College Shorts

Author: Denizhan Duran

JUICY CONTROVERSY ERUPTS AT WILLIAMS

Similar to Middlebury Confessional, the Web site that aggravated much of the student body last spring, Williams College is now beleaguered by JuicyCampus, a controversial online gossip forum that started a page for the college on Sept. 30. Williams Associate Dean for Institutional Diversity Wendy Raymond declared the site a means for "community destruction," calling those who use it to post gossip anonymously "irresponsible, immature and self-focused."

Many posts mentioned specific students by their names, and although students were relieved to discover that the posts did not come up on Google searches, they were not pleased to see their names on such a public forum, which, unlike Middlebury Confessional, is accessible to everyone using the Internet. There is a consensus at Williams that action must be taken against the site, but the administration is also sensitive to students' first amendment rights.

-The Williams Record

ACCIDENT AT HARVARD PRODUCES BLACK SILICON

Eric Mazur, a professor of Physics at Harvard University, created black silicon by accident with his assistants. While working on semiconductors on a grant from the Army Research Office, one of his graduate students unearthed a tiny bottle of gas that Mazur used when he was a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard. The gas, which was stable, was put in a chamber with silicon wafers and was shot with short and intense laser pulses. The black silicon thus created is ultra-sensitive to light and may be used in devices from night-vision goggles to photovoltaic solar panels.

The black silicon had phenomenal light absorption sensitivity in both the visible and infrared regions, according to Mazur. By contrast, normal silicon does not readily absorb infrared light. Black silicon could allow patients to be subjected to less radiation during medical imaging, enabling physicians to produce better images with less damage to the patient's health. Given the breadth of products that black silicon could be used for, Mazur said, it's evident that semiconductors have wide commercial applications.

- The Harvard Crimson

DEPARTMENTAL MERGER SAVES U. ARIZONA MONEY

The University of Arizona Transformation Plan resulted in its first merger this week with the consolidation of the chemistry, biochemistry and molecular biophysics departments.

Although the university's senate was hesitant to back the transformation process, the relevant faculties were in support of the merger. The departments would be untouched and "continue business as usual," said Mark Smith, head of the Chemistry Department. The change will save approximately $200,000, and combined research will also heavily boost the department's national recognition.

The new department will also attract $16 million in annual federal research, according to Johnny Cruz, media relations director for the university. Bigger will truly mean better for the department, as the chemistry, biochemistry and molecular biophysics faculty will pool resources and ideas to become a more efficient entity, Smith added, and will be UA's third-largest teaching program.

- Arizona Daily Wildcat