It’s time for AltSpec once again, in which Bwog reminds you that you’re far less successful than your esteemed colleagues. Piglet flu took down Big Red and now it’s bearing down on light blue.  Thankfully, “Dr. John Clarke” has some nearly-rhyming advice to avoid the sniffles. Remember that you can always validate your choice of […]

Put down the wands – a wizard will not be joining the Columbia community in the fall. Multiple tipsters alerted us (with startling quickness) to Emma Watson finally going on the record about her Ivy destination. And yes, as predicted, Brown won this battle. Guess we’ll have to settle for the White House.

We return from our 4th of July break with a round-up of some other stories we received this past week. First, former SEAS dean/idiosyncratic emailer Zvi Galil has resigned as president of Tel Aviv University, after only two years in the post. Galil became president of the Israeli university in 2007, after twelve years as […]

An incoming 2013er whose father is incarcerated writes about her path to Columbia. James Franco drops out of speaking at UCLA’s commencement. Jeff Sachs wants the US to send water, not money. Will cities of the future need “vertical farming?” Two Columbia professors say “yes.” David Helfand has said that a meteor could bring down […]

It was this man’s vision to lead SEAS, of all things. Columbia grads spawn from the east coast to represent the entire country around the world. Green monkeys.  Chalfie’s dream finally comes to pass. We’re far too busy cleaning up to fix the problem. Back in the day, anti-Semitism was endemic. It’s Ebola, but it’s […]

The architecture firm behind the new geochemistry building at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory has won three design awards at the 2009 Sustainable Design Awards (building pictured at right).  Xerox’s new CEO, the first African American women CEO of a Fortune 500 company, is also a Columbia graduate. Her degree? Master’s in engineering. Three more Columbia […]

Thanks to one of the few female graduates in the early days of the law school, copyright law was blessed with the “fair use” clause.  Here’s to in-class movies and music. Measles, mumps, and rubella are frightening now, but as a child you would have preferred putting off your immunization visits to being saved from […]

Image via toyrific.co.uk Stop panicking about lil’ piggy flu.  We’ve found a way to make it politically incorrect. The only reason we have a potential pandemic is all those corrupt doctors.  Free Viagra be damned, we want our vaccine! The 2013’s are signing away their souls (on Facebook).  Columbia has the fewest downsides—compared to Cornell. […]

Match the quote to the speaker.  To give you a break from problem sets, it should be pretty easy, but answers after the jump anyway.  Good luck! Quotes Speakers “[I]t was like a national day of protest.  There was a counterculture dimension to it.” Roberta Balstad, Center for Research on Environmental Decisions “…hardly principles on […]

Another blog has discovered our friend Sarah Dooley.  Yes, her character is a lot like Michael Scott, but so much cuter! A Columbia grad student played in that intertubes-inspired concert at Carnegie Hall: “I haven’t hardly played at all.” Drought in Africa: yes, it could happen, and it’s happened before: “startling.” Ever wonder what happens […]

The weekly “Gee, really?” news of the week: replacing soda with water is healthy.   In fact, water even has fewer calories. The Chronicle is careful not to judge when reporting on Massad’s probable tenure.  It’s just been a “rocky road,” but not the delicious kind. Harvard was mentioned in global media more often than Columbia […]

At the Double Discovery center, they confirm and reconfirm that dating abuse is just not okay. Our pediatric neuroscience department was managed by a fraudster.  John Bzdil pleaded guilty on Tuesday for defrauding Columbia for $180,000 used for personal expenses. Miller Theatre has a “new” director.  Granted, she was the acting director since October. A […]

Irvine R. Levine, style guru, insisted on his bowties and the use of his middle initial during his forty-five years at NBC. The former Weatherman and 1968 revolutionary Mark Rudd has released his new memoir, but The Wall Street Journal is far from impressed. An oddly-specific study shows that fast food makes people fat.  For […]

 Photo via Wikipedia Locally – Our women’s archery coach demonstrates that arrows can indeed puncture humans. Internationally – We’re not opening international campuses, just research facilities.  All the glory, none of the undergrads. Internally – All those Twinkies in your college diet will make you forget everything you’ve learned. Virtually – He got a journalism […]

To exams: Who were you fooling with all of those hours you spent in Butler last week? Not the good people at Cramster.com, apparently — the cheatsheet site reports more traffic from Columbia than any other school. So this is how you were using those WiFi maps. To global warming: Emitted in Texas, sequestered in […]