This is science, right? (source: picture-book.com)

Course requirements are a different beast for every Princeton student. For many an engineer, it’s LAs that are hard to come by. (Hint: A science fiction course can knock out that LA for you–and how!) And it’s probably true that for at least some English majors, passing a QR that isn’t Stars for Stoners is looking increasingly improbable as the last of high school calculus flees the brain.

But for me, it’s the ST–or, according to the new course designations announced last week, the STL, or “Science and Technology with laboratory.” I took a lab course freshman fall, (ENV 201 labs involve kayaking and counting fish.), but every semester, when it came to course selection time, I let the looming issue of my next five-hours-of-class commitment linger, as I filled up my schedule with SAs.

And today, as I rearranged the last semester before my senior year, I was called out on it. My dean sent me and about two dozen of my residential college peers an email reminding us that our “less-than-pleasant” distribution requirements existed, and kindly offering a list of “accessible” STs that we might consider.

Anyway, minutes before I received the email, I had actually enrolled in course on climate change that I’m genuinely interested in, an STX. But I thought I’d also share with you a quick list of STs that Woody Woo, English, and Soc majors might have a shot at. There are the basic gut courses, with your typical condescending and sexist nicknames: Rocks for Jocks (GEO 103), Stars for Stoners (AST 203), Clicks for Chicks (COS 109), and Emails for Females (COS 116).

But here are a few quality under-the-radar STs for those of us who may have put off that distribution requirement until senior year. Keep in mind that course designations are about to change, so these will soon be “STLs.” Not all are offered this semester.

ENV 201B Fundamentals of Environmental Studies

It’s the class featured in every college brochure, where students in waders are splashing around in a creek or taking a water sample in the middle of a lake. While many science classes require some basic prerequisites, ENV 201 is a class that’s really open to someone who has no background in science, but is interested in environmental issues like climate change and conservation. With a few problem sets, scientific papers to read, and labs, it’s still definitely a science class, but one where you’re more likely to be thinking about human consequences than about equations.

CEE 105 / ART 105 / EGR 105 Lab in Conservation Art

One student calls this course, which receives an A+ on the Student Course Guide, “perhaps the best ST in the world.” For the artists among us, this science course studies “how environmental factors (acid, rain, ice, salts, and biota) damage sculpture and monuments made of stone and masonry, paintings on wood, and sculptures in bronze.” And the first lab of the course? A tour of campus.

ANT 215/EEB 315 Human Adaptation

While to my knowledge, Human Adaptation doesn’t have a catchy nickname, this course on perhaps the most interesting topic in high school biology is a pretty popular ST for the less science-inclined among us. One sophomore described it as that “anthro course that everyone loves.” A Student Course Guide reviewer calls it “an excellent choice for anyone with even a passing interest in human evolution or wanting to fulfill an ST relatively painlessly,” and the course listing comfortingly notes: “No science background is required on the part of the student.”

MOL 101B From DNA to Human Complexity

Taught by “the cutest Nobel Laureate ever,” this course for non-biology majors is truly Molecular Biology…101. Readings include articles from the New York Times and Scientific American–material an English major can handle. The class receives an A+ on the Student Course Guide, where one reviewer notes: “All the professors know that people are just taking this class to get an ST, and they make it pretty painless. The labs are easy and interesting, and usually get out at least an hour early.”

PHY 115B Future Physics

Designed for “non-scientists who will someday become our influential citizens and decision-makers,” Future Physics is known on some other campuses as “Physics for Future Presidents.” If that doesn’t get a Woody Woo major excited, what could? The class is aimed at helping the clueless among us understand the very basics of physics and technology required in interpreting scientific information, and one student says it’s “really easy,” and lectures can be entertaining.

NEU 101/MOL 110 Neuroscience and Everyday Life

Another class without a textbook, NEU 101 is an explainer into how the brain works in everyday life, exploring topics ranging from love, to jet lag, to autism. Readings are “drawn from popular literature at the level of Scientific American Mind and The New York Times.” Enrollment is by application, however.

Princeton researchers are chargin' up their lazer (sic). Photo credit: Frank Wojciechowski

That’s right. Take that, Austin Powers.

Princeton’s Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering has developed a new laser that can detect and identify trace chemicals in the air, which is 1000 times more sensitive than the laser technology being used today.

