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PFARS receives award for outstanding EMS agency

PFARS receives award for outstanding EMS agency

The Princeton First Aid & Rescue Squad (PFARS) recently received the 2008 Outstanding Public EMS Agency award after being selected by the New Jersey Department of Health and Senior Services from among 10 other Emergency Medical Services agencies.The squad, which serves Princeton Township and Princeton Borough, including the University, has both full-time professionals and community and student volunteers.

NEWS | 10/12/2008

Six donate platelets at Red Cross drive

As Justine Drennan ?11 curls up with a red blanket and a history book, her right hand is at her side, squeezing an ambulance-shaped stress ball to get the blood flowing in her arm.

NEWS | 10/12/2008

Tuttle: Bats are critical for insect control, seed dispersion

Bats play a central role in many agricultural industries, and bat conservation should receive more funding, Bat Conservation International (BCI) founder Merlin Tuttle told an audience, including many parents visiting for freshman parents weekend, in a packed McCosh 50 on Friday evening.Tuttle, an ecologist and photographer who founded BCI in 1982, highlighted the ecological importance of bats, noting their key role in plant life cycles.?Seventy percent of all fruits produced in the tropics depend on bats for either pollination or seed dispersion,? he explained, citing bananas, mangoes and jackfruit as examples.Tuttle explained that bats play a key role in insect control, noting that roughly 150 bats preying on a population of cucumber beetles could prevent the insects from laying 33 million eggs among crops.He discussed a case in San Antonio, Texas, in which bats from local reserves attacked a ?storm front?? of moths moving into the region.

NEWS | 10/12/2008

USG works to decrease book costs

The USG will work with Labyrinth Books to increase its popularity with students and try to decrease book costs, several members said at Sunday night?s USG meeting.Campus and Community Affairs chair Cindy Hong ?09, who is also a columnist for The Daily Princetonian, said the USG would look to sponsor more events at Labyrinth, adding that she would like to see ?Labyrinth ... become more of an institution? that would fill an intellectual niche in the University community.Hong added that she met with Labyrinth co-owners Dorothea von Moltke and Cliff Simmons ?to discuss what challenges they have and what challenges we have? in supplying University course books.Labyrinth became the only major bookseller in Princeton upon its arrival on Nassau Street.

NEWS | 10/12/2008

Independents promote Nader '55 candidacy

Though the impending election-day showdown between Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) and Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) is currently occupying the central spot in the nation?s political consciousness, one group of University students is looking beyond the obvious choices and supporting an independent candidate for the presidency, Ralph Nader ?55.The group, called Princeton Independents, is mounting a campaign to have Nader included in the national presidential debates.?We want to let people know that there are more than two presidential candidates in these elections,? Sofya Aptekar GS, president of the group, said in an e-mail.

NEWS | 10/09/2008

Robots and roommates: when it’s hard to tell the difference

A partial transcript of my roommate Alexis? late-night session with psychotherapist ELIZA:ELIZA: Hello, I am Eliza.ALEXIS: Hello, I am Alexis.ELIZA: Do you believe it is normal to be Alexis?ALEXIS: Yes.ELIZA: I see.ALEXIS: You?re not very helpful.ELIZA: We were discussing you, not me.ALEXIS: Okay.ELIZA: Come, come, elucidate your thoughts.ALEXIS: I really like lemonade.ELIZA: That is quite interesting.ALEXIS: I?m glad you think so.ELIZA: How long have you been glad me think so?ALEXIS: That makes no sense.ELIZA: You are being a bit negative.Pop quiz: Which one?s the robot?

NEWS | 10/09/2008

Congressman to propose mandating endowment spending

As the economic downturn has hit both families and universities hard, Rep. Peter Welch (D-Vt.) announced earlier this week that he would introduce a bill that could change the financial balance between students and their educational institutions.

NEWS | 10/09/2008

Political philosophy professor discusses racial disparities in IQ scores

Though the gap between the two has been decreasing, the average IQ of black Americans is equivalent to the average IQ of white Americans 50 years ago, James Flynn, an emeritus professor of political philosophy at the University of Otago in New Zealand, said during a lecture in McCosh 10 on Thursday night.Blacks have narrowed the IQ gap by five points over the last 30 years, Flynn said, noting that the disparity between black and white IQs grows with age.

NEWS | 10/09/2008

Chemistry professor Torquato wins 2009 Adler Award

Chemistry professor Salvatore Torquato was granted the 2009 David Adler Lectureship Award in the Field of Materials Physics last month in recognition of the exceptional quality of his research, review articles and lecturing, according to the American Physical Society (APS) website.Torquato ? who is currently an associated faculty member with the chemical engineering, mechanical and aerospace engineering, and physics departments ? takes a multidisciplinary approach to problems in materials science.?My natural curiosity to understand a broad range of physical and biological phenomena (including cancer modeling) drives my research interests,? Torquato said in an e-mail.

NEWS | 10/09/2008

NYT Times' Revkin: Get real on global warming

People around the world need to be more proactive in respecting the environment, Andrew Revkin, prize-winning New York Times environment writer and author, said Thursday in a lecture titled ?The Hot Seat: Making Sense of Global Warming, from the North Pole to the White House.??We are modifying Earth in ways that are profound and permanent,? Revkin said to a crowd of around 40 community members, professors and students in the Frist Multipurpose Room.Revkin spoke about his experiences as an environmental journalist and writer and about

NEWS | 10/09/2008

Miller ’12 wins election for class presidency

After another delay, the results of the USG freshman class government elections were released Thursday night.In the runoff race, Ashton Miller ?12 won the position of president over contender Michael Yaroshefsky ?12, while Lindy Li ?12 won the position of vice president over opponent Sojung Yi ?12.Austin Hollimon ?12 will be class treasurer, despite receiving fewer votes than Bill Pang ?12.Pang, who received the most votes for treasurer, had his candidacy invalidated after an investigation determined that Pang had ?overspent the limit by buying an ad in the ?Prince,? ? senior elections manager Braeden Kepner-Kraus ?10 said.Runoff elections occurred for any position in which no candidate had a majority of the student votes in the first round.PJ Das ?12 was elected social chair in the first round after winning more than 50 percent of the votes.

