Daily Herald the Brown
vol. cxliv, no. 33 | Tuesday, March 10, 2009 | Serving the community daily since 1891
Concert tickets nearly sell out first day online
Packaged deals gone in first 4 minutes
By Lauren Fedor Senior Staf f Writer
Jesse Morgan / Herald
Brown’s efforts to partner with teaching hospitals in the creation of a new “translational science” research collaboration are moving forward after nearly three years of planning.
‘Translational’ science center on horizon by Sydney Ember Senior Staff Writer
Efforts to create a statewide Center for Clinical and Translational Sciences are pressing ahead after nearly three years of planning, as the University and several partners aim to secure a large grant from the National Institutes of Health this fall. The new research collaboration, which will be administered from Brown, is critical to bringing the Alpert Medical School to the fore-
front of medical education by forging connections between advances in medical research and clinical practice, said Edward Wing, dean of medicine and biological sciences. Translational science is an emerging field that seeks to connect innovative medical research with the clinical side of patient care, quickly joining recent advances in bench science to patient therapies. The center — which includes the University of Rhode Island and local hospitals — will provide
leadership in the field of “benchto-bedside” research, mentoring programs and effective means of collaboration between research teams and patient-care providers, Wing said. The partnership will allow for a collaborative space for a wide range of disciplines, such as biomedical engineering, nanomedicine and computer science. It will offer opportunities for undergraduates, graduate stucontinued on page 2
Though the new online ticketing system for Spring Weekend was met with mixed reviews from students, organizers are pleased with sales thus far, a representative from Brown Student Agency said yesterday. Matt Garza ’11, who designed the ticketing Web site with Erik Nazarenko ’11, said that while he has received some e-mail complaints about the service, the general response from the student body has been positive. Tickets for the Fri., April 17 and Sat., April 18 concerts were made available exclusively to Brown students at 8:00 a.m. Monday. There were 1,000 logins within the first minute of the site opening, Garza said, and at press time, fewer than 200 of the 3,000 available tickets remained for each performance. Garza said the site — market. brownstudentagencies.com — provided a “much more effective way” for students to obtain tickets than the conventional box office system. “No one had to wake up early to get in line or miss class,” he said, adding, “Students didn’t have to leave their dorm rooms. They were able to use their credit cards, and it
was a much easier experience.” Most of the complaints Garza received were about the limited number of ticket packages for both Friday and Saturday’s shows. The packages sold for $25, while separate tickets cost $15 each. Many students wanted to purchase packages to save $5, Garza said, but by 8:04 a.m. they had sold out. Garza said there has always been a limit on the number of discounted packages sold, and that this year “several hundred” packages were available. While the number of packages offered was reduced “slightly” from last year, the extra money earned by Brown Concert Agency from individual sales will go toward providing discounted tickets to students with demonstrated financial need, Garza said. When Lizette Chaparro ’12 tried purchasing tickets at 8:00 this morning, she received a message that read “Web site could not be found.” After “multiple” attempts at refreshing the page, Chaparro discovered that the packages were sold out. She ended up buying two individual tickets — one for her and one for a friend — for Saturday afternoon’s concert. “The Web site lagged a little,” she continued on page 2
Study: Mars gully was wet Double trouble: twins stick together just one million years ago By Jyotsna Mullur Staff Writer
By Monique Vernon Contributing Writer
inside
The “serendipitous discovery” of a million-year-old gully on Mars by Samuel Schon GS may indicate that water was present on the Red Planet more recently than researchers previously thought. Funded by NASA, the research was published in the current issue of Geology, an influential earth sciences journal. Images from HiRISE — the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment — were analyzed and provided key photos of gullies scattered throughout Mars. Schon, along with Postdoctoral Research Associate Caleb Fassett and Professor of Geological Sciences James Head, sifted through the data and found a gully located in eastern Promethei Terra which they were able to date to 1.25 million years ago.
News.....1-4 Sports......5 Editorial..6 Opinion...7 Today........8
www.browndailyherald.com
Schon said he and his colleagues had not set out to find this specific gully. “It’s a lot of geologic good luck,” Schon said. The team simply stumbled upon the gully, which was probably created by the accumulation of melted water that originated from ice deposits nearby. The original crater is thought to be the result of a high-impact meteor crash. Using a technique that involved measuring the frequency and size of craters and the boundary of the gully, Schon said he and his team were able to pinpoint the date of origin of the site. According to the study, the gully is located in a crater and consists of multiple lobes — the components of the gully’s depositional fan — which have been determined to be of varying ages
Students walking around campus might encounter two first-year girls who look shockingly similar. Even though their hairstyles are different, people often do a double take when they meet Heather and Carly Arison ’12 — twin sisters from Ohio who arrived on College Hill last fall.
FEATURE People “either freak out, or they don’t realize we’re twins,” Heather said. Having a twin sibling at the same school has its benefits, said Alicia Hartley ’10. “It was like having a built-in friend,” said Alicia, whose twin sister Alex is also her teammate on the women’s rugby squad and a fellow residential community assistant. “We didn’t have the same nervousness when we first arrived here,” Alex said. Ross Marino ’12 emphasized the
continued on page 3
Matt Weisberg / Herald
Alex and Alicia Hartley ’10 both play on the rugby team and work as community assistants — on opposite sides of campus.
importance of simply having someone who already knew him well. “Right off the bat, I had a friend, someone I knew,” he said. Ross and his brother Alexander both participate in Tae Kwon Do and take two classes together, in economics and contemporary art. Ross said he also finds it helpful to have a study partner.
But how did two siblings get into a school whose acceptance rate hit a low of 13.3 percent last year? “We don’t have a policy about twins, but in most cases we admit or deny them admission together,” wrote Dean of Admission James Miller ’73 in an e-mail to The Herald. It’s “not continued on page 3
News, 3
Sports, 5
Opinions, 7
best (office) friend?
Hockey rocks
Some professors bring their dogs to work and play in academic buildings
M. hockey had an historic weekend, beating Harvard twice in the ECAC tournament
Corporation Payoffs Ben Bernstein ’09 examines the benefits given to unpaid Corporation members.
195 Angell Street, Providence, Rhode Island
herald@browndailyherald.com