News

Lally changes MBA curriculum

building habitats

Group examining commercial district

Ed/Op

Staff Editorial
Seek more student input when making decisions

Editorial Notebook
Politicians stealing yet again

Editorial Notebook
Stick out RPI ‘til graduation

Top Hat
Editor of The Onion speaks

Interfraternity Council
Direction developed at retreat

Panhellenic Council
Sample greek life during recruitment

Derby
System quickens budgeting process

My View
Golf requires balance of skills, athleticism

My View
Community policing neglected

My View
Caucus results surprise country

Features

Shelnutt Gallery captures jazz spirit

Return of the King cleans up Golden Globes

Dave Barry
Child’s party: chainsaw not included

Student garage offers winter car care tips

Burton’s Big Fish inspires viewers

funny man in the Union

Sports

Engineers hold onto first in ECAC

Red Hawks split conference road trip

Women’s basketball improves to 4-1 in UCAA

Indoor track off to fast start in 2004

Sharks, Avalanche smoking as NHL All-Star break appraoches

Sacred Heart no match for Engineers

Swimming, diving drowns Union, Skidmore

Aussie Open missing games’ best

Rensselaer in Brief
Anslow released
Rensselaer County’s Local Conditional Release Commission voted 3-1 on January 14 to release Mary Beth Anslow from jail three months into her one year sentence.

Anslow was convicted of endangering the welfare of a child after Laura Mae Marbot, a 3-month-old, died while in the care of the illegal day care center Anslow ran. The Commission’s 3-1 vote did not include votes of two members who could not attend the meeting and openly opposed her release.

Her release angered many and County Executive Kathy Jimino and Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno have been trying to get Anslow’s release rescinded. Attorneys are looking into the fact that she may have applied for release again too soon after her first application was denied. State law mandates that the inmate wait 60 days before applying again.

Jimino has asked members of the Commission to resign and several have. In addition, Anslow’s attorney, Rensselaer County Republican Party Chairman Jack Casey, has quit the case and future actions related to it citing a conflict of interest since Couny Executive Jimino, also a Republican, is among those leading the way to have the release rescinded.

New state of matter
Last week’s Physical Review Letters cover story discussed the best evidence to date of a new form of sub-atomic matter, being called the “pentaquark.” The paper’s lead author was RPI Research scientist Valery Kubarovsky, and the research was carried out at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility by physicists from seven countries.

While scientists have theorized that five quark particles existed for years, it wasn’t until late 2002 that particle smashing experiments conducted by a Japanese team showed that there was any proof. The research outlined in the January 23 cover story of the journal had a much higher detection rate of the new form of atomic matter than previous experiments.

According to Kubarovsky, “The latest, and most conclusive evidence of this five-quark particle—the ‘pentaquark’—could bring immense insight in understanding the laws and structure of universal matter in its most fundamental form.”

CDTA abandons plan
The Capital District Transit Authority recently declined a $240,000 state grant that would have paid for an electronic shuttle system between the new Rensselaer Rail Station and downtown Albany that was synchronized with Amtrak schedules.

The plan was originally devised before the new station was built and as CDTA was testing the technology with the manufacturer, they discovered that even the best available electric buses would have struggled with traveling Albany’s State Street hill.

Between September 2002 and January 2003, CDTA ran regular shuttle busses to service the station, but the number of riders was low. While the CDTA isn’t ruling out a shuttle in the future, the current plan is to stay with the regular bus service routes that stop at the Rensselaer Rail Station.