The Engineers remained at No. 10 in the USCHO.com poll after their road trip to Harvard and Dartmouth. After playing to a 3-3 tie last Tuesday against Harvard, the Red and White fell to the Crimson at Harvard over the weekend. They bounced back with a decisive 7-1 win against Dartmouth on Saturday. The win over Dartmouth gives RPI a 5-2-1 record so far this season. The Engineers have been fueled by their explosive offense, scoring three or more goals in all but their two losses and have scored six or more three times. Junior forward Ryan Haggerty is the leading scorer for the Engineers, with his efforts earning him the ECAC Player Of The Month for October. His nation leading ten goals with two game winners and four coming on the power play make Haggerty one of the most prolific goal scorers so far this season. However, RPI’s success is the result of a team effort with many other players getting in the mix. Senior Forward Brock Higgs has contributed 11 points thus far in the form of six goals and five assists. Junior Forward Jacob Laliberte leads the team in assists with seven. Through the opening part of the season, 13 players have scored for the Engineers (senior forwards Johnny Rogic, Brock Higgs, Matt Tinordi; junior forwards Ryan Haggerty, Matt Neal, Jacob Laliberte; junior defenseman Luke Curadi; sophomore forwards Mark Miller, and Milos Bubela; freshman forwards Jake Wood and Jimmy Devito; and freshman defender Parker Reno)a. The RPI fans haven’t seen sophomore goaltender Jason Kasdorf much as he has been out with an injury. However, junior goaltender Scott Diebold has been more than solid in net for the Engineers with a .946 save percentage and only allowing 1.58 goals a game. Diebold’s fantastic play in the blue paint gives the Engineers a chance to win every night. The Engineers return to the Houston Field House this Friday to play No. 15 Cornell. Cornell comes into Troy having been blanked at Quinnipiac in their last contest. The Engineers then play unranked Colgate on Saturday. Read more...

It really seems like no one reads books anymore with the popularity of the internet in finding ways to spend time. Think about it: when was the last time you opened up a book and read through it when it wasn’t required for, or related to, a class? Probably not any time in the past year. And we’re at a research university;we’re supposed to be some of the more intelligent people in the country! This situation reminds me of a book I read in high school called The Futurological Congress, written by none other than my favorite author, Stanislaw Lem. In The Futurological Congress, the space explorer Ijon Tichy is visiting a conference on the world overpopulation crisis at the Costa Rica Hilton. A riot breaks out at the hotel, and Tichy hides in the sewers with a few other conference-goers. However, (and here the book really gets going) he has drunk some of the drugged tap water meant to stop the riot by causing hallucinations. He starts envisioning a dystopian future in which every part of life is regulated and maintained through mind-altering drugs. In this world, people learn and read by ingesting pills that directly deliver information to their minds. This future in part is a great example of Lem’s method of social commentary through satire and metaphor. Read more...

Hi! I’m Elizabeth Anderson, co-chair of the Student Sustainability Task Force. This semester, SSTF is working on several projects to encourage sustainability at Rensselaer. Read more...

On Saturday, November 2, both the men’s and women’s varsity cross country teams travelled to Bard College to compete in the Liberty League championships. The women opened the day with a 6,000 meter race; senior Grace Tilton, took first place overall to lead RPI to second place out of the eight-team field. Tilton also set a new meet record, with a time of 21:23—an average pace of 5:44 per mile. The women scored a total of 57 points, which was second to St. Lawrence with 27. Also contributing to RPI’s successful day were juniors Christine Artim and Hayley Beyer, both of whom finished in the top 10, and sophomores Emily Stickles, Alexa Sakorafos, and Shannon Trant who all finished in the top 20 to round out Rennselaer’s top 15. Read more...

Inside the brick walls of the innocuous-looking Cogswell Laboratory on the southern end of campus, the soft hum of sophisticated magnetic resonance machines can be heard day and night. The Lakshmi Lab, headed by its namesake Dr. K. V. Lakshmi, spearheads the work of the Baruch ’60 Center for Biochemical Solar Research. Its goal is to advance the world’s progress toward reliable, renewable sources of fuel production. Keeping in mind the Kardashev scale of measuring a civilization’s level of technological advancement, Dr. Lakshmi and her lab have looked to the sun. In an attempt to improve the inefficient conversion of light energy to electrical energy that already exists in photovoltaic cells, they have looked to the vastly more efficient process of photosynthesis. Read more...

Hello RPI! I’m Kyle Keraga, Class of 2015 senator and president of the Undergraduate Council, here to fill you in on exciting recent and upcoming class events on campus and explain what class councils do for you. Read more...

Hello RPI! I hope that everyone has enjoyed this Halloween season! On Thursday night, the Pub held a special event to celebrate Halloween with Halloween related trivia and treats. Sodexo specially prepared goodies for the event including a “pumpkin vomit” guacamole dip, mummy hot dogs, ghost cookies, and of course tons of candy! The event was great and featured many wonderful regulars in their best costumes. Read more...

After only being at (and eating at) RPI for three months, I have begun to notice that the food here is not quite to the level it should be. The issue I am bringing up here is not the common complaint that the food is horrible (yet it is rarely amazing), but changes could be made, specifically concerning the logistics and economics of feeding students. This is a concern that may not be considered as often as actual quality of the food, but I feel it is important. I believe that it may very well be in Rensselaer’s best interest to completely drop Sodexo as their food provider. Read more...

“Travel while you are young, you will never have the opportunity once you are in the real world.” Almost everyone will have some family member say this to them the summer after they graduate high school. They talk about how you will have the rest of your life to work so travel the world, experience different cultures, broaden your mind, and do everything that they wish they did when they were young. So as a college student given the opportunity to take a summer internship or travel to the other side of the world, what will you choose? Read more...