Columbia computer science professor Julia Hirschberg has created a computer program that analyzes human speech and detects lies with a 70% success rate. (NYTimes) An off-duty cop shot and arrested a mysterious man at the 125 St. subway stop who was groping girls waiting at the station. (Gothamist) A U.S. spy drone crashed in Iran on […]

Far from over, the Occupy-everything movement continues to live up to its grammatical mission. Occupy Harlem has some students worried about the Manhattanville expansion. Meanwhile an Occupy China may be around the corner. Finally there’s “Mockupy” Wall Street. (Spec/Atlantic/City Room) A recent DOT report confirms every pedestrian’s worst fear: bicyclists are taking over the city. […]

Spec provides further context for the growing dissatisfaction with Dean Peña-Mora. (Spec) Our own faculty woes seem little in light of yesterday’s verdict that Rod Blagojevich, former governor of Illinois, will serve to 14 years in prison for 18 counts of federal corruption. (Reuters) Columbia’s Manhattanville campus has forced the owner of a West Harlem Cuban restaurant to close shop for the past 18 […]

Obama’s problem with trickle-down economics is that “it doesn’t work.” (USA Today) Meanwhile, Governor Cuomo and lawmakers have agreed to let the “millionaire tax cuts” expire, reducing the budget shortfall to $1.5 billion. (NYT) But, the problems for the 1% don’t end there. Sometimes, it’s tough to realize that she’s just not that into you […]

Ivy League schools are under fire for animal abuse in their laboratories. Try to treat the subject of your next dissection with a little more kindness, k? (SFGate) Working Muppets of All Countries, Unite! (Slate) Thanks to some mice, we’re one step closer to developing a vaccine against the Ebola virus. NYPD officers are in hot […]

Good News: Tiger Woods won the Chevron World Challenge this weekend, ending a two-year losing streak. Asked whether the emotions he felt were more satisfied or relieved, Woods replied “It just feels awesome whatever it is.” …That’s what she said. (CBS) Bad News: Times are tough. PrezBo only received $1.53 million in total compensation in 2009, a […]

Columbia researchers have developed a lie detecting robot, with plans to build other emotion reading robots. (NYTimes) This lie detecting power should have been tested on Republican Presidential candidates, but then Cain went and all quit, so now the process would be significantly less entertaining. (Huff Po) OWS icon turns out to be kinda crazy. (NYTimes) This […]

Columbia University Professor of French Antoine Compagnon was awarded the prestigious Claude Lévi-Strauss Prize and an accompanying 100,000 euros last Tuesday for his excellence in social science methods (Note: This award is a big deal in France and is not distributed by the jean company) .(Spec) On Friday, Obama urged colleges and universities to improve racial diversity […]

Cash-strapped urbanites may soon find work in the new convenience economy, which crowdsources temporary personal assistant tasks. Among the guinea pigs is an Arts Initiative coordinator, who claims its merits are more than monetary. (Observer) Whoever said field trips were dead? One visiting professor at GSAPP took his class to a banana ripening plant and […]

On many Ivy-League campuses where banks recruit heavily, OWS vitriol is being channeled towards the I-banking recruitment process. Those protesting wonder whether the slick recruiting creates a brain-drain away from other industries. (NYTimes) On the other end of the career spectrum: The New York Times Style section profiled The New Inquiry, a blog staffed largely […]

The LAPD raided OccupyLA yesterday, arresting 200 and dispersing protesters without much conflict or violence. (WSJ) Dershowitz believes the key to peace in Israel is Palestinian Chicken — he recommends Prime Minister Netanyahu watch the hilarious Curb Your Enthusiasm episode with Palestinian President Abbas in an interview with the Current. (Tablet, Current) Columbia researchers believes America is vulnerable to crippling cyber-attacks and exploding printers. HP […]

Facebook is moving ever closer to its long-awaited IPO, rumored to value the company at over $100 billion. (WSJ) It has recently been announced that Lana Peters, Joseph Stalin’s only daughter, died of colon cancer in Wisconsin on November 22, 2011. (BBC) The AMR corporation, the parent company of American Airlines, has filed for Chapter […]

This year’s Black Friday sales set a new record for shopper splurging. Unfortunately, it turns out Black Friday isn’t home to the season’s lowest prices. Wal-Mart strikes again! (Bloomberg, NYT) Egyptians are heading to the polls today for the first time since they forced Hosni Mubarak out of power, but clashes with current military leader […]

Columbia’s new Center for Urban Real Estate suggests building a giant landbridge from Manhattan to Governors Island. It might be called LoLo, or Lower Lower Manhattan. (NY Times) A new NASA rover, Curiosity, was successfully launched into space yesterday, and is on its way to Mars. Curiosity will land on the Red Planet in August of […]

The #occupiers have been getting a lot of attention lately, but support at Columbia is hardly universal. (Spec) Newt Gingrich wants to be “humane,” and takes considerable criticism because of it. (WP, Reuters) Mitt Romney claims his first name is Mitt. It’s not. (Gawker) Are criticisms of police brutality unfounded? Recent NYPD statistics show the lowest […]