Author Archives: Ike Swetlitz

Last month’s report on grading is a dangerous document.

One day over the summer, David Lim ’13 brought a sleeping bag to his biology lab to complete a 20-hour procedure. Lim’s scientific dedication was part of his work on Yale’s research team for the International Genetically Engineered Machine competition, which invites groups of students to submit original synthetic biology research projects. Yale’s team attended »

On Sunday, a man wielding a cordless reciprocating saw, a woman with a tiny microscope and an architecture student with a clove of garlic, among others, brought to life a new artistic collaboration that unites eight of Yale’s schools. Assembled by Saga Blane ARC ’13 as her master’s thesis project, “XS” creates a space for »

Roz Savage, 44, set out from the Canary Islands in 2005. Seven years, 15,000 miles, 5 million oar strokes and four world records later, she arrived in Mauritius. Last month, she began a new chapter of her life as a World Fellow at Yale. An ocean rower from England, Savage uses her seafaring expeditions to »

Some trees, when infected by microorganisms, may be emitting significant amounts of the greenhouse gas methane, according to a recent Yale study. This study, published last month by a team of scientists at Yale, Columbia University, and the State University of New York at Buffalo in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, found that heart rot »

In an effort to increase the number of quality teaching opportunities for graduate students fulfilling their requirements, a new program piloted this semester by the History Department has paired doctoral candidates with professors to teach seminars. The Seminar Fellow Program allows graduate students to help design, plan and teach seminars normally led solely by faculty »

Former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean ’71 told students Thursday afternoon that they are better positioned to enact political change than previous generations. At a Pierson College Master’s Tea, Dean said the connectivity fostered by the Internet and has empowered young people to develop long-term solutions to societal issues. This shift lends itself to “bottom-up” efforts, »

Elaina Plott’s arguments, published Oct. 25, sound familiar. They draw much from Francisco d’Anconia’s money speech in Ayn Rand’s “Atlas Shrugged.” The speech outlines Rand’s view of money, arguing, as Plott wrote, that neither money nor the love of money is the root of all evil. Plott assumes that the Occupy Wall Street protesters hate »

To protect its citizens, the United States government must turn its attention to threats that could come from outside the country, according to U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano. At a Thursday afternoon town hall meeting organized by the Jackson Institute for Global Affairs, Napolitano spoke to a crowd of about 200 undergraduates and »