THE INDEPENDENT NEWSPAPER OF WASHINGTON UNIVERSIT Y IN ST. LOUIS SINCE 1878 The intersection at Wallace and Forsyth presents a real danger, posits Forum editor Jeff Stepp. Find out why inside. Page 4.
The Bears rocked two recent tournaments Noisy library getting you down? Never with their stellar gameplay. Read all about fear—we’ve got eight ways to avoid Olin and that and more in Sports. Page 5. stay sane during reading week. Page 5.
VOLUME 127, NO. 38
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STUDENT LIFE
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Snow and the holidays are on their way to WU. Find out what that means in Scene. Page 8.
MONDAY, DECEMBER 5, 2005
WWW.STUDLIFE.COM
Two student groups share Olin Cup By Troy Rumans Contributing Reporter Somark Innovations, a biotechnology company started by Washington University alumni Mark Pydynowski and Ramos Mays, took fi rst place in the Olin Cup Competition’s all-around category, winning a prize of $50,000. IMobile Access Technologies, led by Stephen Foster, placed second for a prize of $20,000. In the student category, introduced in this year’s competition, Suzanne Shenkman Designs, led by MBA graduate Suzanne Shenkman, and homeWUrk, headed up by junior Teddy Purnomo, split the $5,000 prize. The Olin
Cup Competition also saw the marking of Dec. 1 as Robert J. Skandalaris Day in St. Louis. Skandalaris delivered the keynote address at the Olin Cup ceremony on Thursday. Pydynowski and Mays met at the University during their undergraduate careers. After graduating in 2004 they went their separate ways, but shortly thereafter re-convened to form Somark Innovations, an enterprise that seeks to revolutionize the method by which livestock are tracked in the United States. The two agree that the greatest benefit from winning the Olin Cup comes not from the prize money, but from the visibility their venture has received.
“[The Olin Cup] is the connection to the resources. The visibility that was created for Somark by the Olin Cup…the prestige, the press, the contacts…was incredible,” said Pydynowski. Somark Innovations is currently seeking approval in its fi rst round of fi nancing, a total sum of approximately $3.5 million, as well as fi nalizing international patent protection and the formation of a partnership with a Missouri university to help with FDA/USDA approval studies. A key difference this year compared to previous years was the student category, a new addition to the Olin Cup Competition. “Just the fact they created
that category is amazing,” said Pydnowski. “It’s very hard for them to compete at this level— they still have full time jobs as students.” Pydynowski and Mays had experience starting companies during their University careers. Pydynoswki competed in the Olin Cup in 2004, but did not proceed past the fi rst round. “I started four companies while in college,” said Mays. “The amount of time spent was ridiculous. I don’t see how I could compete at the Olin Cup [as a student],” said Mays. Purnomo’s team at homeWUrk understands. His group consists of himself, junior Steve Xu, sophomore Alan Perlman, junior Ellen Lo and sophomore Aaron Budilov.
“We were the only undergrads. It felt strange,” said Purnomo. Despite that fact, Purnomo’s team felt very strongly about how they performed in the Olin Cup, as well as the overall process. “If you look at where our business was when we fi rst started—our operations are so much different now. We grew a lot,” said Perlman. “The Olin cup was like a support system.” HomeWUrk revolves around the idea of supporting students in moving into a new room. The company offers online decoration of a dorm room, assistance in purchasing furniture and setting up the purchased items in the dorm room all for the
student. It plans to begin offering its services this spring semester. “If you think back to your freshman year—you have no idea what your room or your roommate will be like,” said Pydynoswki, speaking about the company’s services. “There’s a significant convenience value that they’re providing.” The Olin Cup has expanded significantly over the last few years, coinciding with the University’s overarching push towards promoting entrepreneurship across all disciplines. “The overall caliber of participation has increased a lot. The level is a lot more intense,” said Xu. “They really want to get
See OLIN CUP, page 3
Students WU scientist finds lizards’ beat out unique evolutionary trend 129 teams
in region for ACM title By Helen Rhee Staff Reporter Three students sit in an isolated room, disconnected from the outside world, left only with nine puzzles to solve, five hours and one computer. Their brain and the computer are the key to winning the competition. The time is ticking. Every wrong answer will add penalty time to their score. Three Washington University students overcame these challenges to become this year’s Association of Computer Machinery (ACM) Midwest Regional Champions, beating out their 129 competitors. Since winning the Midwest title in November, medical student Albert Mao and juniors James Aguilar and Adam Norberg are training to head off to San Antonio to compete for the international title in April. At this year’s regional championship, held at Webster University, two teams from Washington University, WUSTL-1 and WUSTL-0, competed for the regional title. They were given several puzzles that required them to write a computer program that would answer the given problem. Scores were based on the number of problems each team solved correctly. For computer science majors Norberg and Aguilar, this year was the second time they had taken part in the contest. “I didn’t even start programming until freshman year of college. Last year, we were placed 45th out of 130 teams. We defi nitely improved a lot,” said Aguilar “It was a great experience to become the champion.” Mao, an M.D./Ph.D. student at the medical school, played an important role in the team, according to Aguilar. Mao, who already had the experience of competing from his undergraduate years at Duke, shared his experience and knowledge. To prepare for the regional competition, team members met once a week at the computer science lab. Mao mentored his younger team members for regionals, citing the importance of problem-solving as a basis for preparing for their fi nal competition.
