Opinion: Supreme Court should end affirmative action in college admissions

The U.S. Supreme Court is set to hear the controversial case Fisher v. University of Texas. The case comes from Abigail Fisher, a white college student, who sued the University of Texas after she was denied admission, says Calvin Wolf for Yahoo! News. Because she was not in the top 10 percent of her high school graduating class, she had to go through a general admissions process where applicants’ racial backgrounds were taken into account. Fisher and her supporters argue that this process is discriminatory. Up until now, colleges and universities have been allowed to use race as a factor in admissions because it is considered a compelling interest of the public to have colleges and universities that are racially diverse. The current standard of affirmative action usage in college admissions comes from the 2003 Supreme Court case Grutter v. Bollinger, discussed by the Ohio State Law Journal, which allows continued use of affirmative action as long as race is not a deciding factor and is only one of many factors in an applicant’s admission…

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Opinion: College professors supposedly too liberal, anti-Reagan

According to The Daily Caller, college professors don’t think as highly of our 40th president, Ronald Reagan, as they should, says Calvin Wolf for Yahoo! News. Out of 284 professors, only 16 percent identified themselves as politically conservative and only 40 percent included Reagan among their list of the top 10 presidents. By contrast, a 2011 Gallup poll found Americans are most likely to say that Reagan was the greatest president, with almost 20 percent of respondents naming him number one. I like Ronald Reagan but find this witch-hunt against “uber-liberal” college profs to be insulting, and misguided. First of all, how were these 284 college professors selected? If one wants to skew data to demonize professors as liberals, they could poll 284 professors at liberal arts, fine arts and performing arts colleges in liberal areas such as New York and San Francisco to guarantee a higher percentage of nonconservative academics. Were any of the colleges and universities in conservative areas such as west Texas?

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Watch: Computer accessory lets you navigate Windows 8 with your eyes

Here’s something that could make Windows 8 a lot more fun to use—a system that gives you the power to navigate the computer with your eyes, Yahoo! News reports. Microsoft’s newest operating system isn’t commercially available yet, but Swedish company Tobii has long prepared for its arrival by tweaking its Gaze eye-tracking technology to work with the Windows 8 interface. Gaze works by attaching an eye monitoring device that follows the movement of your eyes to the computer’s USB port. An onscreen indicator appears on the part of the screen you’re looking at, and all you need to do is click the trackpad to launch a program or click a link…

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Protecting United States from hackers means redoubling education efforts

If there was ever a time for the U.S. to get back on track with math and science, it’s with the latest ABC News report on China: ” For more than a year, hackers with ties to the Chinese military have been eaves dropping on U.S. Chamber of Commerce officials involves in Asian affairs, authorities say,” Yahoo! News reports. This is alarming and completely unacceptable. The Chinese hackers should have been found immediately not left unchecked for more than a year, but how can we find hackers when we’re below the world mean in math and science? We can’t protect ourselves if we don’t have citizens with the skills to protect us, and protection starts with education and training. Right now, the United States is average when compared to other developed nations, as reported by the Huffington Post. The problem with being average is that the U.S. only scores “around 500 in math and science.” Those scores are based on a 1000 point scale. The U.S. should be closer to 550 if we want to be competitive in the global market…

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Opinion: What James Franco NYU grade lawsuit tells us about universities

A former professor at New York University is suing the college and states the university fired him because he gave his student, actor James Franco, a “D,” according to Fox News, says L. Vincent Poupard for Yahoo! News. As a political/business consultant, this story has less to do with Franco and more to do with the corruption and inequality that can be exposed at universities. It is sad when money can have a stronger impact on grades than the application of what was learned. Jose Angel Santana, Franco’s former professor, states in the lawsuit that other professors gave the actor good grades even though he skipped classes on a regular basis. Santana claims the reason why he almost failed the actor was due to his skipping 14 of the 16 scheduled classes. He believes the university and staff gave Franco a lenient grading curve because he was a big name that could bring attention to the campus and due to his hiring of one of the professors to write and direct a movie for him…

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Facebook sends user a CD collecting his entire social networking history

