News
The News in Brief
by Shawn M. Sims
News Staff Writer

Memorial Concert for Former Reporter

On Thursday, October 9th, the Second Annual Daniel Pearl Music Day Concert was held in Memorial Church, featuring classics, facultywritten pieces, and improvisation. Daniel Pearl, the journalist brutally murdered by Pakistani terrorists in February of 2002, was a 1985 Stanford graduate in Communications with a talent for playing the violin, fiddle, and mandolin. As he traveled the globe as a reporter for the Wall Street Journal, he met people through shared interests in music, including symphonies, bluegrass bands, and chamber ensembles. The Daniel Pearl Foundation hosts musical events centered on the dates surrounding Daniel's birthday that reflect his community approach to music. Influential musicians such as Sir Elton John, Yo-Yo Ma, Mark O'Connor, Itzhak Perlman, Ravi Shankar, and Barbara Streisand sit on an honorary committee presiding over the global concert series, which lasts from Oct. 7-19. The events this year were held in twentynine countries and eventually will include each city Pearl visited. Prof. Jennifer Lane opened the concert with Vigil Thompson's operatic "We Cannot Retrace Our Steps." Jazz Prof. Mark Applebaum performed his piano solo "Elegy," and violinist Livia Sohn played Prof. Jonathan Berger's "Sink or Swim." Professors Shiffman, Lane, and Barth left the audience in complete silence with "Zwei Gesange" by Brahms. The concert elicited a standing ovation.

Faculty Senate Elects New Chair, Discusses Issues

Tom Wasow, who has been active in the Stanford community since 1974, has been recently appointed Faculty Senate Chair. Wasow has helped construct the Center for the Study of Language and Information and the Symbolic Systems Program, which he has directed since its birth in 1992. He served as Dean of Undergraduate Studies, Associate Dean for the School of Humanities and Sciences, and the Dean of Graduate Policy. This is Wasow's third term in the Senate, and colleagues fully expect him to be an active and competent chair with a talent for facilitating compromise. Wasow does not anticipate heated controversy this year over the issues the Senate must address, including studies on female faculty, a bio-engineering degree program, and new athletic policies. At the opening meeting on Thursday, October 9th, the Senate agreed to support Student Initiated Courses as interdisciplinary tools, though the courses will need more safeguards for instructional quality. The Senate also reluctantly shortened the length of fall quarter for the 2004-2005 academic year by three days because of conflict with Rosh Hashanah.

National Science Foundation Promotes Development of Internet

The National Science Foundation recently granted Stanford and seven other institutions $7.5 million dollars each to investigate new ways to work the Internet. The continually increasing availability of highspeed connections could be bad news since many specialists believe that a high volume of use will overwhelm the electronic infrastructure, which was not set up with high capacity in mind. Researchers are being encouraged to start from the beginning with this grant and to employ innovative ideas. Stanford professors will collaborate with minds from institutions such as Carnegie Mellon, Rice, UC-Berkeley, Fraser Research, Internet, Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center, and ATT Research. There is debate over the necessity of such research, but most experts involved with this initiative admit that the Internet was not designed to grow so quickly. Broadband service now enters ten million American homes via copper wire, and the goal of the National Science Foundation is to increase this number to 100 million. The Foundation also plans to equip these homes with fiber optic cables that will send information 100 times faster than DSL now does. Speeding up connections would make highquality media more accessible, but security risks and the economic feasibility of such a system are questions that will have to be addressed. Diligent research will hopefully result in a system fully equipped to handle the coming years of technological advancement.

Stanford Astronomers Find Possible New Moons

On August 25, Stanford astronomer Mark Showalter and NASA scientist Jack Lissauer, using the Hubble Advanced Camera for Surveys to take images of Uranus, found evidence of two previously undiscovered moons orbiting the planet. Since the moons are 40 million times fainter than Uranus, recent photos from the Voyager spacecraft did not register the tiny satellites. S/2003 U 1 is 10 miles across and orbits the planet near the larger, more prominent moons about which Earth scientists have long known. The more mysterious 8 milewide S/2003 U 2 resides closer to the planet and within the orbit of Belinda. Twelve other satellites group in close proximity to it, orbiting the inner system on nearly circular pathways. Lissauer asserts that their coexistence is quite improbable, as the larger moons' gravitational pull would theoretically considerably affect the smaller ones. The scientists speculate that the moons broke off of Belinda in a comet collision. Further research may give insight into the formation of moons and the process that follows as well as the pattern of interlocking orbits.

For more information, visit the Stanford Review's website at www.stanfordreview.org

Page last modified on Thursday, 02-Mar-2006 00:25:03 MST.