See COMPUTATION, page 2
COURTESY OF JONATHAN LOSOS
Allisoni lizards are natives of Cuba. A Wash. U. researcher has found evolutionary patterns among different Anolis lizards that live in the Caribbean. By Laura Geggel News Editor If nuclear war were to destroy every living thing, would life evolve back exactly as it is now? “Many people think probably not,” said Jonathan Losos, a professor of biology at Washington University who studies the evolutionary background of Anolis lizards. “But at least in this particular case in the Caribbean, the same evolutionary outcome has occurred four times.” In effect, even though Anolis lizards have lived on completely different islands for millions of years, they share similar appearances and hab-
its, despite their differences in DNA. Researchers know of over 400 species of Anolis lizards, and nearly 150 of them live in the greater Caribbean area. Losos and his lab staff, including senior research assistant Kirsten Nicholson and biology lab professor Allan Larson, routinely travel to the islands of Cuba, Jamaica, Puerto Rico and Hispaniola—the island containing both the Dominican Republic and Haiti—to study the lineage of these colorful reptiles. Somewhere between 25-30 million years ago, two species of Anolis lizards colonized the Caribbean islands, said Losos, citing fossilized evidence
found from that time period. Although researchers will never be certain how the lizards accomplished the watery journey across the Caribbean Sea, they have several theories. “How did the lizards get on the island? Did they swim there, did they arrive on logs, is it due to plate tectonics?” asked Nicholson. Despite this uncertainty, Nicholson recently published an article in the Journal of Biogeography in 2004 with Losos and several other members of his lab. By comparing sequenced DNA from different lizard populations, Nicholson found that the Anolis species evolved on the mainland of Central and South America and invaded the Caribbean twice, where they diversified into many species. “Then one of those species, in turn, back colonized to the mainland where it proliferated greatly in Central America,” said Losos. “Mostly what you hear is islands being populated by the mainland. Rarely do you hear about movement from an island to a mainland,” explained Nicholson. “Usually the islands are [more] empty. The mainland does not have as many niches without something eating it or diseasing it; chances on the mainland are nil.” The Anolis lizards, however, have proven themselves
See LIZARD EVOLUTION, page 3
CURTIS MOHAMMED SPEAKS ON HURRICANE RELIEF
ALWYN LOH | STUDENT LIFE
Civil Rights Movement veteran Curtis Muhammed, a founding member of the Student Non Violent Coordinating Committee, speaks in Brown Lounge on Friday, Dec. 2, 2005. Muhammed is a founder of the People’s Hurricane Relief Fund and spoke about the reconstruction effort underway in New Orleans. He said that the rebuilding efforts are focused on business and tourism when they should be helping the poor who lost their homes.
PHOTOILLUSTRATION BY DAVID BRODY | STUDENT LIFE
A recent survey of Washington University students found that almost 40 percent have engaged in cut-and-paste plagarism and over 50 percent have collaborated on assignments.
Cheaters ‘fess up
By Marla Friedman Contributing Reporter With the help of 1,000 students at Washington University, Donald McCabe, a professor of management and global business at Rutgers Business School in New Jersey, is compiling results from a survey on cheating at college campuses. The survey, which has continued over the past three years, has thus far picked out two cheating behaviors as most common. “The less egregious behavior, the more often students will cheat,” said McCabe. “A big one is things like collaborating assignments. The other big one is cut-and-paste plagiarism. I found that 37-38 percent of students have used ‘cut-and-paste plagiarism’ from Web sources and 38-39 percent from print sources over the last three years. Over half of students who responded to the survey say they have engaged in collaboration over the past year,” he said. Survey recipients, randomly selected, answered questions on different aspects of cheating. The survey asked students about their knowledge of the University’s policies on cheating, how often they have engaged in specific behaviors, such as “fabricating a bibliography, working on an assignment with others when the instructor asked for individual work and turning in work done by someone else,” their opinions on the seriousness of cheating and the social influence over cheating. The results collected on campus are part of 45,000 surveys at 28 universities.
“Just juniors and seniors were included in the survey because they have more experience. There is also evidence that either the juniors or seniors are more willing to admit what they’ve done or are just engaging in [cheating] more.” Among the universities surveyed, McCabe expects to see lower rates of cheating on this campus. “It is expected at schools like Wash. U. that hopefully a lot more students are more serious about their work,” said McCabe. “A reasonable number of students talk about taking pride in their work. At Wash. U. people look down on you [if you cheat] because you were not willing to do your own work and are representing someone else’s work as your own.” Even with McCabe’s optimistic outlook for the University, Dirk Killen, assistant dean in Arts & Sciences and academic integrity officer, still wants to decrease the University’s cheating rates. “The numbers that we’ve seen would indicate that our numbers are lower than the average, but not as low as I’d like to see them,” said Killen. “It is primarily good students making poor choices. Much of it is avoidable.” “In the academic integrity hearings we routinely ask students if they asked for an extension of time. Usually students did not ask for an extension and didn’t even think about asking, and professors say they would have granted an extension. If students would stop and think and say ‘wait a minute, I need some help,’ and contact the faculty member,
See CHEATERS, page 3