Miracles, Marcus the Magn(et)ificent Levine, answers why your headphone-covered ears ring when you walk through the Butler detectors? ”>

Typical Butler denizen

In the latest installment of SocketHop, Minister of Miracles, Marcus the Magn(et)ificent Levine, answers why your headphone-covered ears ring when you walk through the Butler detectors? 

Don’t let the tranquil, seldom broken silence of the reading rooms fool you—Butler is a very loud place. Not just Butler, but practically everywhere in the modern world is saturated with the silent noise of electromagnetic radiation. As normally functioning human beings, we usually only come into contact with visible and infrared light. Still, innumerable other frequencies of electromagnetic radiation beyond our perception, from radio to ultraviolet, permeate the air.

While you’re strolling through the Butler book theft detectors lookin’ fly with your doughnut sized headphones, you may experience a strange sharp ringing noise. The 3M security gates operate using magnetic EAS (Electronic Article Surveillance) technology, and the way the system works can directly interfere with your musical experience, and perhaps drive you to question your sanity.

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Wikimedia“>

Not this kind of photography

Show your appreciation of your friends’ fancy cameras in real life! Postcrypt Art Gallery (in the basement of St. Paul’s chapel) is celebrating the opening of their first show of the year, “Summer Photography,” at 7:30 this evening. It may not be Chelsea, but they do have snacks and beverages. The thing runs until 10, so it’s likely that they’re well-stocked with provisions.

Amateur via Wikimedia

All those pipes, but where could they lead to?

Several tipsters have noticed Facilities personnel knee-deep in a series of mysterious earthworks on South Field. Bwog is ridden with more questions than it can answer. Could these pipes be water related? Poop-bearing? Electrical or steam conducting? The Core doesn’t teach us to make these distinctions.

Update (6:01 pm) : Facilities has informed us that the pipes will house power cables for an electrical box nearby. No word yet on what (or who?!) may need all the extra wattage.

Vegans and Vegetarians, avert your eyes! But carnivores, it’s time for us to use our gratuitous “meat and greet” tag, and you should start salivating. This week Matt Powell covers the basics of beef, pork, burgers, and chicken.

And bacon strips and bacon strips and bacon strips...

Beef

Know where your meat comes from! The Culinary Society has a handy guide to choosing cuts and such. Like wine, flavors of meat vary widely.

I usually stick with four different cuts when making steak: hanger, rib eye, sirloin, or filet mignon. Hanger steak is a very sinewy cut that should ideally be marinated, ideally overnight, before cooking. (A simple marinade can include ingredients such as lemon juice, garlic cloves, salt, pepper, herbs, wine, onion, oil). Rib eye and sirloin are my go-to cuts for a quick meal. They only need a sprinkling of salt and pepper and it’s on to the skillet. As for filet mignon, I reserve this cut for special occasions—it’s not exactly in everyone’s price range.

Basic Recipe for Steak

Ingredients:

• 1-4 oz. steak, preferably rib eye or sirloin
• Olive oil
• Sea salt and pepper
• 1 tbsp. butter/olive oil/animal fat

Pork ‘n more after the jump

Liquid nitrogen: it's like getting iced, but... much worse.

The physics community’s collective world was recently rocked by the latest results from CERN, with some now claiming that they have measured neutrinos traveling faster than the speed of light. While the discrepancy is small (only 60 nanoseconds), it could force physicists to reconsider Einstein’s theory of relativity. Columbia’s go-to physics rock star, Brain Greene, remains skeptical: “I would bet just about everything I hold dear that this won’t hold up to scrutiny.” Ouch.

One million Americans suffer from Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, but researchers have yet to understand its causes. Earlier studies suggested that the condition might stem from the XMRV virus or one of the related mouse leukemia viruses. However, recent data from patient blood work finds no correlation between XMRV and chronic fatigue syndrome. Mailman School of Public Health Professor W. Ian Lipkin is conducting his own study, though other faculty members such as Vincent Racaniello agree that “it’s clearly time to move on.”

The blood-brain barrier makes it impossible for doctors to intravenously deliver drugs to the brain. Or at least it was impossible until Columbia professor Elisa Konofagou developed a method using short ultra sound pulses to safely open the blood-brain barrier. Konfagou believes this method will lead to treatments for diseases such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s. Cue an updated Frontiers curriculum.