NEWS | 10/09/2008

Former University researcher wins chemistry Nobel

Former University researcher Osamu Shimomura will receive the 2008 Nobel Prize in chemistry for his research on the green fluorescent protein (GFP) that he isolated in Aequorea jellyfish while working at the University.

NEWS | 10/08/2008

Opportunities arise from fall of Bear Stearns

As former Bear Stearns employee Charles Diao ?79 begins his morning at his new private investment firm, Diao Capital Management LLC, he often thinks about the turn of events that led him to start his company.Six months ago, Diao was a group head for special situations credit with Bear, the investment bank that came to the brink of bankruptcy in March and was subsequently bought by JPMorgan Chase.

NEWS | 10/08/2008

Two profs, 10 alums sign McCain statement

A hundred economists, including two University professors and 10 other alumni, have signed a statement issued by the campaign of Sen.

NEWS | 10/08/2008

Seniors come and go at four-year colleges

Though the four-year residential college system is too new to produce any reliable trends, more members of the Class of 2009 switched out of the system for their senior year than chose to join it, statistics show.For the Class of 2009, the first class to experience two years of the four-year residential college program, 5.5 percent switched from four-year residential colleges to upperclass housing this year, while 2.5 percent of the class moved from upperclass housing to a four-year college, according to statistics from the housing department.Of this year?s seniors, 77 percent have chosen upperclass housing for both the 2007-08 and 2008-09 school years, while 15 percent remained in four-year colleges for both 2007-08 and 2008-09.Undergraduate Housing Manager Angela Hodgeman said in an e-mail that the net 3 percent decrease in the number of seniors housed in four-year colleges is a reflection of the number of spaces available to the Class of 2009 and not of students choosing to drop out of four-year colleges.Hodgeman said that the Housing Department is currently reviewing the number of bed spaces allocated to upperclass students in room draw.?A lot of students get closed out of the colleges due to the limited number of spaces available for upperclassmen,? Hodgeman said.

NEWS | 10/08/2008

University welcomes Ainslie as new VP for finance and treasurer

Carolyn Ainslie, the recently appointed vice president for finance and treasurer for the University, arrives in Princeton in the middle of a storm not too different from the one her predecessor saw in the 1970s.Christopher McCrudden, who began his career at the University in 1973 as assistant controller for budget and long-range planning, said in an interview this week, ?When I started in the early ?70s, we went through a period.

NEWS | 10/08/2008

Wyss gives Harvard $125 million

Harvard has received $125 million from Swiss engineer, entrepreneur and philanthropist Hansjorg Wyss to fund the creation of the Hansjorg Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering, the university announced in a statement Monday.Wyss, who received his MBA from Harvard Business School in 1965, is head of the Wyss Foundation, an environmental charity, according to The Harvard Crimson.

NEWS | 10/07/2008

Freshman election runoff delayed

The freshman class elections were beset by technical difficulties and rule violations this year, causing the candidates for the runoff elections to be announced Tuesday, one day behind schedule.

NEWS | 10/07/2008

Cell phone use skews surveys

The surge in cell phone usage, as well as absentee and early ballots, are handicapping the accuracy of polls for the 2008 presidential election, pollster Joe Lenski ?87 said in a panel discussion on voting behavior and the trustworthiness of polling in Dodds Auditorium on Tuesday.Lenski, who studied mechanical engineering at the University, was the third speaker on a panel composed of social scientists and pollsters.

NEWS | 10/07/2008

Tilghman to be trustee of new Saudi university

President Tilghman will serve on the board of trustees of King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST), a new research university in Saudi Arabia, Princeton announced Monday.?There is nothing comparable to [KAUST] right now in the Middle East,? Tilghman said, noting that she believes the opening of the nondenominational graduate-level research university will significantly increase opportunities for women.?One of the reasons I have agreed to join the board is because they have made a strong commitment to educate women along with men,? she said, adding that women at the university won?t have to wear hijabs, and non-Muslims will study alongside Muslims.While the opening of the university will not change the fact that women in Saudi Arabia live by very different rules from men, Tilghman said she sees it as ?a promising beginning.??I think you have to begin somewhere, and this is something that is important for those of us in the West who believe in women?s rights,? she said, noting that KAUST aims to have a gender-balanced student body.The new university, which will operate according to the American model, will be a unique institution in Saudi Arabian higher education.?One of the hallmarks of the new university is the commitment to [changing the status quo], and the university is supposed to be run on the same norms as American universities and other reputable foreign universities,? said Wilson School professor Daniel Kurtzer, who served as the United States? ambassador to Israel from 2001 to 2005.?[Saudi Arabia] is a place where there are still traditional values that preclude women from advancing in society to equal treatment,? he noted.He said he hopes that this university will begin to break down some of the obstacles that women face.?This clearly is different from anything else that is going on in Saudi Arabia ? a place in the Kingdom where there will not be barriers to women?s equal advancement and participation in academic progress,? Kurtzer said.Barbara Bodine, a lecturer in the Wilson School and former U.S.

NEWS | 10/07/2008

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