Steven Allen

Amputations from wound infections might become obsolete because of four Penn students. The four students won $20,000 in Wharton's 2009 Business Plan Competition last Wednesday with their device that monitors the wound-healing process. The team of students, called NIR Diagnostics, comprised MBA students Pitamber Devgon, Xiaoming Fang and Bosun Hau and School of Medicine Ph.D. student Armen Karamanian.

These days, Penn researchers are studying everything from skies to the seas - and the people in between. One team of Penn researchers has discovered about 1,000 galaxies since 2006 with the Balloon-borne Large-Aperture Sub-millimeter Telescope. Physics and Astronomy researcher Matthew Truch, who has worked on the project since 2002, said BLAST is the only way to see the earliest starburst, or newly formed, galaxies because the atmosphere is too opaque on the ground.

Because positions at large financial firms and corporations are more competitive in the present economy, many students are seeking positions at smaller businesses. "The economy is challenging for internships," Wharton Entrepreneurial Programs Managing Director Emily Cieri said.

Penn's Medical Emergency Response Team wants 1920 Commons to become an emergency base. Completely student-run, MERT responds to medical emergencies. "We are the first response, and we make sure the patient is stable," College junior and Chief Josh Glick said.

Even though the freshman class has not yet moved out of a Penn dorm, one group thinks they can help students navigate the process. Penn Move Out, started this year by students in the Ware College House entrepreneurship residential program, wants to take care of student belongings over summer break.

The Undergraduate Assembly is beginning work on an initiative to add American Sign Language to the list of courses that can fulfill Wharton's foreign-language requirement. The initiative - headed by Wharton and Nursing sophomore and Undergraduate Assembly volunteer member G.

Wharton-style dodgeball is back - but this time it's called Hostile Takeover. Hosted by the Wharton Council for the sixth year, the event is a version of the game Assassins. Registration ended Tuesday, and the game began yesterday. Those who signed up received a small green ball and the name of a target.

Alan Isenberg wanted to be a millionaire. After appearing on ABC's "Who Wants to be a Millionaire" Isenberg, an MBA student at Wharton, became $100,000 closer to his goal. "I am pretty humbled by this experience," said Isenberg. "My winnings have paid for a year of business school and a vacation to Mexico for spring break.

According to Jonah Berger, the popularity of a child's name depends on his or her parents' environment. Berger, a Wharton marketing professor since 2007, studies "how products, ideas and behaviors catch on and die out," he said. His main focus is the social aspect of decision making, with regards to popularity.

Four sophomores in the Huntsman Program in International Studies and Business will be spending their spring break in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. Wharton and College sophomores Kristin Hall, Taishi Kushiro, Aleksandar Rasevski and Natalie Tejero were chosen by the Grassroots Business Fund to evaluate the poverty levels of clients of Sero Lease and Finance Limited, or SELFINA, and to help them increase their standard of living.