Featured Stories Archive – August, 2009
Program guides aspiring college students toward success
By Eric Quiñones · Posted August 31, 2009; 09:55 a.m.
For local high school students who aspire to higher education, the Princeton campus this summer served as a launching pad toward their goal of attending college. Sixty-eight students participated in the Princeton University Preparatory Program's six-week summer institute, which includes intensive coursework, cultural activities and college tours.
Unraveling language puzzles
By Jennifer Greenstein Altmann · Posted August 27, 2009; 12:00 p.m.
At 4:30 on a Wednesday afternoon, students majoring in psychology, mathematics and classics came together in a classroom at Frist Campus Center. They spent an hour working on fractions written in Egyptian Arabic, translating sentences from the Agta language of the Philippines into Central Cagayan Agta and considering how the Proto-Indo-European "dh" sound vanished from certain English words. The problems were not part of a course curriculum. Rather, they were a series of linguistic puzzles presented at a meeting of the Linguistics Club.
Undergrad wins $100,000 to expand iPhone app for diabetics
By Chris Emery · Posted August 26, 2009; 11:27 p.m.
After watching diabetic friends and family members struggle to keep track of their food consumption, blood sugar and insulin intake, Matthew Connor knew there had to be a better way. Then it dawned on him: Most people nowadays carry mobile phones. And more and more those phones are tiny computers that can store information and connect to the Internet.
Chinese shadow figures highlight University's extensive, seldom-seen collection
By Ushma Patel · Posted August 20, 2009; 09:00 a.m.
An exhibition of vividly painted and delicately carved Chinese shadow theater figures at Princeton's East Asian Library provides a window into an enduring art form as well as Chinese religious beliefs, literature and other cultural markers.
New 'Princeton Guide to Ecology' explores topics from climate change to community organization
By Jennifer Greenstein Altmann · Posted August 17, 2009; 09:00 a.m.
In his new book, "The Princeton Guide to Ecology," Princeton professor Simon Levin has tapped more than 130 experts to compile a concise, authoritative one-volume reference to the major subjects and concepts in ecology.
From top to bottom, Butler will be a living environmental laboratory
By Kitta MacPherson · Posted August 13, 2009; 09:00 a.m.
When 283 Princeton undergraduates move into Butler College this September, they will be entering a 113,000-square-foot complex integrating sustainability features from top to bottom, including the green roofs on more than half of its buildings and a stormwater cistern that will collect and recycle rainwater to irrigate courtyard landscaping.
Students illuminate campus lighting with a highbeam on sustainability
By Jennifer Greenstein Altmann · Posted August 10, 2009; 09:00 a.m.
For four weeks this summer, a nocturnal visitor to Princeton's campus might have encountered a strange sight — a wooden cart rolling through campus on a bicycle wheel, light meters hanging from a pole in front and two graduate students pushing in back. The Rube Goldberg-like contraption is the centerpiece of a project to collect data on pathway lighting on campus.
Opportunities open up world of learning for Princeton students
By Karin Dienst · Posted August 5, 2009; 11:29 p.m.
Classes are out, but learning is a central summertime pursuit for many Princeton students as they participate in a range of activities around the world.