Elliott C. Back: In Aere Aedificare

A current of .002 amps across the brain: www.nature.com/news/2004/041025/full/041025-9.html

Connecting a battery across the front of the head can boost verbal skills, says a team from the US National Institutes of Health. Iyer says more work needs to be done to explain the effect, but she speculates that the current changes the electrical properties of brain cells in the prefrontal cortex, the brain region through which it passes. She believes that the cells fire off signals more easily after the current has gone by.

Source: novaspivack.typepad.com/nova_spivacks_weblog/2004/10/zapping_your_br.html

The Ithaca Police Department reports early this morning that a man identified as the Collegetown Creeper has been arrested. Abraham J. Shorey, who is married with children and works at a Collegetown restaurant (The Nines), was sent to Tompkins County Jail Wednesday after failing to raise $5000 bail.

The “Collegetown Creeper,” as Cornell students have nicknamed him, started his crime spree by entering the apartments of female Cornell students at night and watching them sleep before fleeing. Over the past year, his crimes have escalated from entering to breaking and watching to assaulting. Now that he is caught, collegetown can rest in peace.

Strangley, the Ithaca Police deny public access to Creeper/Shorey related documents. Said Chief Lauren Signer, Ithaca Police:

“We had a recent incident report from a young woman, she claims her clothes were cut off, baby oil was spilled on her. […] The Creeper’s appeared at least 18 times, either inside women’s bedrooms or peering in through their windows.”

What’s interesting is that I’ve seen this man in collegetown. Yes, in my hometown. And his target area often was Catherine street–the one next to mine! I can’t remember where he works, though–if any of YOU can, leave a comment! I’m curious and scared…

Sources:

• http://www.theithacajournal.com/news/updates/9709.html
• http://www.cornellsun.com/vnews/display.v/ART/2004/05/07/409b47edd5e2b
• http://news10now.com/content/all_news/?ArID=29214&SecID=83
• http://news10now.com/content/top_stories/default.asp?ArID=30396

For those who don’t know, TheFacebook.com provides a gigantic social networking service to students, “an online directory that connects people through social networks at colleges and universities.” If you go to any of:

