Interesting positions await from the Department of the Interior!

Spotted in a Hartley bathroom

(Not to ruin the fun, but a quick Google search reveals this is probably a product of Sign Hacker, so no need to actually worry.)

SCIENCE

Columbia scientists take no vacations!

Defying conventional medical technology, one Columbia engineer has decided to build his way out of the HIV/AIDS pandemic in Africa. The mChip, now passing its fourth year of testing, aims to deliver the diagnostic capabilities of a full-fledged lab to patients on a hundred-dollar chip. In case that’s not impressive, the lab-on-a-chip has a 100-percent detection rate for HIV in only 15 minutes testing time. The project’s team hopes to extend the chip’s superpowers to also detecting hepatitis B or C as well as the most common sexually-transmitted diseases. The team even plans to integrate the chip with satellite or cell phone equipment in order to transmit results wirelessly to doctors—though in a post-Steve Jobs world, we can only hope that all that miniaturization doesn’t get in the way of usability.

Seismologists at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory briefly poked their heads into the media to help ease New Yorker’s concerns over this week’s earthquake. In addition to helping bump up the quake from a 5.8 to a 5.9, the scientists are going to use the collected data to learn more about the underlying rock. Who knows, maybe they’ll find an entire village buried beneath Central Park.

For the first time ever, Columbia neuroscientists were able to convert ordinary skin cells into functional forebrain neurons using direct reprogramming techniques. The recent achievement offers a glimmer of promise for treatment of neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s. While gene therapy has shown its success in treating “bubble boy” disease, we wonder if someone has tried their regeneration experiment on a familiar campus icon.

A new study by the university’s National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse has found that teenagers who use online social networking sites are more likely to engage in drug use. The risk increases fivefold for tobacco, threefold for alcohol, and twofold for marijuana. Some even say a parallel can be drawn to another cultural phenomenon involving ironic facial hair. (Just say no, 2015ers)

Scientists via Wikimedia Commons

via Wikimedia

Jenny Slate, a CC alum, is apparently not being asked back to the SNL Cast. Analysts speculate the move may be related to her decision to drop the F-bomb in her debut performance. (NYT/HuffPo)

Irrigation may help to mitigate the effects of climate change, according to an Earth Institute study. (Sify)

The B-School takes 3rd in a ranking of the Best Business Schools for Hispanics. In other news, people salivate over college lists. (Poder 360)

Another study says it’s okay to put something called BPA in dental fillings for children, but that name (aka bisphenol A) still sounds hella ominous. (MSNBC)

The Times wants your back-to-school photos (and yes they obviously mean YOU), so we say send ‘em. (CityRoom)

Columbia researchers discover a gene associated with schizophrenia (Reuters)

More Columbia research indicates that you shouldn’t replace your doctor with a Twitter account. (US News and World Report)

Megan McCain, CC ’07, is featured in a blog series called “Better Know Your Right Wingers”. (Campus Progress)

Urban Outfitters will open on Broadway at 99th st. this summer. (Spec)

For April Fools’, Johns Hopkins University announced it would drop the S from its name.

You can’t live in sin next year. Stay tuned to Bwog for more coverage.

Cigarettes will no longer be allowed to be called “light,” but will instead be conveniently color-coded. (NYT)

A J-School alum was just named Times National Editor. (NYT)

CU Researchers find that pretending to be happy is good for you (Daily News)

It’s only a small step towards a brave new world of medicine, but scientists in Columbia’s Biomedical Engineering Department, led by Professor Gordana Vunjak-Novakovic, have successfully created part of a jaw joint from stem cells.

The scientists say that the joint (at right) is the first “complex, anatomically-sized bone” created using stem cells, and will create new ways for scientists to treat joint disorders, and repair various skeletal problems.Vunjak-Novakovic said, “We thought the jawbone would be the most rigorous test of our technique; if you can make this, you can make any shape.