Graphene has already established a reputation as an incredibly versatile material, but things might just get even better—a new paper published by a large collaboration of Columbia professors and graduate students hints at an unplumbed frontier in the nitrogen doping of graphene. The embedded nitrogen atoms profoundly change the electrical properties of the graphene, albeit only in a two-atom radius, making it highly tunable and useful for electronics. That’s all well and good, but could it possibly be worth all those Girl Scout cookies?

IcyHawt image via Wikimedia Commons.

We have a new concept space on campus, hot on the heels of the Zen Garden. A recent email from DSpar on Barnard’s renovations included the following message:

“Thanks to the faculty and students in the Architecture Department, Altschul Atrium is newly reconfigured as The Hive. It’s an innovative space divided into lounge, meeting, and gallery areas with modular furniture that can be arranged in a multitude of ways.”

This has literally been realized in a series of bee-related installations, and was officially opened on Tuesday. Behold:

In the past Bwog has managed to stick up for the little guy, whether it be the McBain Shaft, the PE requirement or Fire Alarms. For the latest defense project, we turn to our in-house Jersey native Alexandra Svokos and ponder the terrible wonder that lies on the other side of the Hudson.

Listen, we get it. It’s super fun to shit on New Jersey. The armpit of America, full of guidos and bankrupt housewives, Jersey seems to boast nothing but grimy beaches and Newark International Airport. But if that were really all there was to it, wouldn’t residents get so sick of the demeaning and sometimes pitying response to “I’m from New Jersey” that they’d have all left by now? As it is, Jersey is the most densely populated state in America, so there’s gotta be something else.

First off, New Jersey schools consistently rank among the best in the nation, and the two highest average SAT scores from any high school in the United States come from the state. That’s right, those are some smart mall rats smoking up a cool appearance in the parking lot. Also, I don’t know if you know this or not, but New Jersey is, like, right next to New York City. It’s the easiest way to be in New York without actually being in New York, and it’s so much less overdone than Williamsburg. “I live in Fort Lee. You’ve probably never heard of it.”

That said, New Jersey has a lot of suburbs. But growing up in the suburbs doesn’t have to be as bleak and stifling as Arcade Fire portrays it! They’re safe, convenient, and full of malls and movie theaters. You’ll also learn how to drive really well, because you’ll be doing it every day, sometimes against and other times allied with the craziest drivers in the nation. You’ll have every clichéd high school movie moment from windows down with music blasting to visiting haunted asylums to seeing everyone you know after midnight at your favorite diner. Every suburban child has that special bond of complaining that there is nothing to do while secretly loving where they’re from.

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Smudged hands used to signify a hard day's work

Thom Yorke of Radiohead put in a plug for the film Inside Job at Wednesday’s concert downtown. Now they’re going to play for Occupy Wall Street. (NYT/Gawker)

Rafael Moneo, the architect behind our beloved NoCo building, joined two others in a New Yorker article that profiled the changing face of research laboratories across the country. Did we mention neighboring Pupin is looking for the God particle? (New Yorker)

At least one bank has announced its plans to start assessing a monthly fee for debit card usage next year a la Netflix. Many have already vocalized their plans to ditch debit cards altogether, which makes us wonder if Flex can save the day, at least for Columbia students. (Wall Street Journal)

A Columbia student accompanied a reporter to the Democratic Republic of the Congo to report on Bosco Ntaganda, a Congolese warlord. (Mother Jones)

Finger paintin’ tyke via Wikimedia

Hidden Talents introduces you to the secret lives of your classmates. You think you did well on the SATs, but can you breathe fire? Reveal your peers’ top tricks to us at tips@bwog.com. In this edition, our Talent Scout Alex Eynon met Miss Virgin Islands, BC’13.

