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Paczynski dies of brain cancer

Paczynski dies of brain cancer

Astrophysical sciences professor Bohdan Paczynski, pioneer of a technique that led to the discovery of several planets outside Earth's solar system, died of brain cancer last week at the age of 67.Paczynski, who was born and educated in Poland and joined the Princeton faculty in 1982, was known by his colleagues and students as a brilliant scientist and inspirational teacher."He was one of the world's greatest astrophysicists, recognized as the world authority on stellar structure and evolution," astrophysics professor Bruce Draine said.

NEWS | 04/25/2007

TerraCycle faces Scotts Miracle-Gro lawsuit

Scotts Miracle-Gro Company is suing TerraCycle, Inc. ? a local fertilizer company founded by two former Princeton students ? claiming that its product designs and advertising statements are too similar to those of Scotts Miracle-Gro.TerraCycle founders Tom Szaky '05 and Jon Beyer '05 deny the allegations from the fertilizer giant and plan to fight it necessary.

NEWS | 04/25/2007

Students choose smaller majors

Three years ago, Dean of the College Nancy Malkiel pioneered the Major Choices initiative, designed to raise underclassmen's awareness of smaller departments.Nonetheless, this week hundreds of sophomores chose to major in economics, politics, history and the Wilson School ?? the four largest departments on campus.Since the 2004-05 academic year, Major Choices has ensured that "curriculum development funds have been and will be targeted to the support of initiatives in smaller departments to devise new courses or renovate existing courses to appeal more effectively to beginning students," Malkiel wrote in an email.Though she credits Major Choices for aiding in the growth of some smaller departments, departments are more skeptical of the initiative, questioning whether the initiative is responsible for the slight increases in some departments.Major Choices, Malkiel said, is not designed "to discourage students who are passionately interested in departments like History or Politics or Economics from pursuing studies in those fields."But the slight increase in enrollment in some smaller departments over the last two years has been accompanied by a slight decrease for certain larger ones.Malkiel emphasized the role of the Major Choices initiative in the rise of student concentrators in some small departments, citing "significant changes" in enrollment in the classics, art and archaeology, French and Italian, and psychology departments, among others.The classics department, for example, traditionally had 12 to 15 seniors each year, chair Dennis Feeney said.

NEWS | 04/25/2007

First online draw proves to be a success

Almost a month after the earliest round of room draw, the final draw group of six sophomores logged on the room draw website and completed the Housing Department's first-ever online room draw with a click of the submit button on their laptops.After decades of "chaotic" in-person room draw, as Housing Department director Andrew Kane called it in an interview, the online system consolidated the process of room selection, which started March 28."Room draw was a success by all the measures we might use," Kane wrote in a press release.

NEWS | 04/25/2007

Two punk rock, ska bands to perform at Lawnparties

Punk bands Reel Big Fish and Less Than Jake will perform at Quadrangle Club for next weekend's Lawnparties, along with Welbilt, a rock band from Washington, D.C., which will open the show."This is going to be an exciting show," USG social chair Andrew Heyman '07, who was involved in choosing the band lineup, said.

NEWS | 04/25/2007

Two of three candidates told election tallies early

USG election managers shut down the campaign website of Tom Haine '08 ? who is facing off against Grant Gittlin '08 in the runoff for their class presidency ? for publicizing incorrect voting numbers evidently given to him by the managers.Haine sent an email to members of the junior class yesterday morning citing voting percentages from the first election round.

NEWS | 04/25/2007

Mayoral hopefuls discuss arts neighborhood, Dinky move

Mayoral candidates Mildred Trotman and Kim Pimley debated the possible effects of the University's planned arts neighborhood last night in front of an audience of more than 70 students and local residents.The new development in the area near the Dinky station has come under fire in recent months over how it will affect the local community and the University's tax contribution to the Township.In their first public appearance together, the two Democrats differed on their views of the proposed development.

NEWS | 04/25/2007

Haine '08 wins Class of 2008 presidency

Tom Haine '08 won the runoff election for next year's senior class president, defeating three-year incumbent Grant Gittlin '08.Haine garnered 54.15 percent of the 626 ballots registered during the 24-hour voting period, while Gittlin received 287 votes or 45.85 percent.More to come.

NEWS | 04/25/2007

Reel Big Fish and Less Than Jake to perform at Lawnparties

Welbilt, a rock band from Washington, D.C., will open for punk acts Reel Big Fish and Less Than Jake at Quadrangle Club for next weekend's Lawnparties.Reel Big Fish's 1997 hit "Sell Out" sparked the ska band's popularity.

