Kimberlee Parton
Staff Writer
NORTH CAROLINA STATE UNIVERSITY
Raleigh, NC, USA
A group of students at North Carolina State University claim to have invented a nail polish that detects date rape drugs — or did they? The nail polish is intended to change color when the person who is wearing it dips their finger into a drink that has been tampered with, but critics of the nail polish are not so sure the nail polish is effective. It has been reported in laboratory tests that the polish fails to accurately detect the drugs in question — Xanax, GHB and Rohypnol — and, experts have stated that these are not the most common drugs used in date rape cases.
LONDON SCHOOL OF ECONOMICS
London, England, UK
LSE made headlines this week after students became upset over a “racist” email that was sent out by the school. Students due to enroll at LSE later this month received an email addressing them as “Kung-Fu Pandas.” LSE immediately sent a follow-up email apologizing for the glitch in the school’s email system, and a spokeswoman for LSE — whose student population is 30% Asian — later confirmed that indeed the email was a test email that was sent in error, and did not intend to “racially stereotype” or hurt any students of any particular background.
UNIVERSITY OF PRETORIA
Pretoria, South Africa
Dr. Cindy Harper, director of the university’s Veterinary Genetics Laboratory, has developed along with her colleagues a DNA profiling database for individual rhinoceroses. The database, RhODIS, named after the FBI’s CODIS database for human DNA, is a collection of DNA from both live and poached rhinos, and is being used in criminal cases to bring poachers and ivory traders to justice not only in South Africa, but also in Namibia, Malawi and Kenya.
SINGAPORE MANAGEMENT UNIVERSITY
Bras Basah, Singapore
Faculty members of SMU welcomed incoming students in an induction ceremony with a “Star Wars” theme. Escorted by Storm Troopers, the audience of 4,000 students, their loved ones and other faculty members of the university were taken by surprise as the SMU leadership took the stage. The Welcome Address was given by “Master Jedi” Mr. Ho Kwan Ping, Chairman of SMU’s Board of Trustees, and the incoming students, who were referred to as “padawans”, were later instructed on the “ways and values of planet ‘SMUni.’”
