Our new series called Welcome to Academia will give a weekly update about the interesting, weird and newsworthy happenings at Duke's peer institutions.
To celebrate the Harvard University's 375th birthday on Oct. 14, a nearby Boston bakery will bake a gigantic red velvet cake in the shape of an H, according to this YouTube video. Serving 4,000 students, this cake will consist of 278 pounds of butter, 1,000 eggs and 1,290 cups of sugar as just a few of its ingredients.
Con artist Eugene Tinsley pretended to be a graduate student at the University of Pennsylvania last year and was arrested in June for theft, forgery and receiving stolen property as well as deceptively executing documents, according to the Daily Pennsylvanian. Tinsley even became pledgemaster of his pre-med fraternity, and would even "come home and write papers," according to the Daily Pennsylvanian. Although Tinsley was banned from Penn, students and faculty have reportedly seen him around campus this year.
Emory University sophomore Sam Eshaghoff was arrested Tuesday for taking the SAT for six students from Great Neck North High School in New York for $1,500 to $2,500 per student, according to the Emory Wheel. Eshaghoff could face up to four years in prison if found guilty, and the six students who hired him were also arrested and now face misdemeanor charges.
Researchers at Vanderbilt University are building computer circuits made of diamonds rather than the typical silicon because diamond-based electronics are faster and more resistent to heat and radiation, according to InsideVandy.com. Because creating these diamond-based computers only requires methane and hydrogen, the researchers believe that the cost could compete with the silicon manufacturing.
Three recent assaults at Georgia Institute of Technology have prompted the university to increase its police presence on campus. According to the Atlanta Journal Constitution, all three attacks involved what could have either been one man or three different men coming behind three women on three different occasions, grabbing them and running away when the victim screamed.
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