The Week in Brief

Ivy League Notebook

Princeton

Brad Simmons, a sophomore at Princeton, is on a first-name basis with every worker at the University Postal Office. His mother sends him at least three packages a week containing items ranging from candy to toilletries kits. Brad's older brother, Jim, who was a victim of similar maternal attention, graduated from Princeton last year and moved to New York. He has refused to give his mother his new address for fear she will resume her package-sending harassment. Sadly, during their Princeton careers, Ms. Simmons was the only female from whom they received anything sealed with a kiss.

Penn

The First Union Center in Philadelphia was filled to capacity on Sun., Jan. 28, as students and Philly residents gathered to watch the ninth annual Buffalo Wing Bowl Championship. The event featured a G-string-clad Miss Wing Bowl, along with 22 participants, their personal theme songs, their and entourages. The victor of the day was El Wingador, who consumed 137 chicken wings in 30 minutes. For his victory, he walked away with a trip for two to Aruba, while Penn's participant, Sloth, departed covered in a pool of his own Gatorade-and-chicken-wing vomit.

Harvard

Maria S. Ho recently discovered that Harvard doesn't take exams lightly. She fell ill right before a Chinese exam and was rushed to University Health Services for a 26-hour stay. Ho had the choice of completing her two missed exams in March or in the hospital, and she chose the latter. Professors asked for a quarantine of her hospital room not to prevent the spread of infection, but to protect her test results from contamination by outside help. —Compiled by Alexis Ortiz from the Daily Princetonian, the Daily Pennsylvanian, and the Harvard Crimson

Dartmouth shocked by death of two professors

Dartmouth was shaken last weekend by news of the brutal murders of two of its most popular professors, Susanne Zantop, professor of German and comparative literature, and her husband Half Zantop, professor of geology and geophysics. Both were found dead in their home on the evening of Sat., Jan. 27.

At a press conference on Thurs., Feb. 1, New Hampshire Attorney General Philip McGlaughlin confirmed that the Zantops were stabbed to death, postulating that the murderer was most likely someone the two professors knew. McGlaughlin refused to elaborate on a report in the Dartmouth regarding a student who had been questioned in relation to the crime, stating only, "I would not use the word [suspect]." He did confirm, however, that a large pool of students, colleagues, friends, and neighbors of the Zantops are being questioned by the authorities.

Stunned administrators reacted with sorrow to the news. "Susanne and Half's deaths are an enormous loss to our community," Dartmouth President James Wright said in a statement. "They were loved and respected by faculty and students alike."

The President and his wife opened their home on Mon., Jan. 29, allowing students and faculty to gather and express their grief. Extensive counseling services were made available to the Dartmouth community.

As The Dartmouth reported on Monday, the tranquility felt by many students on campus has been partly lost as a result of the slayings. "You hear a lot of `I can't believe this would happen in Hanover,'" Tom Denniston '03 told the Herald.

The New Hampshire attorney general's office has named no suspects and continues to keep the community informed through a series of daily press conferences broadcast on local cable television.

Memorial services for the Zantops will be held on Sat., Feb. 3. —Luke Habberstad

Yale Harvests farmers

How many freshmen want to start off their Yale careers on the right FOOT, but aren't excited at the prospect of hiking in the mountains and getting dirty for six days? Future pre-frosh will be spared this dilemma, thanks to the initiative of a committee of FOOT leaders headed by Ian Cheney, BK '02, Lise Clavel, DC '02, Jill Cohen, BK '03, and Lydia Pace, JE '01. This fall, they will be launching Harvest, an offshoot of FOOT and a community service project a little closer to civilization.

Groups of eight freshmen led by two upperclassmen trained in farming will spend six days helping on one of several organic farms located within a 10-minute drive of Old Campus. "Because the kids are not farmers, farm tasks will be relatively simple," Cheney said. A typical day will consist of planting, harvesting, weeding, picking, and shoveling, supplemented by swims and small hikes in nearby forests. Kids will come away with "the same sort of excitement and sense of having accomplished something that FOOT offers," Priscilla Kellert, FOOT program director, said.

Cheney expressed his hope that "by exposing urban students to local agriculture, the Harvest program can not only contribute a week of community service, but also establish a network of sustainable relationships between the Yale community and Connecticut food producers."