Daniels with the Governor John P. de Jongh, Jr. of the Virgin Islands

Camila Daniels may appear to be a typical college student, but that’s only because you haven’t seen her in a tiara. The Barnard junior took on the pageant world this summer for the first time, and her talent and poise won her the title of Miss Virgin Islands as well as a spot in the Miss America competition this coming January. Daniels prepared for the competition by brushing up on current events, practicing the flute (her talent), hitting the gym, and, perhaps most importantly, creating a community service platform to make a difference in her community. As a musician herself, she promoted music education programming in schools by working with both teachers and public officials on policy issues.

Daniels explained the events and scoring for those of us whose main pageant experience may come from watching “Toddlers and Tiaras” (Bwog does not endorse this kind of low brow entertainment)—“[Miss America] is different because it truly is a scholarship pageant—we require every girl to have a platform, we value girls on physical fitness and not just appearances in terms of the way they look in a swimsuit. Your personal interview counts for twenty-five percent and your talent counts for thirty-five percent of your total score, so more than half of your score is made up of things of substance. So the competition is based on things like that, the quality of someone’s platform and their educational goals rather than on appearances, and it sets itself apart in that regard.”

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Anonymous Tipster“>

Like East Germans after the fall of the wall, these poor wretched Canadians are enjoying respite from their cold humorless homeland.

fun fun fun fun via Anonymous Tipster

Deantini, you might be aching for a silly game played with ceramic balls. While we don’t know how to help you there, Drinking With Bwog scientist Elliott Grieco brings you a light drink named after a silly game played with ceramic balls.”>

No dummy, not that kind of Bocce Ball!

Once you’re done welcoming in the new administration with the Deantini, you might be aching for a silly game played with ceramic balls. While we don’t know how to help you there, Drinking With Bwog scientist Elliott Grieco brings you a light drink named after a silly game played with ceramic balls.

For this week’s Drinking with Bwog, I would like to share one of my favorite highballs: the Bocce Ball. This is an incredibly sweet, delicious, and easy to make mixed drink. Not to mention that it contains a healthy dose of vitamin C. There are two variations on this drink; I myself prefer using only amaretto. Some background on its ingredients: amaretto is an almond-flavored liquor, used in a wide variety of cocktails. One of the more popular amaretto brands is Disaronno. Contrary to intuition, amaretto is in fact safe for those with nut allergies! For a bit of spice, I recommend you go with the Southern Comfort.

Ingredients:

• 1½ oz Amaretto (or ¾ oz Amaretto and ¾ oz Southern Comfort)
• Orange Juice

Directions:
Pour the Amaretto/Southern Comfort liqueur over ice, fill with orange juice. Garnish with an orange.

Other Tips:
Some recommend adding a splash of soda water to help heighten the liqueurs’ flavors. If you’d like to tone down the sweetness (or convince others that you make the world’s best screwdrivers), substitute ¾ oz. vodka for half of your liqueur mixer.

Oh, and I forgot one thing: kick back, relax, and enjoy.

Senior wisdom via Wikimedia Commons

"I am so glad we signed up for Calc II, this textbook is a riot!"

Like the leaves fluttering to the ground so our laughter falls away as we bury our noses in textbooks. But not necessarily—sometimes textbooks say weird and amazing shit. Take this quote from Empire City (assigned by Prof Ken Jackson for his perennial favorite ‘History of the City of New York’ class) which describes Columbia’s colorful past:

The college, tho’ only one third of the plan is compleat (sic), makes a fine appearance, on one of the finest situations perhaps of any college in the world. [...] One circumstance I think is a little unlucky, the enterance (sic) to this college is thro’ one of the streets where the most noted prostitutes live. This is certainly a temptation to the youth that have occasion to pass so often that way.

If you find similar hilarity, whether informative or bizarre, send it our way.

Unintentional theme of toddlers continued via Wikimedia

You'll have no problem carbo-loading after this

Two friends stretching on the Dodge mats:

Girl: “Oh, I totally smoked a j before I came here. You can really feel the burn, but not in a bad way, I’m more detached.”

Guy: “Oh, uhuh”

Girl [dancing]: “And I’ve been listening to Foster the People for an hour.”

Performance enhancing? drug via wikimedia.

Found on 3rd floor of Pupin.
Identify design of mug and graphics on it to claim.
Email vl2218@columbia.edu.

Discovered in the Furnald main lounge. Please contact dsh2128@columbia.edu if it’s yours!