News (Briefly)

A Rice engineering professor created a new material that is believed to be the darkest substance known. The array of carbon bristle-like structures, a “blacker black,” reflects only 0.045% of visible light, much less than the previous record-holding substance. President Leebron praised the development as a wonderful opportunity to illustrate the University’s commitment to diversity.

An anti-coal group has begun recruiting Rice students for their campaign against power plants. Emily Stone, a member of Greencore (“a food company in Ireland,” not the environment group “GreenCorps”), spoke out against the plan to build more coal power plants, “a plan that has roiled the campus and prompted condemnation from students and administrators, even prompting angry emails to the student body. New plans have been created to add an “LPEP” (Lifetime Physical Environmental Program) graduation requirement for all future incoming freshman.

A Canadian man went on a hockey stick rampage in a shopping mall in Edmonton, capital city of the province of Alberta. He assaulted six people, including a pregnant woman, and was arrested under the Mental Health Act. The event resulted in widespread calls for politicians to cease submitting to the demands of the Canadian Hockey Association, and to finally end the Hockey Show Loophole, which allows anyone to buy a hockey stick without a background check. Further calls were made to end the pervasive hockey culture which only undermines the safety of the children.

American-born chess grandmaster Bobby Fischer passed away in Iceland of kidney failure earlier this month. Fischer, wanted by the US Department of the Treasury for playing an unlicensed chess match in 1992, fled to the Nordic country after he was discovered in a Japanese airport in 2005. Critics of the former champion say he was defeated after trying to memorize opening moves to evade capture, a strategy that does not work well with Bush Random Immigration.

In case any politicians speak on campus, and you wish to ask them any questions, you may wish to purchase a new “Energy weapon protection device.” The technology was granted US Patent #7,284,280 on October 23, 2007, to Gregory Schultz of Arizona.

“An energy weapon protection device to be worn by a live potential target includes a generally flexible main panel having three main elements, a generally flexible, generally planar electrically non-conductive outer insulator panel, an electrically conductive inner conductive panel and an electrically non-conductive insulating backing panel. The inner conductive panel is mounted on the insulating back panel in generally parallel alignment and the outer insulator panel is mounted on the inner conductive panel in generally parallel alignment thereby forming the main panel, and the main panel is operative to receive an electrical pulse from an energy weapon through the outer insulator panel into the inner conductive panel which completes the electric circuit for the energy weapon and the insulating backing panel generally preventing electric current from passing therethrough from the inner conductive panel such that the live potential target is protected from the electrical pulse generated by the energy weapon.”

News (Briefly) items do not represent the opinions of any of the Rice Standard editorial staff.