Issuu

BATT THE

THE BATTALION | THEBATT.COM

After a strong freshman campaign. sophomore Ally Watt earned a spot on the U-20 Women’s National World Cup Team in Sept.

Alt-right speech organizer meets with Texas A&M officials Monday By Brad Canon @BradCanon1

Texas A&M officials met with Preston Wiginton, the organizer for the campus visit of alt-right activist Richard Spencer and a member of the Foundation for the Marketplace of Ideas, Monday morning to discuss logistics, safety and the cost associated with hosting the increasingly high-profile event scheduled for Dec. 6. The event will be moved from its original location in Rudder Tower to the MSC in room 2400 and will require higher levels of security due to the controversy of the event. The planned event has caused outrage from current and former students, and many have called for the cancellation of the white nationalist’s speech. Spencer came under public scrutiny recently after video of a speech he gave at a conference for the National Policy Institute, a think tank for white nationalists and the alt-right, circulated around the Internet. His remarks ended with him saying, “Heil Trump, heil our people, heil victory.” Wiginton said the main issue is security at the event in response to the planned protests. He said A&M officials have no right to charge him for security to a point where he can’t finance the event. “The Supreme Court has ruled that free speech cannot be priced,” Wiginton said. “Technically we don’t have to [pay for security] — if it’s reasonable — with the relationship I have had with A&M I don’t mind spending some.” Spokesperson for the university and senior vice president and chief marketing and communications officer Amy Smith said since the event is expected to be larger than a typical event, the extra expense which will be needed to host the event will be placed on the organizers of the event and not the state. “We have a responsibility to keep our buildings as a safe environment for our students and because he is here that is going to be part of the

TALENT ON THE INTERNATIONAL STAGE ALLY WATT FINDS SUCCESS ON US U-20 WOMEN’S WORLD CUP TEAM

WIGINTON ON PG. 4

Kevin Chou — THE BATTALION

By Matt Koper @MattKoper

hen a certain player gets the ball, it’s clear something dynamic is going to happen. That’s definitely the case with sophomore forward Ally Watt, whose compelling play making ability landed her a spot on the United States U-20 Women’s World Cup Team.

Watt joined a talented Texas A&M team in fall 2015 and didn’t just blend in — she stood out, scoring seven goals in her freshman campaign, four of which were game-winners. As a result of her impressive 2015 campaign, Watt was selected to the 2015 All-SEC Freshman Team. Watt has seemed to find success on the

national team. On Nov. 26, the official Texas A&M soccer Facebook account congratulated Watt on being named the FIFA Player of the Game after she scored the equalizer in the final 10 minutes of the United States match against Mexico in the FIFA U-20 World Cup Quarterfinal. Watt credits her success last season to

the coaching staff and her continued training the past two years with her teammates. Watt planned ahead and redshirted her sophomore season after being named to the U-20 Women’s World Cup Team this past September. WATT ON PG. 2 Alex Sein — THE BATTALION

Dark matter galaxies contain very few visible stars, but are still detectable.

cause Painting for a

A&M scientists discuss mystery behind dark matter

Luis Bañuelos to paint Bonfire Memorial mural for BUILD pod

By Alex Sein @alexandrsein

By Hannah Gerken @gerken.Hannah For biology senior Luis Bañuelos, painting murals of A&M traditions has always been a passion, but recently he was offered an opportunity for his artwork to stand for something much bigger. Bañuelos has become known for his Aggie murals, and one even found a new home in Moldova, a small Eastern European country. “When I started painting, I wanted to do something challenging and something that meant a lot to me,” Bañuelos said. “It didn’t take much searching to find something around campus that would work well.” Bañuelos was contacted by BUILD, a student service organization that converts empty pods into medical units to be shipped to countries in need in honor of the 12 victims of the 1999 Bonfire collapse. The organization asked Bañuelos if he would paint the Bonfire Memorial in one of the mobile medical clinics. “I had known Luis through the Terry Scholars Foundation and he posted on Facebook that he was wanting to do another [mural],” said Kayla McCabe, design and construction team leader for BUILD. “I thought the Bonfire Memorial he had done before would be fantastic.” Each clinic is dedicated to one of the 12 victims of the collapse, and then sent overseas to serve in countries in desperate need of medical supplies and services, McCabe said. The clinic housing Bañuelos’ mural will be sent to Moldova and has been named after Michael Stephen BAÑUELOS ON PG. 4

Kevin Chou — THE BATTALION

Senior Luis Bañuelos spray painted Aggie icons in Graffiti Park in Austin before being asked to paint the Bonfire Memorial in the BUILD pod.

Modern physics and astronomy are discovering new things about dark matter and energy every day, and each discovery helps paint an ever-clearer picture of the universe. Dark energy is a mysterious form of energy that seems to emanate from empty space itself. Discovered in 1998 by two independent teams of researchers, little is known about dark energy except that it causes the expansion of space. There is no way to physically detect it, so it must be measured by its effects on things that can be seen. A&M physics and astronomy professor and co-creator of one of the original research teams Nicholas Suntzeff said finding a way to detect this dark energy was a challenge the teams had to tackle in 1998. “If you know the brightness of something — say a 75 watt light bulb — you figure out how far away it is, then you know if it’s bright or faint, but you have to know it’s a 75 watt light bulb,” Suntzeff said. “When a certain type of star explodes, you get essentially the same brightness, always, and that was our first discovery.” Using this information, the team was able to plot these supernovae across the universe. “We were able to measure accurate distances because we knew how many watts the explosion was,” Suntzeff said. “Even with the present expansion of the universe, we could predict how far away things were in the past based on how much matter there is in the universe, how old the universe is and how fast the universe is DARK MATTER ON PG. 4