Sandy Smith

Wrap your hand in a piece of satin. Wrap your other hand in a piece of sandpaper. Rub the two against each other. What did you notice? Congratulations, you've just done science.

While alcohol use on campuses overall is on the decline, there's still a hangover: a larger percentage of the students who do drink, drink heavily. A group of Penn students are enrolled in a General Honors seminar aimed at identifying alcohol-related problems at Penn and devising student-led approaches to reducing them.

The Wharton School is a better place today, thanks to the assistance of a fat cat. Actually, the cat's not that fat. His name is Raider, and his job is keeping the mice that occasionally show up in Wharton buildings on the run.

Five Penn faculty were named recipients of the coveted Alfred P. Sloan Jr. Fellowships, awarded annually to promising young faculty. Each of the five will receive a two-year grant of $35,000 for their research. The recipients are:

Tired of the Clinton impeachment follies? So was Dick Polman. When the veteran national political reporter for The Philadelphia Inquirer was offered a chance to take a semester off from his job, he leapt at the opportunity.

Photo by Candace diCarlo

Flexible work arrangements have reduced stress for (left to right) Alicia Brill, Terri Dodds and Anna Marcotte of Human Resources. Photo by Candace diCarlo

She may not be the youngest syndicated columnist ever, but Melanie Redmond (C'00) sure comes close. She's only 20 (as of Feb. 12), but the English major already has nearly three years' experience as a reporter and columnist for the Philadelphia Daily News.

For those of you who maintain that nothing good came out of those '60s movements, consider this: Adults across the country are rediscovering the joys of academe and transforming their lives thanks to a quirky idea from the 1960s.

Peter Nowell, the Gaylord Harnwell Professor of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, doesn't take himself too seriously. That casual attitude perhaps explains how he was able to do the research that last September won him the Lasker Award, American medicine's most prestigious honor.