This year's edition of The Line had everything Penn basketball - the fans, the Palestra, the cheerleaders - except for the team itself. The annual October event at which fans sleep overnight at the historic arena to get season tickets was held on Friday and Saturday last weekend, but none of the players or coaches made an official appearance.

James Shorter, a professor of Biochemistry and Biophysics in the School of Medicine, has been selected as one of the 29 scholars to receive the National Institutes of Health's New Innovator Award. The award - for which more than 2,100 people applied - totals $1.

Is there life on Mars? And does the time of year make you more inclined to think of a particular color of candy? Each semester, Penn professors tackle a number of questions across different topics, performing research that can save lives and solve problems of all sorts.

Crime rates for September took a slight dip compared to the same month last year, though year-to-date total crime is still up 3.6 percent. Total crime for September dropped by 3.9 percent, with burglaries seeing the biggest decline, decreasing from 10 last year to two this year.

Today is the last day you can register to vote before the meaningless mayoral election in November. We're all for voting and fulfilling your civic responsibility. Considering we're supposed to be enlightened, engaged citizens, Penn's past voter-participation rates in past elections have been embarrassing.

If you asked Marquise Liverpool in early 2004 where he thought he would be in three years, the Temple football practice facility at 11th and Diamond Streets wouldn't have even been a blip on the radar. If the multi-sport athlete out of Don Bosco Prep in Ramsey, N.

Nobody ever said beauty pageants were easy. These days, girls must strut in stilettos and show off their talents - and then, sometimes, engage in a two-year battle to get the money they were awarded. That was the case for first-year MBA student Ashley Wood, who has yet to receive the nearly $21,000 she won at a number of 2004 pageants, including the Miss Charleston and Miss South Carolina competitions.

As goes University City, so goes the University. This mindset permeates the administration's rhetoric so often that it's almost hackneyed. Even the new postal-land developments are being marketed as "forging connections between University City and Center City.

Penn unloaded an offensive onslaught on the hapless Hoyas, scoring five touchdowns before halftime with an ease that senior quarterback Bryan Walker credited to the offensive line setting the tempo and keeping the Georgetown pass-rush in check.

A new scholarship from the Wharton School will enable one U.S. Marine Corps officer to attend a Wharton Executive Education course, business school officials announced at the end of last month. The scholarship, officially dubbed the Captain Robert M. Secher Scholarship, was created to honor Secher for his contributions to Wharton, including spearheading the Quantico Leadership Venture, which builds upon U.

In an effort to target a population that school officials say has long failed to benefit from Penn's development, the University will start a program next month designed to give low-income Philadelphians skills to be successful in the trade industry. Earlier this year, Penn officials announced the start of the Lucien E.

In the early morning hours of Sept. 9, a student at Georgetown University was brutally assaulted. Why? Because he's gay. According to NBC, the victim, whose identity remains anonymous, was leaving a party near Georgetown's campus when he was allegedly assaulted with homophobic taunts before being physically attacked.

At the Undergraduate Assembly meeting Sunday night, board members discussed an array of initiatives designed to make campus life more convenient for the student body. They include the following: n The Facilities Committee presented its findings on current student recycling in an effort to raise awareness about the environment.

Yale's Mike McLeod had an off game, by his standards, against Dartmouth on Saturday. The Ivy League's most dangerous offensive threat carried the ball 27 times for 155 yards and one touchdown in the Bulldogs' 50-10 thrashing of the Big Green, 33 yards short of his season average per game.

Even with their recent initiatives to improve student life for students in all 12 graduate schools, GAPSA officials admit that it is a challenge to appeal to and affect such a large group.

Penn students did not generally express enthusiasm for the Social Planning and Events Committee's choice to have Ben Kweller as the headlining fall performer, but those who attended the concert would beg to differ.

No player on the Penn women's soccer roster has ever experienced a 2-0 start to the Ivy League season. That is, until Saturday, when the Quakers defeated Columbia in New York 2-1. In knocking off the defending conference champions, the Quakers (8-2-1, 2-0 Ivy) ended Columbia's (6-3-2, 1-1) eight-game unbeaten streak and extended a modest three-game winning streak of their own.