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EDITORIAL Editor Jocelyn Dong (223-6514) Associate Editor Carol Blitzer (223-6511) Sports Editor Keith Peters (223-6516 Arts & Entertainment Editor Elizabeth Schwyzer (223-6517) Express & Digital Editor My Nguyen (223-6524) Assistant Sports Editor Rick Eymer (223-6521) Spectrum Editor Renee Batti (223-6528) Staff Writers Sue Dremann (223-6518), Elena Kadvany (223-6519), Gennady Sheyner (223-6513) Editorial Assistant/Intern Coordinator Sam Sciolla (223-6515) Staff Photographer/Videographer Veronica Weber (223-6520) Editorial Intern Maev Lowe Contributors Dale F. Bentson, Peter Canavese, Kit Davey, Tyler Hanley, Iris Harrell, Sheila Himmel, Chad Jones, Karla Kane, Ari Kaye, Chris Kenrick, Kevin Kirby, Terri Lobdell, Jack McKinnon, Andrew Preimesberger, Daryl Savage, Jeanie K. Smith, Susan Tavernetti ADVERTISING Vice President Sales & Marketing Tom Zahiralis (223-6570) Multimedia Advertising Sales Adam Carter (223-6573), Elaine Clark (223-6572), Connie Jo Cotton (223-6571), Janice Hoogner (223-6576) Digital Media Sales Heather Choi (223-6587) Real Estate Advertising Sales Neal Fine (223-6583), Carolyn Oliver (223-6581), Rosemary Lewkowitz (223-6585) Inside Advertising Sales Irene Schwartz (223-6580) Real Estate Advertising Assistant Diane Martin (223-6584) Legal Advertising Alicia Santillan (223-6578) ADVERTISING SERVICES Advertising Services Manager Jennifer Lindberg (223-6595) Sales & Production Coordinators Dorothy Hassett (223-6597), Blanca Yoc (223-6596) DESIGN Design & Production Manager Lili Cao (223-6560) Senior Designers Linda Atilano, Paul Llewellyn Designers Kristin Brown, Diane Haas, Rosanna Leung, Doug Young EXPRESS, ONLINE AND VIDEO SERVICES Online Operations Coordinator Thao Nguyen (223-6508) BUSINESS Payroll & Benefits Susie Ochoa (223-6544) Business Associates Audrey Chang (223-6543), Elena Dineva (223-6542), Cathy Stringari (223-6541) ADMINISTRATION Receptionist Doris Taylor Courier Ruben Espinoza
JOIN SEED FOR A RECEPTION WITH AFRICAN CEOS Learn how SEED’s groundbreaking program strives to transform Africa’s economic landscape to end poverty. Find out how you can volunteer as a business coach for high-potential companies. RECEPTION Friday, April 10, 2015 5:30–7:30 pm Oberndorf Event Center Stanford Graduate School of Business Register: http://tinyurl.com/seed-spotlight
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Page 6 • April 3, 2015 • Palo Alto Weekly • www.PaloAltoOnline.com
Aging is like an extreme sport. Susanne Stadler, co-founder of At Home with Growing Older, speaking at a housing conference sponsored by the nonprofit Avenidas. See story on page 32.
Around Town
MEYER’S MEMORIES ... When the Stanford University Alumni Association marked Meyer Library’s final day of operations in August 2014 with a Facebook post titled, “Goodnight, Meyer,” the response was huge. Five hundred comments were made, including some remembering the library as a study haven, others bidding it good riddance and many celebrating the building as a venue for crazy moments. The 40-day demolition of Meyer Library began in February and will end mid-April, and soon the site will be transformed into a landscaped open space with walkways and benches. Most of the library’s resources have been moved to the new Lathrop Library in the old Graduate School of Business, but Meyer’s memories will live on: Bats made a home for themselves in Meyer’s upper reaches and would occasionally send students under their desks or prompt them to avoid the top floor altogether; Meyer was also a hot spot for pranks and mayhem, including naked fraternity pledges running through the library’s lobby, impromptu Band performances and a loinclothed Tarzan swinging between floors; in recent years, the giant “Beat Cal” banner hung proudly across Meyer; and initially the library allowed students to smoke on the third floor, but a spate of spilled ashtrays and burned upholstery, general disregard for rules and — the final straw — a wastepaperbasket fire forced officials to ban smoking in the library. ON THE BIG SCREEN ... Some Silicon Valley scientists can now see their work in a whole new light — and so can millions of visitors — at the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum in Washington. The Smithsonian’s Dynamic Sun Video Wall, which was designed and built by scientists at Lockheed Martin’s Advanced Technology Center in Palo Alto and colleagues from the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, combines six 50-inch monitors to create a 7-foot-by-6foot display of the sun in super high-definition: 4,096 by 4,096 eyepopping pixels. To compare, a high-definition TV can only display 1,920 by 1,080 pixels. The video wall will demonstrate to visitors why images at this resolution are needed to study and predict solar
behavior. “We’re honored that our work in Silicon Valley is part of the nation’s leading aerospace museum,” said Karel Schrijver, NASA’s principal investigator for the Atmospheric Imaging Assembly and a Lockheed Martin Senior Fellow. “Our systems use precise optical technologies to analyze a star that’s nearly 93 million miles away, and we use tremendous computing power to visualize the data, to understand the sun’s ever-changing magnetism and the solar storms that it powers. That’s important because the sun’s behavior can disrupt and damage satellites and power grids.” SINGAPORE SPRING ... Palo Alto Superintendent Max McGee and a group of 12 Palo Alto and Gunn high school students (six from each school) will be spending their spring break in Singapore working on research projects on topics like “identification of novel antibiofilm compounds” and “twodimensional materials as catalysts for the oxygen reduction reaction.” The high-level science research projects and very-extended field trip are part of a pilot research partnership McGee launched this year, connecting the Gunn and Paly students with students at the National Junior College in Singapore. The 12 students will be working for a minimum of 30 hours in the college’s labs over spring break, but the entire project extends through next year, McGee said at the March 24 school board meeting, at which the board gave its official blessing to the trip. McGee gave a proposal of the program to the schools’ science departments and asked them to send his way any students who would be interested in participating. The purpose of the program and trip, McGee said, is “to pursue advanced scientific research and learn what real research is like ... as we prepare (students) for careers that don’t exist, which will include working with peers and colleagues around the world.” The students will learn how to read and analyze scientific literature, develop a formal research proposal, conduct lab research and prepare final papers on their research, which McGee said ideally will be submitted for publication. They will also present their research to the school board this fall. Q