With funding from the Office of Naval Research, Princeton’s engineers expect that this laser could eventually produce a remote, bomb-scanning military device small enough to be mounted on a tank. As professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Richard Miles told TG Daily:

“In general, when you want to determine if there are contaminants in the air you need to collect a sample of that air and test it…but with remote sensing you don’t need to do that. If there’s a bomb buried on the road ahead of you, you’d like to detect it by sampling the surrounding air, much like bomb-sniffing dogs can do, except from far away.”

Oh, it can also detect pollution. Technology that both the army and the peace-loving environmentalists can agree on? Science, you amaze me.

Read more about our super awesome lasers here.

(from babble.com)

Have you seen these really awkward commercials from the Corn Refiners Association? (Here are two more.) The group is trying to fight the bad rap that high fructose corn syrup–which provides almost 7 percent of daily caloric consumption in the US–has been getting from foodies. And now, scientists are getting in on the action.

A group of Princeton scientists recently came out with a study that concluded that consuming high fructose corn syrup led to higher weight gain than consuming regular sugar. According to a news release, rats who consumed high fructose corn syrup over a long period of time became well, obese.

“Some people have claimed that high-fructose corn syrup is no different than other sweeteners when it comes to weight gain and obesity, but our results make it clear that this just isn’t true, at least under the conditions of our tests,” said psychology professor Bart Hoebel, who specializes in the neuroscience of appetite, weight and sugar addiction. “When rats are drinking high-fructose corn syrup at levels well below those in soda pop, they’re becoming obese — every single one, across the board. Even when rats are fed a high-fat diet, you don’t see this; they don’t all gain extra weight.”

But the study has attracted criticism for its methods.

Obviously, the Corn Refiners’ Association immediately fired back with a press release on the safety of high fructose corn syrup, saying that the researchers failed to put controls on sucrose consumption and that the rats were consuming the equivalent of 3,000 kcal per day–an unrealistic amount (or are we underestimating America?). But their argument is one that we’ve made before: Rats. Are not people.

“Consumers should not be misled by exaggerated studies that feed astronomical amounts of one ingredient to the study subjects, in this case rats. The medical community has long dismissed results from rat dietary studies as being inapplicable to human beings,” stated Audrae Erickson, president, Corn Refiners Association.

Karen Kaplan from the Los Angeles Times posted a breakdown of the study on the LA Times’ health blog. The rats were split into three groups: one with access to sugar solution for 12 hours a day, one with access to high fructose corn syrup for 12 hours a day, and one with access to high fructose corn syrup 24 hours a day.

After eight weeks, three groups of rats weighed essentially the same – the chow-only rats (462 grams on average), the 24-hour HFCS rats (470 grams) and the sugar-water rats (477 grams). But the rats that were able to drink the HFCS solution for 12 hours each day weighed in at an average of 502 grams, a difference that was deemed statistically significant.

How could this be? It wasn’t simply the calories in high-fructose corn syrup. The fat rats drank 21.3 calories’ worth of the sweetener each day, only slightly more than the 20.1 calories sipped by rats with 24-hour access to the HFCS solution. What’s more, the rats that were offered sugar water consumed 31.3 calories worth of sweetener each day.

NYU food studies professor Marion Nestle also called out “this rat study” on being inaccurate, adding that caloric intake is notoriously difficult to measure for rats. Not only are the results from the rats with 12 and 24-hour access to high fructose corn syrup inconsistent, she writes, but some results aren’t actually statistically significant, and one experiment lacked controls to measure high fructose corn syrup against regular sugar.

And then finally, some perspective:

“The debate about which one [high fructose corn syrup or sugar] is better for you is a false debate, because neither of them is good for you,” says Elizabeth Abbott, author of the forthcoming “Sugar: A Bittersweet History.” (CNN)

B is the planet, C is a "planet-like object," and that big star-shaped object is ...a star. (from Princeton.edu)

So, we found a planet.

By we, I mean Princeton and…the University of Hawaii, the University of Toronto, the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy in Heidelberg, Germany, and the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan in Tokyo.

This new planet, which is only about 300 trillion miles from Earth, is about 10 to 40 times as massive as Jupiter. It also has a terrible name, GJ 758 B.