Plus, even a stem cell bone is significantly less weird than a snake with a hand. 

Columbia’s own associate professor Rama Cont is featured in the most recent edition of City Journal discussing new ways of financial modeling and his unconventional view on the economic crisis. Although Bwog has a hard-ish time wrapping its head around the more specific econ bits, all you would-be i-bankers may find Cont, who conducts his research through SEAS, not the Econ department, to have an interesting perspective. Read the full article here.

 Image via city-journal.org

If the end of the weekend’s got you down, pick up those spirits with the following story from the Chicago Tribune. Last December, after being urged to get a neurological scan by his mother, the 23-year-old received the results: he had glioblastoma, the most aggressive form of brain tumor (median survival: just over a year), and exceedingly rare in the young.

Rather than resign himself, though, Lukac went back to Northwestern (where he had received the prognosis) and its Brain Tumor Research. Director Marcus Bredel took him on as an assistant researcher, and “for the last few months Lukac has helped conduct many of the experiments that one day could lead to breakthroughs in treating his disease.” And now, his lab has “identified 31 genes key to the formation of glioblastoma tumors,” a crucial advance in discovering treatments for the cancer.

Bredel commented, “I don’t know, if I had this disease, if I could be around it on a daily basis in a setting like this,” but Lukac is maintaining high spirits. “The last two or three months,” he told the Tribune, “being here and doing what I’ve been able to do, it just feels great.” Good luck to him. (Photo: Nancy Stone – Chicago Tribune)

Classes “begin” in a few days, figuratively because a few of Bwog’s have already been canceled for CC’83 Awesomeness Festivities.  But your fair university didn’t get nearly as much sleep as you did over break.  Here’s what Alma Mater’s been up to.

People of Old

Alumni provide proof that we’ll all find jobs, eventually.  In the meantime, buff your resume with good deeds for the UN, or fulfill your second grade dream and work for the circus (Bwog is jealous of the latter grads).  If the arts are your thing, you could end up guiding an opera company or debuting at Sundance.

People of New

The good times might be few years away, but you can still relish your present hell situation in this (frigid) town.  Alex Gross, CC’11, came here for football and was profiled by his local paper.  The Dayton Daily News mentions “learning how to get around the city by subway” as one of the things he has managed to pick up.  And how to stand on line, instead of in line.  Four other Columbians were recently profiled in The New York Times.  A few years ago, they formed the Columbia Ballet Collaborative after, you know, “juggling calculus, molecular biology and Hindi-Urdu” and the other cool things college kids do.  Representing straight-laced, conscientious Butler residents everywhere, one student assured the reporter “I never take drugs.” Read more…

The thirteens are coming (really, they are), and everyone is taking notice.

Thirteens cometh, thirteens goeth:

Because without a scholarship, we’re far too expensive.

And there’s always those pesky test scores to stop people.

And the oh so quotable:

Chalfie: “I basically tickle worms.”

CU Neurosurgeon Richard Anderson: “Since there are a million different types of hair accessories, why wear something that poses a risk?”

An outsider and literalist: “I was astonished. My jaw was dropping.”

Columbia’s medical researchers are provoking helpless panic across the country today, but word is, it’s good for your cardiovascular health. Scientists here have upended some traditionally accepted wisdom and are now arguing (in some cases) against CT scans and abstinence. Just one more thing to worry about for two of the most lamentable at-risk populations: people who are sick but can’t figure out why and 23-year-old virgins!

And in news related to Columbia only through the related post list on the second page linked above: for all you kids who were thinking of giving up sex because you could only think of 236 reasons to keep at it!

As Columbia undergrads, we tend to think the University centers around us. But beyond even the mélange of colleges, graduate schools, professional schools, medical schools, and two theological seminaries that congeal in the average student’s imagination as the greater Columbia University lies a sprawling network of 212 (I counted) research institutes and centers, about 160 (I approximated) academic programs and divisions, and countless (I didn’t bother) departmental research sites that the university runs, supports, or is affiliated with. Columbia is as splayed out and expansive as the city itself (in fact, many of these institutions reside in the suburbs beyond the city). Here are a few that I found poking around the Columbia website’s A-Z index.

