March 7, 2013

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Founded 1876 daily since 1892 online since 1998

Thursday march 7, 2013 vol. cxxxvii no. 24

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LOCAL NEWS

DeZarn to run for NJ state senate

Snow early, rain and snow in the afternoon. chance of rain:

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In Opinion Prianka Misra discusses ethnic associations, and Lauren Prastien responds to sexual violence statistics. PAGE 4

By Michael Granovetter senior writer

In Street Street Editor Abby Williams goes behind the scenes of “Admission” with Tina Fey, Paul Rudd and Paul Weitz. PAGE S1

The Archives

Mar. 7, 1972 The Princeton faculty voted 89-87 to adopt an academic calendar that would provide a fall break before the 1973 election.

On the Blog Former African American Studies professor Melissa Harris-Perry objected to the Harlem Shake meme on her MSNBC news and opinion show.

On the Blog

Jeff Liu reviews “Amok,” the debut album of Thom Yorke’s side project, Atoms for Peace.

News & Notes

PSE&G customers without power

A reported 1,170 Public Service Electric and Gas customers in New Jersey lost power today as a result of a powerful storm on the Atlantic Coast. A representative for PSE&G said that most of the outages are concentrated to Central Jersey and are largely the result of downed utility poles from the storm’s high winds. At this point, PSE&G said it is unclear when power will be restored. The University, a PSE&G customer, was still receiving power from PSE&G as of Wednesday night, according to the PSE&G website.

Equipment malfunction causes wireless outage

University wireless network users experienced a wireless Internet outage of about 45 minutes on Wednesday morning around 11 a.m. due to equipment malfunction. University Spokesperson Martin Mbugua said that a piece of equipment that controls access to the wireless system to the network malfunctioned and an automatic backup was unable to pick up the wireless connection. OIT staff are working to determine the cause of the malfunction in both the wireless device and the automatic backup. Mbugua said there is no indication that the outage was caused by inclement weather.

3.7news FOR LUC.indd 1

HORIA RADOI :: STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

The Princeton University Orchestra rehearses at Richardson Auditorium for its concerts Friday and Saturday, featuring Jeff Li ’13, Louisa Slosar ’15 and Paul von Autenried ’16, the student winners of the annual concerto competition. LOCAL NEWS

Town awaits consolidation reimbursement from state By Kristen McNierney staff writer

The newly-consolidated Princeton is seeking $460,000 from the state of New Jersey to cover transition costs incurred over the past year. Before Princeton residents voted to consolidate the Princeton Borough and Township in November 2011, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie informed the municipalities in September of the same year that they would be reimbursed for 20 percent of the consolidation costs. However, now that the town has submitted a request to the state, it is unclear which expenses are eligible for reimbursement. During the transition process, which spanned 2012, the municipalities estimated $1.7 million in consolidation costs, Princeton Council President

Bernard Miller said. This February, the council submitted a request to the New Jersey Department of Community Affairs for reimbursement of $460,000, or 19 percent of the final $2.4 million sum, and met with DCAofficials to discuss the reimbursement. The request for reimbursement outlined a list of total expenses that the two municipalities incurred during the transition period, but town officials said the meeting did not produce a specific agreement and they are still unsure which costs the state will choose to reimburse. “We have one meeting with them to discuss our request, and we’re hopeful that the state will live up to its promise of 20 percent,” Miller said. In the 2012 Princeton Township Budget Newsletter, the Citizens’ Finance Advisory Committee had assured tax-

payers that “the state has committed to pay 20 percent of the one-time transition costs.” DCA spokeswoman Tammori Petty told The Times of Trenton this month that Christie’s offer stipulated that only expenses that were “absolutely necessary” for consolidation would be eligible for the 20 percent return. According to Miller, it was impossible to lay out the exact costs of consolidation when the governor first made his offer because no one knew what expenses would be incurred. Princeton is the first town in the state to consolidate two previously separate municipalities in over half a century. “Since this was the first merger, there was no guidebook to follow,” Miller said. “We were breaking new ground.” He explained that the majority of See JERSEY page 3

