Stories by Jennifer Xu
Jennifer Xu: RIP, Google Reader
BY JENNIFER XU
The Internet is a big, scary place, but Google Reader allows me to harness all that information with a tasteful interface that doesn’t require me to click all over the place to get my news.
Students of the Year: Kevin Mersol-Barg
- Terra Molengraff/Daily
BY JENNIFER XU
Anxious, restless and disarmingly modest in manner and speech, Public Policy senior Kevin Mersol-Barg does not resemble your typical political figure. Whereas some great orators have relied on theatrics to get their point across, Mersol-Barg’s speech patterns are completely and utterly drama-free.
The Statement
The Science of It All: The nose knows
- Illustration by Megan Mulholland
BY JENNIFER XU
I once had an MCAT teacher who was unable to smell anything for an entire year. After undergoing a bad eating experience at an Indian restaurant, he woke up to discover that his sense of smell had vanished. He spent the good part of a year with an effectively plugged-up nose, eating all kinds of foods indiscriminately with little enjoyment.
Jennifer Xu: Fact or fiction?
BY JENNIFER XU
Reality television has long occupied a curious space in popular culture, with scholars and viewers alike contending on it’s grouping as art or anthropology.
Jennifer Xu: Weighing in on diets
BY JENNIFER XU
What if the answer to the obesity epidemic laid in a 1980s Japanese asthma and canker sore drug?
The Statement
The Science of It All: A clean slate
- Illustration by Megan Mulholland
BY JENNIFER XU
In all likelihood, you’re acquainted with someone who’s a germaphobe. They shudder visibly when you offer them a swig of your soda, pump and dump out the contents of the Purell dispenser in the corner and give death stares at the barista wiping the countertop with a part-sodden rag.
Jennifer Xu: Mailing it in
BY JENNIFER XU
Detractors say that the post office is an obsolete institution. Such remarks pain me, because USPS is trying — really trying — to take steps into the 21st century.
The Statement
The Science of It All: More than caffeine
- Illustration by Megan Mulholland
BY JENNIFER XU
While there’s no definitive answer as to why coffee shops have become such hubs of productivity, a couple hypotheses have been raised.
Jennifer Xu: Rules of communication
BY JENNIFER XU
The Internet, for all its speed, has ironically allowed us more time to construct what we want to say and supplies us with the “screen courage” to do so.
Jennifer Xu: Gone (cat)fishing
BY JENNIFER XU
But what happens when the contract breaks, as Te’o’s has? Then the shimmering versions of the selves we’d like to be dissolve like Pepto-Bismol tablets. No, that can’t be what I really look like. Oh, but it is.
