NYU’s Daily Student Newspaper
WASHINGTON SQUARE NEWS Vol. 42, No. 86
MONDAY, NOVEMBER 3, 2014
nyunews.com TECHNOLOGY
INSIDE THIS ISSUE
Hackers build tools to combat Ebola
NEWS
By ALEX BAZELEY Deputy News Editor
STAFF PHOTO BY VALENTINA DUQUE BOJANINI
NYU students receive HBO Go in dorms Students living in housing now have access to HBO Go. STORY on PG. 3
FEATURES
STAFF PHOTO BY CALVIN FALK
STAFF PHOTO BY HARKANWAL KANWAL
Laptops questioned in classrooms
The iron lung was one method to aid in respiratoin for Polio patients.
Whether or not to allow technology is an ongoing debate for professors.
Alums remembered for polio vaccine
STORY on PG. 4
OPINION
Campaign focus shift needed in midterms Youth voters focused on issues, not parties, and politicians must take note.
FEATURES
By AMANDA MORRIS Staff Writer
The fear surrounding the current Ebola epidemic has drawn some comparisons to the influx in polio cases in the early 1950s. David Oshinsky, who won the Pulitzer Prize for his work, “Polio: An American Story,” is director of the Division of Medical Humanities at NYU Langone Medical Center, which is now showcasing an exhibit about the polio epidemic. “The difference, of course, was that polio was a yearly occurrence to Americans, arriving like the plague each summer and paralyzing and killing thousands of chil-
dren,” Oshinsky said. “The fear was palpable.” “Confronting the Epidemic,” which runs until Nov. 7, commemorates Jonas Salk and Albert Sabin, both NYU School of Medicine graduates who developed the polio vaccine. “It was no accident that both men attended NYU, and that both went on to become path-breaking polio vaccine researchers,” Oshinsky said. “NYU was the only major medical school in the Northeast that did not have a ‘Jewish’ quota in the 1930s, when Salk and Sabin applied. NYU provided a lifeline to young Jewish students.” Salk and Sabin both worked on researching and develop-
ing the vaccine after there was an influx in the number of polio cases in the early 1950s. NYU’s reputation as a research institution is often an important reason that students like CAS sophomore Ian Passman choose to study at NYU. “It’s definitely inspirational to know that such a significant discovery came out of the school that I go to,” Passman said. “It makes achievements like that feel more tangible and possible. Research is what I want to do, so this definitely resonates on a personal level.” The exhibit showcases a small
POLIO continued on PG. 4
STORY on PG. 7
STORY on PG. 4
STORY on PG. 5
Students attempted to increase access to information and doctor-patient communication regarding the Ebola epidemic at a hackathon hosted at the Polytechnic School of Engineering. Their goal was to respond to the challenge made by government agency USAID and technology platform OpenIDEO to create tools for fighting the disease. The hack session lasted from morning to evening on Sunday, Nov. 2. The six teams, which comprised two to six students, created solutions using open source materials to promote universal accessibility to their creations. Many of the projects were focused around the use of SMS to coordinate Ebola treatment because of its ease of use and widespread access, even in developing countries. CAS freshman Arnav Sood and third-year medical student Pamela Wu designed a text messaging service that would allow anyone to text a location to the number and receive an update on whether or not the location is in or around an Ebola-affected zone. “We went with something that we could do really simply, and also make a nice presentation for,” Wu said. “Ultimately, if you’re on the ground, if you’re just a citizen of one of the African countries that are affected, you’re going to want something you can remember.” Wu and Sood’s presentation demonstrated an already working version of the system, and explained its use of widely available resources, including an online map of Ebola outbreaks. Kelsey D’Souza, a freshman at the Columbia University School of Engineering and Applied Science, and John Kotey, a junior in the same school, worked on an SMS-based help
HACK continued on PG. 3
STORY on PG. 8