"I think it's so amazing that Ian [Cheney] and company have taken it upon themselves to organize this program from scratch, basically," Rachel Whelan, PC '02, FOOT co-coordinator, said. It remains to be seen whether four trial trips in late August will harvest similar popularity among freshmen participants. —Emiko Sheard

A portrait of Irish film

Twenty prominent directors and critics will arrive at the Whitney Humanities Center on Fri., Feb. 2, for a four-day celebration of some of Ireland's most politically provocative cinema.

Commemorating what would be James Joyce's 119th birthday, the symposium takes place in the context of a continuing struggle between Irish unionist filmmakers and the government over the censorship of movies which challenge the established political order. The festival, entitled "The Theater of Irish Cinema," opened on Thurs., Feb. 1, with a screening of John Huston's adaptation of James Joyce's The Dead (1987) and will continue through Sun., Feb. 4.

There will be lectures by such prominent names in cinema as Neil Jordan, whose Michael Collins (1996) will be shown on Fri., Feb. 2; and Seamus Deane, who holds a distinguished chair at the University of Notre Dame's Keough Center for Irish Studies. The center is a co-sponsor of the event.

The symposium was organized by Yale Film Studies professor and co-chair Dudley Andrew. Andrew came to New Haven from the University of Iowa, where he staged numerous symposia and movie marathons. "The Theater of Irish Cinema" is Andrew's first project here and is anticipated to begin a new era in the Film Studies department.

Other screenings and lectures will include Mary Ellen Bute's Finnegan's Wake (1966), John Ford's The Rising of the Moon (1957), and a lecture by Luke Gibbons entitled "Visualizing the Voice, Joycean Images," which will explore the cultural expression and political repression of Irish filmmakers over the past few decades.

In a new effort to bring together the Theater and Film Studies departments, the symposium coincides with a production of Frank McGuiness' Dolly West's Kitchen, a play directed by Murray Biggs which will run through Sun., Feb. 3, in the Berkeley College Multipurpose Room. —Benita Singh

Graduate student makes splash in the gene pool

Graduate student Christine Horak, GRD '03, has developed a procedure for identifying which genes within a cell get expressed. Her research may one day lead to new methods for treating cancer.

Horak is co-author of a study in the most recent edition of Nature magazine that investigates protein molecules called transcription factors. "Transcription factors are the key molecules that regulate what cells become and how they proliferate," MCDB Professor Michael Snyder, who was involved in Horak's research, said. The method that Horak developed allowed her to determine specifically which genes the transcription factors activated in order to cause cell proliferation.

Though Horak's study concerned yeast cells, it is also relevant to understanding human cells. Since transcription factors determine what a cell becomes—for instance, a nerve cell or an epithelial cell—they are key to understanding human development.

Their role in cell regeneration is also critical. By understanding the specific genes that are activated in events such as DNA replication, scientists should one day be able to control proliferation. Since cancer results from overly rapid replication of cells, such an understanding could help change the way the disease is treated, Horak said. —Eva Kaye

Yale Index

1. Number of Winter Balls that took place last weekend: 1
2. Number of balls shrunken by winter last weekend: 5,200
3. Number of times Eli Hunt (from the YSO Halloween movie) appeared on YaleStation.org after his winter-balling adventures: 1
4. Number of times Eli Hunt appeared in the YDN after his winter-balling adventures: 1
5. Percentage of people who think Eli Hunt should have been named "Mike": 50
6. Number of points the Herald will score while balling against the YDN this April: 115
7. Number of YDN editors who wish they were as cool as my roommate: 16
8. Number of editors on the YDN masthead: 24
9. Number of times per week that words beginning with "mast" amuse me: 55
10. Number of YDN editors who "mast": 24
11. Percentage of people who lie on the Herald ValenTyng purity test: 69
12. Percentage of YDN editors who lie on the "masting" question: 95

—Compiled by Franklin V. Gothic

1) YCC; 2) 2x number of male Yalies; 3,4); sight; 5) Gallup; 6) SI; 7) common knowledge; 8) it's the only error-free part of the paper; 9) deep, Bodhisattva-like self-knowledge; 10) hidden cameras on York Street; 11,12) guessing

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