Nibs

Zhu Lijie, a physics student, posted a notice on a Peking University bulletin board, offering 1,000 yuan ($130) to a woman who would pose as his girlfriend for the trip home for the holiday. The advertisement said the woman should be ‘an honest, kind and similar-aged girl with a diploma’. The Lunar New Year holiday, which starts February 18, is the most important family holiday in China. Zhu reportedly told his parents, who were pressuring him to get a girlfriend, that he had been studying too hard and had no time to meet a potential partner. Peking University officials and the police have warned women to be wary of such advertisements.
Bushwhacked

The Bush administration has been accused of systemically tampering with the work of government climate scientists to eliminate politically inconvenient material about global warming. Scientists told a Congressional hearing about the

Bush Administration’s campaign to remove references to global warming from scientific reports and limit public mention of the topic to avoid pressure on an administration opposed to mandatory controls on greenhouse gas emissions. Such pressure extended to the use of the words ‘global warming’ or ‘climate change’, according to the Union of Concerned Scientists’ report. The Congressional committee was warned that the Bush administration campaign discouraged free academic inquiry. “If you know what you’re writing has to go through a White House clearance before it’s published, an anticipatory kind of self-censorship sets in,” said Rick Piltz, a former senior associate of the US Climate Change Science Program. In a survey of 1,600 scientists working at seven US government agencies, from NASA to the Environmental Protection Agency, 46% had been warned against using terms like global warming in speeches or reports, while 43% said their published works were revised in ways that altered the meaning of the scientific findings.
Open day

TU Delft is hosting a special event for young women who want to learn more about the Aerospace Engineering program. The event, called ‘Open Day for Young Women’, will be held on 8 February. This day is part of a campaign to interest more young women in studying aerospace engineering. Currently, only 7% of aerospace students are female. This is the first time the program has specifically focused on recruiting female students. Thirty female high school students have signed up to participate in the Open Day.
Design show

TU Delft and the Museon in Den Haag will combine an exhibition and various workshops to show high school students all that is involved in designing a product. The ‘Design is more than Design’ exhibition opens on Saturday, February 10 and runs until Sunday, March 4 at the Museon. Most of the exhibits have been provided by TU Delft, and one of the themes of the Museon exhibition is that of nature as inspiration for the designer. Examples of this include snowshoes that were inspired by a polar bear’s paw, and the Delfly, a miniature observation plane that imitates the movements of a hummingbird. A great deal of attention will also be devoted to designing more inexpensive and environmentally friendly products. Many of TU Delft’s research projects are focused on discovering how to make the manufacturing process cleaner, more efficient and less expensive. Visitors will also be able to view various failed products, in order to understand all that can go wrong in the design process.
‘Nieuwe Delft’

The main promenade through the Mekelpark, TU Delft’s new campus heart, has been named ‘Nieuwe Delft’. The new name was announced on Thursday, February 1, 2007. Piet W. Verbeek, an employee of TU Delft, submitted this name as part of the Mekelpark Competition, which challenged the university’s students and employees to think of an appropriate name for the promenade. The jury chose the winning name from 109 submissions. “‘Nieuwe Delft’ literally establishes a link between the Municipality of Delft and the Campus, it’s appropriate and recognizable from an international perspective, and it establishes a historic link with the Oude Delft, where the university buildings were originally located 165 years ago,” said Professor Hugo Priemus, Dean of TU Delft’s Faculty of Technology, Policy and Management, during the unveiling of the new street sign. The name of the winner of the Mekelpark Competition will be immortalised on the street signs. The winning name was announced during the official closing of the Mekelweg and the start of the construction works for the new Mekelpark. The Mekelpark and Nieuwe Delft project is expected to be completed in late 2008.

Rent-a-girl

A desperate Chinese university student hopes to ‘rent’ a girlfriend for 10 days so he can show her off to his parents over the Lunar New Year holiday, Xinhua News Agency reported. Zhu Lijie, a physics student, posted a notice on a Peking University bulletin board, offering 1,000 yuan ($130) to a woman who would pose as his girlfriend for the trip home for the holiday. The advertisement said the woman should be ‘an honest, kind and similar-aged girl with a diploma’. The Lunar New Year holiday, which starts February 18, is the most important family holiday in China. Zhu reportedly told his parents, who were pressuring him to get a girlfriend, that he had been studying too hard and had no time to meet a potential partner. Peking University officials and the police have warned women to be wary of such advertisements.
Bushwhacked

The Bush administration has been accused of systemically tampering with the work of government climate scientists to eliminate politically inconvenient material about global warming. Scientists told a Congressional hearing about the

Bush Administration’s campaign to remove references to global warming from scientific reports and limit public mention of the topic to avoid pressure on an administration opposed to mandatory controls on greenhouse gas emissions. Such pressure extended to the use of the words ‘global warming’ or ‘climate change’, according to the Union of Concerned Scientists’ report. The Congressional committee was warned that the Bush administration campaign discouraged free academic inquiry. “If you know what you’re writing has to go through a White House clearance before it’s published, an anticipatory kind of self-censorship sets in,” said Rick Piltz, a former senior associate of the US Climate Change Science Program. In a survey of 1,600 scientists working at seven US government agencies, from NASA to the Environmental Protection Agency, 46% had been warned against using terms like global warming in speeches or reports, while 43% said their published works were revised in ways that altered the meaning of the scientific findings.
Open day

TU Delft is hosting a special event for young women who want to learn more about the Aerospace Engineering program. The event, called ‘Open Day for Young Women’, will be held on 8 February. This day is part of a campaign to interest more young women in studying aerospace engineering. Currently, only 7% of aerospace students are female. This is the first time the program has specifically focused on recruiting female students. Thirty female high school students have signed up to participate in the Open Day.
Design show

TU Delft and the Museon in Den Haag will combine an exhibition and various workshops to show high school students all that is involved in designing a product. The ‘Design is more than Design’ exhibition opens on Saturday, February 10 and runs until Sunday, March 4 at the Museon. Most of the exhibits have been provided by TU Delft, and one of the themes of the Museon exhibition is that of nature as inspiration for the designer. Examples of this include snowshoes that were inspired by a polar bear’s paw, and the Delfly, a miniature observation plane that imitates the movements of a hummingbird. A great deal of attention will also be devoted to designing more inexpensive and environmentally friendly products. Many of TU Delft’s research projects are focused on discovering how to make the manufacturing process cleaner, more efficient and less expensive. Visitors will also be able to view various failed products, in order to understand all that can go wrong in the design process.
‘Nieuwe Delft’

The main promenade through the Mekelpark, TU Delft’s new campus heart, has been named ‘Nieuwe Delft’. The new name was announced on Thursday, February 1, 2007. Piet W. Verbeek, an employee of TU Delft, submitted this name as part of the Mekelpark Competition, which challenged the university’s students and employees to think of an appropriate name for the promenade. The jury chose the winning name from 109 submissions. “‘Nieuwe Delft’ literally establishes a link between the Municipality of Delft and the Campus, it’s appropriate and recognizable from an international perspective, and it establishes a historic link with the Oude Delft, where the university buildings were originally located 165 years ago,” said Professor Hugo Priemus, Dean of TU Delft’s Faculty of Technology, Policy and Management, during the unveiling of the new street sign. The name of the winner of the Mekelpark Competition will be immortalised on the street signs. The winning name was announced during the official closing of the Mekelweg and the start of the construction works for the new Mekelpark. The Mekelpark and Nieuwe Delft project is expected to be completed in late 2008.