In a post-9/11 effort to keep pace with newly developed federal emergency programs, Columbia joined six other institutions throughout the city in creating The Center for Resilient Networks: “a center for research on and prototyping of regional networking that serves the needs of emergency workers, public officials, and ordinary citizens during natural and man-made emergencies.” In what was apparently a further attempt to match federal standards, the Center seems to have done nothing since the spring of 2003. (Even the Center for Medieval Japanese Studies made a more sustained bid for relevancy, lasting until the fall of 2003.)

The New York Center for Human Sexuality diagnoses and treats all types of sexual dysfunctions, which, its homepage reassures, “are very prevalent in both males and females.” Awesome. Citing the landmark First International Consultation on Erectile Dysfunction, it also advocates a “right to sexual health” that protects not only everyone’s god-given ability to have (and enjoy) wild, uninhibited sex, but also, their right to not feel guilty about it the next morning. Double awesome. Additionally, the center runs a series of clinical trials and research studies, and even though their “active research” page has been blank for over two weeks, they offer an open invitation to anyone who considers him- or herself a “qualified” patient to participate in these studies. If you’re interested, their clinical-research number is 212.305.0157. Read more…

Podcasting His Life Away:

Electrical Engineering Prof. Daniel P.W. Ellis has a hobby even his wife finds creepy: digitally recording every waking moment of his day. Seeing it as an audiologged diary (or a “lifelog”), Ellis recounts such highlights as the fight with his wife in which he made “asshole” comments and his pleas to doctors for information on his injured infant son (as well as their queries as to why he was holding an Mp3 player the whole time). See the rest in this piece from the Chronicle of Higher Education on the lifelogging phenomenon.

MIDI-Makers Frozen Out…Again: In the week since Bwog reported on subzero temperatures shutting down the Computer Music Center in Prentis Hall, the heat has been turned on…and then off once more. After CMC officials thought the problem had been remedied, the chill returned. Now, CMC director Brad Garton is demanding a permanent solution – and spare heaters installed, just in case – before the center reopens and classes are resumed. Seriously, admins, it’s one thing to cut essential services to Columbia’s computer musicians – and another to give them a brief spell of hope before shutting them back out in the cold.

Get Your Beauty Rest: All nighters can make you fat. Really. According to the Daily Times of Pakistan, which assembled a compendium on US universities’ sleep research, Columbia scientists determined that “adults who sleep less than seven hours a night had an increased risk of obesity. The risk ranged from 23 percent for six-hour-a-night sleepers to 73 percent for individuals who slept only two to four hours. Experts attributed this phenomenon to the fact that sleep deprivation lowered the level of leptin, a protein that suppresses appetite, and raised grehlin, which makes you want to eat.” Columbia researchers: doing their homework so you have an excuse not to.

-CJS

Columbia’s myriad of research institutes helped Bwog to realize that not only will studying PE or blebs in college prove fruitful some day, but that every research, however small, can be funded if need be. Even if you have to ask reactionary drug war people for the money.

A few favorite centers:

Center for the Active Life of Minority Elders

Center for Decision Sciences

Fecal Incontinence Center

Institute for Tele-Information (CITI)

Langmuir Center for Colloids and Interfaces

Center on Medicine as a Profession

Renal Transplantation Center

Center for Resilient Networks

Down with self-denial! In what might be a logical conclusion for a study coming out of the business school, an associate professor and a grad student have found that giving in to temptation makes people happier in the long run after all.

Money quote: “We really do believe that in day-to-day self-control dilemmas, people are better off choosing to indulge.”

But we could have told you that.

Thanks to Megan Greenwell for the tip.