“It’s a groundbreaking find because one of the current goals of astronomy is to directly detect planet-like objects around stars like our sun,” said Michael McElwain, a postdoctoral research fellow in Princeton’s Department of Astrophysical Sciences who was part of the team that made the discovery.

It’s also sort of not, because scientists have found more than 400 “planet-like objects” since 1992. Like that “Earth-sized” one eight months ago.

But it also sort of is, because almost none of them have been seen directly! And of the others that have been seen through a telescope, “most have been on larger orbits than the distance between GJ 758 B and its star, or around stars with temperatures far above the average temperature of GJ 758 or our sun.” Which, naturally, means that GJ 758 B is kind of a big deal! Which means this new telescope that we have is really cool! OK, Princeton press release. We trust you. This planet is something special.

But we think a special planet deserves a better name than GJ 758 B.

In our comments, name that planet! Winners will be announced next Friday, and our favorite gets naming rights (or something comparable, like a shout-out on the Ink). I’m sure we can work something out with whoever it is at Princeton that’s in charge of this kind of thing (i.e. planet-naming) and it will be totally legitimate. Promise.

Scientists have long known that exercise stimulates the creation of new brain cells, and some believe that’s the reason working out tends to have an antidepressant effect. A study by Princeton scientists has found that cells that are created from running don’t respond to stress in the same way regular ol’ lazy-people cells do, according to an article in the New York Times.

These “exercise-created” cells express fewer stress genes than regular cells do in stressful situations. If you’re a rat.

The researchers experimented with two groups of rats, only one of which was allowed to run. Then the rats were made to swim in cold water (which the Times tells us helpfully, “they don’t like to do”) and their brain cells were monitored.

The “cells born from running,” the researchers concluded, appeared to have been “specifically buffered from exposure to a stressful experience.” The rats had created, through running, a brain that seemed biochemically, molecularly, calm.

Other studies have shown that this effect is consistent with not only physical stress, but also emotional stress. In one experiment, rats were injected with an oxidative chemical that artificially raised their stress levels and then placed in an unfamiliar area. Rats that had exercised were “relatively nonchalant” and explored the area. Rats that did not exercise hid in dark corners. So.

“It looks more and more like the positive stress of exercise prepares cells and structures and pathways within the brain so that they’re more equipped to handle stress in other forms,” says Michael Hopkins, a graduate student affiliated with the Neurobiology of Learning and Memory Laboratory at Dartmouth, who has been studying how exercise differently affects thinking and emotion. “It’s pretty amazing, really, that you can get this translation from the realm of purely physical stresses to the realm of psychological stressors.”

OK, and here is the part where I actually motivate you to start going to the gym. Working out will help your brain cells not die.

Anxiety in rodents and people has been linked with excessive oxidative stress, which can lead to cell death, including in the brain. Moderate exercise, though, appears to dampen the effects of oxidative stress.

Princeton University president Shirley Tilghman appeared on the Charlie Rose show last night.

Shirley discussed the Bush administration’s political repression of science, bragged about Alex Barnard and his “mohawk up to here” and used the word “periodicity” when discussing how often the University rejects the idea of a Princeton Medical School (every 20 years or so). Charlie was much impressed.

See the video after the jump.

On climate control and stem cell research: “In both of those cases, one could make the argument that the science was being manipulated to support a policy that the science actually did not necessarily lead to.”

On creationism and intelligent design: “It was really a warping of science that led to the President, President Bush saying well, there’s a lot of disagreement among scientists about whether Darwin’s view of evolution is correct. That is just simply not the case … It’s been 150 years and his fundamental ideas that were based on very little evidence but incredible insight have held up extraordinarily well.”

On our career choices: “Their experience at Princeton spending four years thinking deeply about what it means to be human…inform who they are when they are lawyers and doctors and…dare I say, bankers.”

On the recession and Princeton’s endowment: “We have made a commitment that we will not lose a single student for financial reasons, and so far we’ve been able to live up to that.”

On a law school or medical school: “It’s [a decision] that we revisit roughly with a periodicity of twenty years, so it’s not like we never think about it.”

On periodicity: “Periodicity –it’s like a sine wave.”

On green-haired students and Alex Barnard: “…the very very best student in the university…who had a mohawk hair-do up to here. You know? I just said, ‘He’s my guy!’”

(image source: njmonthly.com)