Pennsylvania's biotechnology industry may soon receive a revitalizing shot in the arm this year. And, University officials hope, that will mean something extra for Penn as well. Beginning next month, the legislature will consider lowering taxes for the industry, giving firms more room for experimentation and changing funding levels for research, said Dennis Flynn, president of Pennsylvania Bio, a trade group representing the biosciences industry.

Not all of a professor's students go on to earn the title Secretary General of Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities, but one of David Silverman's did. Twenty years after graduating from Penn with a Ph.D. in Egyptology, noted archaeologist Zahi Hawass is showing his gratitude to his former professor by insisting that Silverman take an important role in "Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs," now showing at the Franklin Institute.

From attending crush parties to throwing charity events, participating in Greek life can certainly take up a chunk of time. But that's not stopping many participants from maintaining high grade-point averages - some even higher than non-Greek members. More than half of the Greek organizations on campus maintain GPAs higher than the undergraduate average, said Scott Reikofski, director of the Office of Fraternity and Sorority Affairs.

President Bush's plan to increase the amount of financial-aid grants seemed to be a step forward in improving the availability of federal funding for students. But education groups say the plan may actually end up doing more harm than good by cutting other programs in the process.

Penn is at least $1 billion into its current fundraising campaign, but shhh - you didn't hear it from us. Since 2004, the University has been in the quiet phase of a capital campaign - Penn's most ambitious in history, University officials say - that isn't scheduled to go public until this fall.

A new report predicts that starting salaries for associates at top Manhattan law firms could reach $190,000 by December, and one expert says they have no signs of stopping. The 2007 Salary Guide - published by Robert Half Legal, a recruitment firm based in Menlo Park, Calif.

Prize-winning poet Susan Howe appeared at the Kelly Writer's house yesterday for an exclusive poetry reading of her own works. An author of several poetry publications, Howe opened the night with one of her most recent prose poems, "What is this Crackling of Voices in the Mind," in a style she described as "a Jonathan Edwards personal, conversion narrative.

Community activists are convinced that, if the city has its way, $50 million of their hard earned tax money will go to one ugly bridge. But at a public hearing yesterday, they learned that if construction doesn't start soon, it may never happen. The City Council's Committee on Streets and Services convened the hearing to debate a proposal to widen South Street.

In the world of prestigious scholarships, Penn is back in the game. As of last Sunday, Alix Rogers is representing Penn as the University's only winner of the Gates Cambridge Scholarship, which grants recipients one year of study and research at the University of Cambridge in England.

The gifts for Barbaro just keep on coming. The Penn School of Veterinary Medicine announced yesterday that Barbaro's owners, Roy and Gretchen Jackson, donated a $3 million gift to Penn Vet to fund research on laminitis and other equine diseases. The money will supplement gifts from the Fund to Fight Laminitis that have been donated to sponsor this future research.

Slick sidewalks, lots of slush and furious winds won't get in the way of Cupid's bow, at least as far as students are concerned.

The number of spots available at some of the top business schools in the country is dropping - but not at Wharton. The Yale School of Management is planning for an incoming class of 195, compared to its 220-person class of 2008, and Stanford's Graduate School of Business is also aiming to scale back its class size by 20.

On a busy night of studying, Mustafa Al-ammar was chatting on instant messenger. But the College junior was not procrastinating or making plans to go to a frat party: He was chatting about an upcoming assignment with a professor. "I never go to office hours," Al-ammar said.

Sometimes, all it takes is a little chardonnay to get a neighborhood back on track. Part of a larger revitalization of the area, demolition is set to begin on the current over-the-counter liquor store on the 4900 block of Baltimore Ave., which will be moved down the block and will re-open in late spring.

Joseph Cho, the second-year Law student who allegedly tried to kill his downstairs neighbors, had enrolled at the New York University School of Law for several weeks in 2000 but left for reasons that the school would not disclose. Penn Law officials knew about the previous enrollment prior to Cho's acceptance at Penn, but they remain unaware of his cause for leave, Penn Law School Dean for Student Affairs Gary Clinton said yesterday.

When it comes to global warming, Earth sciences professor Robert Giegengack gets heated up about people playing politics. So, while Al Gore's film on the subject, An Inconvenient Truth, has garnered the former vice president praise and a recent nomination for the Nobel Prize, Giegengack isn't so enthused.

"People of the world, it's time to get paid." So reads the motto for the International Coalition for British Reparations, founded by Philadelphia advertising executive Steven Grasse. Claiming that Britain is responsible for all the world's troubles, the ICBR wants the British government to pay reparations equaling a total of $58 trillion to be distributed equally to every man, woman and child on earth - except, of course, the British.