Sure, we know that Facebook has an unnervingly huge stash of knowledge on each of its users, but just what does all of that virtual activity add up to? One 24-year old in Austria had that reality check delivered—literally—after requesting a copy of all of the personal data that the social network had stored over the years, Yahoo! News reports. Facebook sent Vienna resident Max Schrems a CD stuffed with 1,222 massive PDF files worth of status updates, login info, Likes, and more. The CD included a tome of info collecting “friend requests, former or alternative names and email addresses, employment and relationship statuses and photos, in some cases with their GPS locations included,” not to mention plenty of data that Schrems was under the impression that he had deleted from Facebook entirely. Unlike in the U.S., European Facebook users can legally request to have the company fork over the personal data it collects over time. In the U.K. and Ireland, the company is legally bound to mail out a CD like the one Schrems received within 40 days of a request. While an email containing the personal data would suffice in the eyes of the law, it’s unlikely that Gmail would look kindly on an attachment large enough to capture one of Facebook’s social data mega-files…

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YouTube grants schools special access to 400,000 educational videos

YouTube has an enormous collection of educational clips that could be used by teachers, but many schools choose to block the site so that kids won’t be able to access unsavory videos, Yahoo! News reports. Even if the site can be accessed, teachers still don’t use YouTube inside the classroom, as they’re worried about students getting distracted by music videos or cute clips of cats and fish slamming clams. To circumvent the issue, the site recently launched a YouTube for Schools program separate from the rest of the site. This means school administrators can allow access to it on their wireless networks, while keeping the rest of the site blocked. The program puts approximately 400,000 YouTube Education videos (including ones from trusted institutions like the Smithsonian) in the hands of teachers, who can use them to capture the interest of even those with incredibly short attention spans…

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Watch: Scientists optimize 3D printer to create new bones

We won’t be surprised if the time comes when we can print just about anything, says Yahoo! News. Even today 3D printing is advanced enough to create toys, a fully-operational car, and even teeth and blood vessels. Now, researchers from the Washington State University have come up with a technique to make new bones using a commercially-available 3D printer they optimized for the study. The repurposed printer sprays a plastic binder over a bed of bone-like calcium phosphate powder with silicon and zinc additives that double the strength of the man-made bone. This results in a sheet half a hair thin, so the process is repeated over and over again, building up layers of the ultra-thin sheet to create the structure. These artificial bones don’t actually replace real ones—they act as a temporary scaffold on which new bone cells grow, eventually dissolving inside the body with no side effects…

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Preventing Adderall abuse in colleges

As a college student, there was a small container that I held sacred: my medications. I was diagnosed with ADHD my sophomore year and immediately put on Adderall. Despite a few annoying side effects (including sleeplessness), the medication really helped to curb impulsive behaviors, says S. Gustafson for Yahoo! News. My grades immediately returned to the A’s and B’s I had received in a more structured high school environment. I was really grateful to have Adderall, but also worried that it might get stolen. ADHD stimulant abuse is common at many colleges and I suspected that my school was no exception. My psychiatrist warned me to keep my drugs safe, telling me horror stories of students whose drugs were stolen and sold on the black market. My paltry insurance plan didn’t cover the cost of Adderall and I really couldn’t afford to lose the pills for which I paid nearly $300 a month…

Read also: College administrators worry that use of prescription stimulants is increasing

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Commentary: After Egypt perp walk, American college students return home

What could be more embarrassing than being arrested on the rooftops of the American University of Cairo with Molotov cocktails in hand? I could only think of two things worse. Being shot dead is one of them, says Anthony Ventre for Yahoo! News. The second most embarrassing thing is to have your picture transmitted worldwide in a group shot, telltale bottles presumably filled with flammable liquid, held in your hands.  However, I’m seriously glad Derrik Sweeney, Luke Gates, and Gregory Porter have all safely returned home. Porter, a Drexel student, walked through customs at Philadelphia International Airport with a broad smile and his lawyer. Besides helping to secure the student’s release, Porter attorney Ted Simon is attempting to rebuild the tarnished image of his client, evident in comments he made Saturday before Porter’s return…

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