High-school students who hate the alphabet soup of admissions testing may instead opt to Zinch. Launched in April, Zinch is a Facebook-like Web site that allows students to show prospective schools more than their PSAT and SAT scores. Applicants can create profiles that showcase their accomplishments and extracurricular activities and upload video, images and audio clips.

Move over, Pennster - but don't leave just yet. Penn's social network for incoming freshmen saw the lowest number of users this summer than ever before in its four-year history. Pennster managers are currently discussing the future of the site - whether to improve it or can it.

Along with at least 1,000 other scholars, Linguistics professor Mark Liberman is part of a recent trend of professors delving into a new, informal aspect of academia: the blog.

When it began in 2000, SEPTA's Market Street Elevated Reconstruction Project, an effort to replace 11,000 feet of elevated subway on the Market-Frankford Line, seemed to be on the right track.

WILMINGTON, Del. - Through two expert analysts and one witness, Delaware prosecutors yesterday attempted to place Wharton undergraduate Irina Malinovskaya in the vicinity of the scene of Irina Zlotnikov's murder. Malinovskaya is facing her third trial for allegedly bludgeoning Zlotnikov to death on Dec.

Noisy jack-hammering on Locust Walk should come to an end today as University officials move into the next stage of renovations of the 38th Street pedestrian bridge. The reconstruction, which has included loud drilling since last week, is part of a $128,000 effort by the University to spruce up the campus for Homecoming.

The school year has barely started, but the Recording Industry Association of America hasn't wasted any time continuing its legal onslaught against students.

"In extraordinary times, there are no ordinary lives." So reads the tagline of noted documentary filmmaker Ken Burns' new production, The War, for which there was a preview screening and panel discussion last night in College Hall. Modern European History professor Ronald Granieri, Classics professor Peter Struck and Tom Childers, who previously viewed the entire film and interviewed Burns, comprised the panel.

About 100 alumni rekindled their Penn pride at the annual First September event of the Penn Alumni Club of Philadelphia, held last night at the Triumph Brewing Company in Old City.

By the end of the month, laundry-service provider Mac-Gray Corporation will have finished installing the last loads of brand-new machines in all college houses.

In the past week and a half, four robberies, including at least two involving juveniles, occurred within the Penn Patrol Zone, according to both the Philadelphia Police Department and the Division of Public Safety.

Penn engineers have developed nanowires capable of retrieving data a thousand times faster than existing portable memory devices, according to a University news release. "This new form of memory has the potential to revolutionize the way we share information, transfer data and even download entertainment as consumers," said Ritesh Agarwal, an assistant professor in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering.

Engineering freshman Conor Walsh unzips his pants on Locust Walk, and everyone looks. In fact, they stare. A small audience has gathered at 2:15 on a recent Sunday morning as Walsh, returning from a night of drinking at off-campus parties, urinates all over the statue of Penn's beloved founder.

The U.S. Department of Education announced last week it will stop sending paper copies of the Free Application for Federal Student Aid to high schools next year unless a school requests them. The Department will instead encourage use of the online version of the application - one that is already used by over 90 percent of college aid applicants.

64 freshmen candidates are vying for 74 student government-related positions for this academic year. They gathered last night in Logan Hall to confirm their candidacy with the Nominations and Elections Committee. Ten of the candidates are especially ambitious, running for both an Undergraduate Assembly seat and a position on the Class Board.

Forget Poe and Shakespeare - Tom Murtha prefers potatoes to poetry and soybeans to soliloquies. Murtha, a former College student, turned in his textbooks for tractors eight years ago when he set out to farm his way across the country. An English major slated to graduate in 1995, Murtha spent harvesting seasons in Connecticut, Oregon, Delaware and New Jersey before settling down on his own plot of land in Upper Bucks County, Pennsylvania, not too far from his (almost) alma mater.

Theft Sept. 13 - A male student reported that an unknown suspect removed items from his unsecured room at Rodin College House, located at 3901 Locust Walk, at about 4:30 p.m. Sept. 13 - A female employee reported that she placed her pocket book unsecured on a bench on the 300 block of 40th Street at about 2:05 a.