Photos of an Iranian missile test distributed to journalists on Wednesday by officials with the country's Revolutionary Guard were altered to show four missiles launching instead of three, according to a Scientific American interview with Dartmouth computer science professor Hany Farid published on Thursday. Farid, an expert in digital forensics, said he believes similarities among the missiles' smoke plumes and rocket trails suggest elements of the image may have been digitally cloned. "It's almost certainly doctored in some way, but there are some subtleties here," Farid told Scientific American. "Whoever did it did a reasonably good job."
The writing section of the SAT is a better estimate of academic success in college than the critical reading or mathematics sections, according to a study conducted by researchers at the University of Georgia and reported on by The Chronicle of Higher Education on Tuesday. This finding agrees with the results of a similar study released by the College Board last month. The study's conclusions may prompt admissions officers to give the writing section more weight in the application process, The Chronicle said. Some education analysts have questioned, however, whether it is fair to generalize from the University of Georgia's study, given that it relied on data from only one class of students at the university. "There's no way to tell if the results are generalizable or how much practical meaning they might have in the real world of college admissions," Robert Schaeffer, the public-education director for the National Center for Fair and Open Testing, told The Chronicle in an e-mail.
Land owned by colleges and universities may provide the institutions with affordable sources of renewable energy, according to The Chronicle for Higher Education. Colorado State University is considering the construction of wind turbines on an 11,000-acre ranch donated to the school, The Chronicle said in its article on July 8. Rutgers University, Butte College and Florida Gulf Coast University are all planning to build solar arrays that could provide anywhere from 10 to 100 percent of the energy used by their respective campuses. In addition, Cornell University is considering using biomass from the 14,000 acres it owns to power its campus, The Chronicle reported.
