Purdue University

A Purdue University physicist who claimed to have demonstrated a tabletop fusion process that could revolutionize energy production is guilty of research misconduct in asserting that his findings were independently reproduced, a university committee said Friday. The panel did not investigate whether Rusi P.

Ray Browne, 87, a professor at Ohio's Bowling Green University who was widely credited with coining the term "popular culture" and pioneering the study of such things as bumper stickers and cartoons, died Thursday at his home, his family said. The cause was congestive heart failure. Browne wrote and edited more than 70 books on popular culture -- including "The Guide to United States Popular Culture," published in 2001. Although many in the field credit Browne with coming up with the name "popular culture," no one could say for sure whether he originated it. "He was really going against the grain," said Robert Thompson, director of the Center for Television and Popular Culture at Syracuse University.

A student and another woman were found slain in an apartment on the Purdue University campus in West Lafayette. The women were fully clothed, and there was no sign of forced entry, authorities said. Both women were from South Korea, university spokesman Joseph Bennett said. One was a Purdue student and the other was believed to be her visiting sister. The women's names and ages were not immediately released.

Purdue University in West Lafayette, Ind., reprimanded a scientist who has been accused of falsifying claims that he produced nuclear fusion in tabletop experiments. Rusi Taleyarkhan published a paper in the journal Science in 2002 claiming that he had produced nuclear fusion, long sought as an energy source, by making tiny bubbles collapse in a liquid. A university panel did not investigate the Science paper, which was published when Taleyarkhan was a researcher at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee, but said he misled the scientific community by claiming his findings had been independently replicated.

Personal trainers are as ubiquitous as treadmills on the gym landscape, but not all are created equal. With vastly different backgrounds and levels of experience, trainers can be highly skilled fitness professionals or highly paid baby-sitters. But one university hopes to send its graduates into the field with the skills and knowledge to get people into shape safely and sanely -- while successfully managing their careers.

President Reagan will visit Purdue University in West Lafayette, Ind., on April 9, the White House said Friday.

* Planning for retirement seems to be easier when an employee has picked a target date for quitting work, says Sharon DeVaney, an assistant professor of consumer sciences at Purdue University. In analyzing data from a 1996 national survey on retirement, DeVaney said men seem to plan more for retirement than women, but they also expect to retire younger, between 61 and 64. Women, in comparison, expect to be nearly 65 when they retire.

Purdue University police in West Lafayette, Ind., dismantled an anti-apartheid shack and arrested 22 people who refused to end their demonstration, while protesters hastily rebuilt a symbolic shantytown outside the Wisconsin Capitol in Madison 14 hours after it was torn down. At Yale University in New Haven, Conn., students told about 150 supporters they would continue to occupy shanties there until the school sells its investments in companies that do business with South Africa.

A team of Purdue University students concocted a 156-step hamburger recipe to win the national Rube Goldberg Machine Contest. This year's task was to assemble a burger consisting of no less than one precooked meat patty, two vegetables and two condiments, sandwiched between two bun halves. The victory by the 17-member Purdue Society of Professional Engineers was the team's third in the last four years in the contest, which is named for the late cartoonist known for his drawings of complicated devices performing simple tasks.

The Busch-Miller ticket is a winner after all. Justin Busch and Brian Miller ran for president and vice president of the student body at Indiana University-Purdue University at Fort Wayne, using slogans from their namesake beer companies as their election catch-phrases. But their victory was almost overturned when the student election board voted that the Busch-Miller campaign violated copyrights. University officials overruled the student board.

A Purdue University physicist who claimed to have demonstrated a tabletop fusion process that could revolutionize energy production is guilty of research misconduct in asserting that his findings were independently reproduced, a university committee said Friday. The panel did not investigate whether Rusi P.

The next chancellor of UC Riverside will be Timothy P. White, a physiologist who has been president of the University of Idaho for the last four years, the UC Board of Regents announced Thursday. White, 58, emigrated as a child with his family from Argentina to Canada and later to California, where he earned degrees at Cal State Fresno and Hayward and then a doctorate at UC Berkeley. An expert in human bio-dynamics and aging, he taught at UC Berkeley and held administrative posts at Oregon State University.

A team of Purdue University students concocted a 156-step hamburger recipe to win the national Rube Goldberg Machine Contest. This year's task was to assemble a burger consisting of no less than one precooked meat patty, two vegetables and two condiments, sandwiched between two bun halves. The victory by the 17-member Purdue Society of Professional Engineers was the team's third in the last four years in the contest, which is named for the late cartoonist known for his drawings of complicated devices performing simple tasks.

UC Riverside Chancellor France A. Cordova, the first Latina to head a UC campus and the leader of the university's effort to win preliminary approval for a medical school, on Monday was named president of Purdue University in Indiana, where she will become the first woman to lead the school in its 138-year history.

Evoking echoes of the cold fusion fiasco more than a decade ago, Purdue University said Wednesday that it was reviewing the work of physicist Rusi P. Taleyarkhan, who claims to have developed technology to achieve tabletop fusion. Purdue's announcement came as the journal Nature released findings Wednesday from its investigation of Taleyarkhan's widely publicized claim and as a UCLA researcher challenged Taleyarkhan's report that he had detected fusion byproducts in a key experiment.

Personal trainers are as ubiquitous as treadmills on the gym landscape, but not all are created equal. With vastly different backgrounds and levels of experience, trainers can be highly skilled fitness professionals or highly paid baby-sitters. But one university hopes to send its graduates into the field with the skills and knowledge to get people into shape safely and sanely -- while successfully managing their careers.

Jeff Arnold, a former El Toro High School basketball player, and Dave Stack, another senior player, were dropped from the Purdue University team, Gene Keady, Boilermaker coach, said Tuesday. Arnold and Stack were scholastically ineligible to play during the first semester, but Arnold had regained his eligibility and was expected to play Thursday against Northwestern. Keady said Tuesday that Arnold, a 6-foot 10-inch center, was released for "personal reasons." Keady did not elaborate.

Fifteen people were jailed after campus disappointment at Purdue University's loss in the NCAA tournament fueled a noisy disturbance. Up to 500 people took to the streets in West Lafayette, Ind., late Saturday after the Boilermakers' 64-60 loss to Wisconsin in the West Regional final, overturning trash containers and lighting several bonfires. Officers in riot gear used tear gas to disperse the crowd. Indiana State Police said the 15 people taken to jail appeared to be students.

Floyd Fithian, 76, a former congressman, farmer and Purdue University history teacher, died Friday 27 at a retirement home in Annandale, Va., of unspecified causes. A native of Vesta, Neb., Fithian was educated at Peru State College in his home state and the University of Nebraska and served as a lieutenant in the Navy. He taught at Nebraska Wesleyan College before moving to Lafayette, Ind., to teach at Purdue and farm.

Steve Lavin plans to discuss with Purdue Coach Gene Keady returning to the Boilermakers as an assistant. Lavin, the UCLA coach the last seven seasons and a Purdue graduate assistant from 1988 to '91, might want assurances he would become head coach when Keady, 66, retires in two or three years. "Because of my special feelings for Coach Keady, Purdue and greater Lafayette, this is one of the few places I would consider being an assistant coach," Lavin said.