio pointed out, that one or two systems in the brain would "do all the emotions for you and feel the emotions.""Now we know this is not true.

Thousands gather for bonfire, celebrating school's victory

The first bonfire in 12 years blazed last night on Cannon Green as thousands of students, faculty, staff and community members looked on."Because our school prides itself on tradition," football team offensive co-captain Jeff Terrell '07 told the crowd, "this is one that we've wanted for a while."The football team is providing the occasion for the celebration, having completed their sweep of rivals Harvard and Yale last week.

Food for thought

"The food we eat has changed more in the past 30 years than in the last 30,000," Eric Schlosser '81, author of the bestselling book "Fast Food Nation" and co-writer of the new movie of the same name, said last night in a crowded Richardson Auditorium.Schlosser joined philosophy professor Peter Singer in making opening remarks for the two-day "Food, Ethics, and the Environment" conference sponsored by the Princeton Environmental Institute.

Library says it hasn't received Patriot Act requests

University Library officials said this week that they have received no requests for student or faculty library records under the USA PATRIOT Act in the five years since Congress passed the controversial law.

Finding their religion

Twenty-five-foot silk paintings. An 8,000-pipe organ. A choir of more than 70 people. Walking with a friend into the Chapel one day two years ago, the sheer scale of the Catholic Mass overwhelmed Nene Kalu '07.

Filling void, students launch Princeton in India fellowship

When seniors Ritu Kamal and Sanhita Sen looked at their post-graduation options, they each came to the same conclusion."We are both interested in doing service in India, but we realized that all of the programs that Princeton currently has do not offer sites in India," said Sen, who is also an associate editor at The Daily Princetonian.The seniors decided to address the lack of University-sponsored service opportunities in India by creating a program themselves.

For Tigers, a post-election eviction

After Jim Leach '64 graduated from Princeton, he headed south for a Washington job in the office of a fellow Tiger: a young Illinois congressman named Donald Rumsfeld '54.More than four decades later, the fates of employer and employee remain intertwined.Leach, a powerful Iowa congressman who has held the same seat for nearly 30 years, and Rumsfeld, President Bush's departing defense secretary, are part of a handful of prominent Princetonians who find themselves evicted from the political scene after last Tuesday's Democratic electoral triumph.Rumsfeld, one the chief architects of Bush's controversial foreign policy, was forced to resign Nov.

Homeless arts

An artist from Trenton shows off his work to students at Murray-Dodge, which held an art show featuring the work of homeless and formerly homeless local artists last night.

Alum discusses new 'Fast Food' movie

Director Richard Linklater denounced the fast food industry for wasting natural resources and exploiting factory workers during a question-and-answer session following the screening of his upcoming film, "Fast Food Nation," Wednesday night.The film is based on the bestselling book by Eric Schlosser '81 by the same name.