NEWS | 04/24/2007

Commencement speakers announced

Seniors Glen Weyl and Maya Maskarinec were named valedictorian and Latin salutatorian, respectively, at the University faculty meeting Monday night and will deliver speeches at Commencement.Weyl is an economics major from Los Altos Hills, Calif., and has produced economics papers that have attracted attention from theorists and policymakers in the field, economics professor Hyun Shin, who has served as a mentor to Weyl, said."His senior thesis is a very impressive paper on the topic of the theory of two-sided markets; it's a very new topic, and he has made fundamental contributions to that topic," Shin said.Weyl was approached by the U.S.

NEWS | 04/24/2007

USG to hold runoff for Class of 2008 president

After a week of contentious debates and intense campaigning, juniors Grant Gittlin and Tom Haine are set to compete in a 24-hour runoff election starting today at noon in the race for Class of 2008 president, according to unofficial results released by the USG last night.

NEWS | 04/24/2007

Professors' salaries drop in rankings

Correction appendedThe average full Princeton professor takes home $163,700 every year, according to an annual report by the American Association of University Professors' (AAUP). The University's overall national rank for professors' salaries fell from third to fourth this year.Full professors at Rockefeller University, a biomedical science research institution in New York, are the nation's highest paid, earning on average $186,400 a year.

NEWS | 04/24/2007

Farlow: Health organizations failing to battle global disease

Though global health organizations strive to control disease in the developing world, the funding for such programs is often costly and difficult to sustain, Oxford scholar Andrew Farlow told an audience of about 30 students, professors and community members in Robertson Hall last night.Farlow analysed the growth of funding into global health initiatives over the past ten years and observed that donors often opt for short-term fixes in place of long-term solutions.

NEWS | 04/24/2007

Train kills man at Princeton Junction

PRINCETON JUNCTION, April 24 ? A 39-year-old man was hit and killed by an Amtrak train at Princeton Junction station shortly before 3 p.m.

NEWS | 04/24/2007

Grants promote a peaceful posterity

Living in India during high school, Julia Neubauer '07 saw a three-year-old girl in the corner of an orphanage every day.

NEWS | 04/24/2007

U. implements new security notification system

The University has purchased and begun to implement Connect-ED, an emergency notification system that sends campus-wide voicemails, text messages and emails to students in the event of a crisis.Though the purchase seems particularly necessary following last week's shootings at Virginia Tech, the University bought the system two weeks ago, University spokeswoman Cass Cliatt '96 said, in part because a January campus power outage "showed us that we needed a better way to communicate with students [in the event of an emergency]."Before selecting the new system, the University tested "a variety of different services," Cliatt said, adding that the University's Emergency Preparedness Task Force had been "discussing our responses to various crises and emergencies and ways to improve how we deal with them."The service costs between $2 and $3 per student annually and allows for messages to be sent only to people in certain groups, such as a single residential college or dorm.Natasha Rabe, the chief marketing officer for NTI, the company that owns and runs Connect-ED, said that between 75 and 80 colleges use the system, in addition to other school systems, municipalities and military and governmental organizations.

NEWS | 04/24/2007

USG election results announced

USG officers released the following results for all contested elections earlier tonight. All results are unofficial until certified by the University registrar. U-Council Davionshante Chism '09 Matt Field '08 Sarah Hogarty '10 Merritt Hummer '10 Rohan Joshi '08 Sarah Langberg '09 Brian No '10 Liz Rosen '10 Maria Salciccioli '09 Becca Silver '09 Class of 2008 government President: Runoff between Grant Gittlin and Tom Haine Social Chair: Jay Serpe Class of 2009 government President: Grant Bermann Class of 2010 government President: Connor Diemand-Yauman Vice President: Aditya Panda Treasurer: Rashad Badr

NEWS | 04/23/2007

'If I had a nickel for every beer I drank today ...'

April 24 is a familiar date to the Princeton drinker. Inspired by the putative Paul Newman quote, "24 beers in a case, 24 hours in a day.

NEWS | 04/23/2007

Would Public Safety be able to prevent a shooting?

About a week before last week's shootings at Virginia Tech, the University made the prescient purchase of a mass alert system to notify students of campus security crises.The University's system, which messages students' cell phones or other portable devices, has not yet been fully implemented, but it signals a heightened concern about campus security that existed even before the shootings.But the shootings have ignited a national debate on methods to prevent and effectively respond to crises and have led to questions about campus security procedures.Some Virginia Tech students have criticized campus safety officials for their slow response to gunman Cho Seung-Hui's murder of two students.

NEWS | 04/23/2007

Ex-CIA head emphasizes clean energy

America needs to develop secure, relatively inexpensive and clean ways of powering transportation as alternatives to oil, former CIA Director James Woolsey said yesterday in a lecture on the intersection of global warming and national security.Woolsey told a crowd of about 120 people in McCosh 10 that two facets of America's energy supply pose threats to national security: dependence on foreign oil and the energy grid."The electricity grid is highly vulnerable," Woolsey said.

NEWS | 04/23/2007

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