College Shorts

FourLoko drink to be recycled, used as fuel

Four Loko may have been banned from the shelf, but it has not yet been completely obliterated.
As many college students know, the high-powered energy drink, which contains a potent mixture of caffeine and malt liquor, continues to live on at campus parties despite its nonexistence in stores.
The drink is now being turned into fuel. The leftover Four Loko is being turned into ethanol at facilities that are able to extract the alcohol from the drinks and make it into something that can be sold and blended into gasoline.
The other components of the drink are being recycled too, including the aluminum cans and the drinks’ water component.

—    NY Daily News

Device keeps students from missing classes

Professors have been bitter for years about the casual student “skip.” Now they’ve figured out a way to get back at students for blowing off an occasional class or two.
Northwestern University students are now using a clicker device that shows whether or not they attend class and if they arrive on time. Similar to a TV remote, this “clicker” is a palm-sized, wireless apparatus which forces students to answer quiz questions every 15 minutes while in class. The audience responses are instantly shown on the class screen with colorful graphics.
The tool also lets the student indicate that they don’t understand something without raising their hand.
Though the “clicker” was first designed for educational purposes, it is now being converted into applications for the iPad and Blackberry.

—    College News

Zodiac signs change, astrologers add sign.

According to LiveScience, the position of the constellations has recently been altered, changing how we look at our astrological signs completely.
Early astronomers observed the sun traveling through the signs of the zodiac in the course of a year, spending about a month in each zodiac. From this, they decided that each constellation extends 30 degrees across the ecliptic.
In the past 2.5 millenia, however, the earth’s wobbling has caused each constellation to extend 36 degrees, or one-tenth of the way around. Thus, all zodiac signs have slipped one-tenth as well, meaning your sign is no longer what you thought it was. In fact, there is a completely new sign all together: those born between November 29 and December 17 are now classified under the sign Ophiuchus.

—    College News