Senior Operations Manager for Butler/Wilson Dining Services Donald DeZarn has announced that he will run as the Libertarian candidate in November’s election for state senator of the 14th Legislative District of New Jersey. While his platform includes advocacy for small businesses and free enterprise, he said he also hopes to initiate a dialogue on what he calls “sensitive” issues by openly supporting gay marriage and the legalization of marijuana. Because the New Jersey Libertarian Party does not conduct a primary election, DeZarn will automatically be nominated at a statewide Libertarian convention on March 16. He will run against the incumbent Democratic Senator Linda Greenstein. The Republican Party has not yet announced any candidates. The 2013 run for state senator will be DeZarn’s first political campaign. He has been employed by Dining Services for the past 17 years, though he took a yearlong military leave in 2005 to serve in the Iraq War. DeZarn became interested in pursuing a political campaign after “waking up one morning” and asking himself, “What happened to my country that I love?” DeZarn explained that he was inspired to run for office after hearing about the financial struggles of both his neighbors in East Windsor and his colleagues in Dining Services. He added that he believes that both Democrats and Republicans today are limiting the free enterprise system. “It makes me sick to see our state give out subsidies while the mom-and-pop private businesses don’t get that even playing field,” he said. “No one really has a plan to get us out of this mess.” DeZarn said that in addition to minimizing government regulation of small businesses, he intends to “start a movement” by generating conversations about marijuana legalization and the rights of gay men and women. “There are politicians in Trenton who agree with me on these issues, but they’re not willing to be the first to stand up for them for political reasons,” DeZarn explained. “But I’m not a politician, so I have nothing to lose.” In particular, DeZarn noted that he believes that See ELECTION page 2

BEYOND THE BUBBLE

U. to receive symbolic tiles from Hiroshima bombing By Lydia Lim staff writer

Hordes of survivors of the world’s first atomic bombing in Hiroshima were rushing toward Motoyasu River on Aug. 6, 1945, only blocks away from the epicenter of the blast. The Japanese citizens, whose bodies were severely burned, jumped into the river in hope of relieving their pain, but many did not survive. Countless bodies were seen floating down the Motoyasu in the days following the bombing, revealing only a small fragment of the destruction that permeated the entire city. Last August, Hiroshima University bequeathed seven roof tiles that were collected from the riverbed of the Motoyasu to Princeton. The tiles were a gift

in honor of the University’s support of the restoration of the Hiroshima campus in 1951. Four years after the bombing, Hiroshima University President Tatsuo Morito wrote to universities around the world requesting gifts of books and trees to help the university rebuild its campus. “Because the atomic bomb had essentially leveled the campus, buildings and all trees, [Hiroshima University was] initially asking for trees, and they asked if, in lieu of sending a tree, to make a monetary donation,” Daniel J. Linke, the University archivist at Mudd Library, said. Princeton’s then-Assistant to the President Arthur E. Fox wrote back to Morito in May 1951, stating that the University would donate a book to Hiroshima University’s See MOTOYASU page 2

COURTESY OF MUDD LIBRARY

The tiles recognize Princeton’s contribution in rebuilding Hiroshima University.

ACADEMICS

U. researchers develop technique to probe ‘missing heritability’ By Greta Shum contributor

A new University study recently published in Nature has shown that extensive genetic mapping can be used to trace the genetic origins of even the smallest trait variations, providing support for 20th-century scientific arguments that privilege nature over nurture. The study was conducted by Joshua Bloom, a graduate student in the molecular biology department who developed the project for his Ph.D., and ecology and evolutionary biology

professor Leonid Kruglyak ’87. Bloom was unavailable to comment for this article. Thuy-Lan Vo Lite ’12, who worked on the project for her senior thesis, said she enjoyed participating in the investigation of the “missing heritability,” a mystery that has existed in genetics since the 1920s. “In humans there’s this problem where even in traits that we know are heritable, we can’t really find all the genetic components to fully explain that heritability,” Lite said. “But in this project, we are able to take a heritable trait

like drug response and find all of the genetic components responsible for the phenotype. And we can predict the phenotype very accurately from the genotype.” Lite said the new genetic mapping technique has given new evidence for the genetic “nature” of an organism to dictate every inherited trait. While the previous technique for tracking genetic features in humans had allowed scientists to understand heritability, the majority of variation in inherited traits has so far been inexplicable. Variations in inherited traits like height and

genetic disease could not be attributed to particular genes. By default, they had been attributed to an organism’s environment, the “nurture” of “nature versus nurture.” However, by changing their approach, Bloom and his research team determined that this so-called “missing heritability” can be traced through genes. For many inherited traits, variation in what is expressed can be explained by each trait’s extended network of genes, rather than individual areas of the genome, according to Kruglyak. Bloom’s technique involved

studying enormous generations of yeast that inherited their ancestors’ genes in ways that the scientists could measure. By crossing two different strains of yeast — one developed in the lab and one from a vineyard — Bloom used simulations and breeding techniques to model and grow extended families. By using yeast, a very simple organism with a linear genome, Bloom was able to develop a system that simultaneously introduced variety in the gene pool and allowed individual traits to See GENES page 3

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