Adelphi - Alabama - Albion - American - Amherst - Appalachian State - Arizona - Arizona State - Arkansas - Auburn - Augustana - AUP - Austin College - Babson - Ball State - Bard - Bates - Baylor - Belmont - Bentley - Berkeley - Berklee - Binghamton - Boston College - Bowdoin - Bowling Green - Bradley - Brandeis - Bridgewater State - British Columbia - Brown - Bryant - Bryn Mawr - BSC - BU - Bucknell - Butler - BYU - Cal Poly - Cal Poly Pomona - Caltech - Calvin - Cambridge - Carleton - Carnegie Mellon - Case Western - Catholic - Central Florida - Central Mich. - Chapman - Chicago - Cincinnati - Claremont McKenna - Clark U - Clarkson - Clemson - CNU - COFC - Col. College - Colby - Colgate - Colorado State - Columbia - Conn College - Cooper Union - Cornell - Creighton - CSU Chico - CSU Fresno - CSU Humboldt - CSU Long Beach - CSU Northridge - CSU Sacramento - CU Boulder - CUNY Baruch - CUNY Brooklyn - CUNY Hunter - Dartmouth - Davidson - Dayton - Delaware - Denison - Denver - DePaul - DePauw - Dickinson - Dominican - Drake - Drew - Drexel - Duke - Duquesne - E. Illinois - E. Michigan - East Carolina - Eastern - Elon - Emerson - Emory - F & M - Fairfield - Fairleigh Dickinson - Fashion Institute - FAU - FIU - Flagler - Florida - Florida State - Fordham - Fullerton - Furman - GA Southern - George Mason - Georgetown - Georgia - Georgia State - Georgia Tech - Gettysburg - Gonzaga - Grand Valley State - Grinnell - GWU - Hamilton - Hampshire - Hartford - Harvard - Harvey Mudd - Haverford - Hawaii - Hofstra - Holy Cross (MA) - Hope - Howard - HWS - Ill. Chicago - Illinois - Illinois State - Indiana - Indiana State - Iona - Iowa - Iowa State - Ithaca - IUP - IUPUI - JMU - Johns Hopkins - Kansas - Kansas State - Keene State - Kennesaw - Kent State - Kentucky - Kenyon - Kutztown - Lafayette - Lehigh - Lewis & Clark - Long Island - Loyola Chicago - Loyola Maryland - Loyola Marymount - Loyola New Orleans - LSE - LSU - Lynchburg - Macalester - Maine (Orono) - Manhattan College - Marist - Marquette - Mary Washington - Maryland - Maryland BC - Marymount - Marymount Manhattan - McGill - Miami - Mich Tech - Michigan - Michigan State - Middlebury - Millersville - Minnesota - Mississippi - Missouri (Mizzou) - MIT - Monmouth - Montana - Montclair - Morehouse - Morgan - MS State - Mt. Holyoke - MU Ohio - Muhlenberg - N. Arizona - N. Illinois - N.C. A&T - N.C. State - ND State - Nebraska - Lincoln - New Hampshire - New Mexico - New School - North Dakota - North Texas - Northeastern - Northwestern - Notre Dame - NYU - Oberlin - Occidental - Ohio - Ohio Northern - Ohio State - Ohio Wesleyan - Oklahoma - Oklahoma State - Old Dominion - Oregon - Oregon State - Oxford - Pace - Penn - Penn State - Pepperdine - Pittsburgh - Pitzer - Polytechnic - Pomona - Portland - Pratt - Princeton - Providence - Puget Sound - Purdue - Quinnipiac - Radford - Ramapo - Reed - Rhode Island - Rhodes - Rice - Richmond - Rider - RISD - RIT - Rochester - Roger Williams - Rollins - Rose-Hulman - Rowan - RPI - Rutgers - S.F. State - Sacred Heart - San Diego - San Diego State - San Jose State - Santa Clara - Sarah Lawrence - Scranton - Scripps - Seattle - Seton Hall - SHSU - Siena - Simmons - Skidmore - Smith - SMSU - SMU - Sonoma - South Carolina - South Florida - Spelman - St. Andrews - St. Johns - St. Josephs - St. Lawrence - St. Louis - Stanford - Stetson - Stonehill - Suffolk - SUNY Albany - SUNY Buffalo - SUNY Cortland - SUNY Geneseo - SUNY New Paltz - SUNY Oneonta - SUNY Oswego - SUNY Stony Brook - Surrey - Swarthmore - Syracuse - Tampa - TCD - TCNJ - Temple - Tennessee - Texas - Texas A&M - Texas Arlington - Texas Christian - Texas San Antonio - Texas State - Texas Tech - Toledo - Toronto - Towson - Trinity College - Trinity U - Truman State - Tufts - Tulane - Tulsa - UAB - UC Davis - UC Irvine - UC Riverside - UC San Diego - UC Santa Barbara - UC Santa Cruz - UCLA - UConn - UMass (Amherst) - UNC - UNC Charlotte - UNC Greensboro - UNF - Union - University of the Pacific - UNLV - UNR - Ursinus - USAFA - USC - USFCA - USNA - Utah - UVA - Vanderbilt - Vassar - VCU - Vermont - Vermont Tech - Villanova - Virginia Tech - W. Illinois - Wake Forest - Washington - Washington and Lee - Washington State - WashU - Wayne State - Wellesley - Wesleyan - West Chester - West Point - West Virginia - West. Michigan - Western Washington - Wheaton MA - Willamette - William & Mary - Williams - Wisconsin - Wisconsin Milwaukee - WPI - WPUNJ - Xavier - Yale

then the Facebook is for you. For more information, see this Swarthmore article, as well as a short bit in NPR and Business Week.

Here are some images of the features of facebook, minus the ads it runs:

This is the start page of Facebook. From here you can view and edit your own profile, view or visualize a graph of your friends, search for other people on Facebook, or browse the people you are connected to.

Search on Facebook is easy–just type a name, and it will search your school for any near match. You can also search other schools, or search by user data, such as birthday or hobbies.

The recent friends feature is just neat–it lets you see who is currently on www.thefacebook.com, view recently updated profiles, and more.

Your profile is what everyone will see about you. It features more information than you could want, shows the set of a users’ friends, some of his facebook groups, and lets you wander from profile to profile via friends.

The most overlooked and cool feature of www.thefacebook.com is the “visualize friends” feature, which outputs an SVG connected graph of all your friends.

Why not give it a try and Facebook me?

Check out these Flickr eclipse photos. There are currently 209 of them. Here’s a random public sample from Lamprey. Beautiful:

Cornell University has a new logo! Replacing the big red box, we now have a seal with the words “Cornell University” in PMS187. Quoting Jacqueline Koppel in the Chronicle, Cornell’s official news source, “The new logo is a major improvement. The emblem serves as a reminder of the vision that Ezra Cornell had when he founded the university. Students will be proud to display this logo.”

There’s also information on the identity page about terms of use, as well as some local coverage!

Nouveau Riche University - Learn more about the Curriculum Advisory Board Members at Nouveau Riche University