It's restaurants like Amada that make the trip to Old City worthwhile.

Bill Berner compares himself to Igor, the famed lab assistant to Dr. Frankenstein. Both toil in windowless basement laboratories - though Berner's is in David Rittenhouse Laboratory, not Bavaria. Berner, like Igor, concocts things that buzz, fizz and bang, although the professors he works with aren't insane; they're in Penn's Physics department.

In certain respects, Ben Eithun is the typical all-American jock - he stands 6 feet 4 inches, weighs 265 pounds and was once a lineman for his football team at Edgewood College. But one thing separates him from the rest of the pack: He is a male nurse.

MEMPHIS, Tenn. - On Saturday night, Harold Ford Jr. was in fine form. Saturday marked the first debate in the Tennessee Senate race - a race that may decide which party controls the Senate come January - and Ford, the Democrat and a 1992 College graduate, certainly had his own style.

Just as a rubber bracelet fad struck America a few years ago, terra cotta ornaments were all the range in ancient India, one anthropologist says. University of California at Los Angeles professor Monica Smith used colorful PowerPoint slides to discuss the findings from her excavation of the ancient Indian city of Sisupalgarh yesterday in the Penn Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology.

A quick fix for Penn InTouch isn't going to make class registration any easier, officials say, but neither will just talking about it. Penn InTouch has been under heightened scrutiny since last month, when Engineering and Wharton senior Danny Panzer released ClassBuster, a computer program that notifies users when space in a closed-out class opens up.

This year, budding entrepreneurs competing for thousands of dollars worth of prizes in the Wharton Business Plan Competition need to fulfill an additional criterion - they must be Indian. The annual competition - which usually requires that candidates be affiliated with the University - recently teamed up with a leading Indian newspaper to offer the same entrepreneurial opportunities to Indian college students.

If studying for midterms makes you want to go out and splurge on expensive clothing or gadgets, you may be more than simply a procrastinator. A recent study suggests that 5 percent of Americans are compulsive buyers, meaning they frequently purchase items they do not need or want.

In 1993, George Anastasia says, Philadelphia mob boss John Stanfa ordered his death. The plan was supposedly to throw grenades through the windows of Anastasia's New Jersey home. However, his life was saved when his would-be killers landed behind bars before they had a chance to whack him.

Some Penn students thrive on cheesesteaks and chili fries, and Penn Dining - let alone the city Health Department - doesn't seem to have any plans to stop them. But some government officials are on a hunt to remove the unhealthiest of fats from their citizens' diets.

Jurors will likely decide the fate of Wharton undergraduate Irina Malinovskaya sometime today, lawyers say.

Students rushing to class may find it just a little less arduous to navigate Locust Walk, if the Undergraduate Assembly has its way. At last Sunday's meeting, the UA passed a proposal - spearheaded by Nursing junior Alexandra Kotsovos - to urge the University to start fixing the many problems that they believe plague Locust Walk.

Though graduate students can join three different representative organizations, not all of them are created equal - at least in the eyes of Penn administrators.

WILMINGTON, Del. - The jury for Wharton undergraduate Irina Malinovskaya deliberated all day Friday but left for the holiday weekend without coming to a decision.

A hypothetical high school senior has a 3.9 GPA and an SAT score of 2230. She is the captain of the volleyball team, a clarinetist and an active participant in both her school yearbook and the debate team.

Musician Masayo Ishigure, who recently contributed to John Williams' 'Memoirs of a Geisha' soundtrack, performs on the koto, a traditional 13-string wooden instrument, at the Penn Museum's Celebrate Japan festival. The festival was a family event featuring performances, exhibits, games and authentic Japanese vendors.

Provost Ron Daniels fulfilled one of his dreams yesterday at the Greek Week trivia bowl in Huntsman Hall - he got to be a fraternity guy.