The Daily brief: Aug. 16, 2010

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Aug. 16, 2010, 10:00 p.m.

How-to | Margaret O’Mara on Stanford’s transformation from “a dusty Western outpost” to “the center of the technology universe” as the valley became The Valley.

‘Scared up until the last minute’ | A Stanford Law Criminal Defense Clinic project was involved in the release today of a man serving a 25-to-life sentence under California’s three-strikes law.

The Daily brief: Aug. 16, 2010
L-R: U.S. Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif., Rep. Mike Honda, D-Calif., and Secretary of Energy Steven Chu. (MICHAEL LIU/The Stanford Daily)

X-ray laser | U.S. Secretary of Energy Steven Chu, former Stanford physics professor, visited SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory on Monday to dedicate the Linac Coherent Light Source, a super-powerful laser completed in April 2009. The Daily’s Michael Liu was on hand.

Jared Cohen | The 2004 history and political science alumnus is said to be heading up a new Google “think tank” dubbed Google Ideas. Cohen — profiled this spring by Stanford Magazine and last month by NYT Magazine — was hired to the State Department under then-Secretary Condoleezza Rice, now a Stanford poli sci professor.

Hospital expansion | Preliminary “site preparation” for the $3.5 billion project could begin by 2011 and a formal groundbreaking could take place by 2012, a University official said Friday.

Football | Andrew Luck speaks from training camp.

Prop. 8 | The U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals issued a stay on the Aug. 4 ruling that called California’s same-sex marriage ban unconstitutional. The order puts on hold the weddings some hoped would take place starting Wednesday.

iPads | The cost of providing the School of Medicine’s 91 incoming first-years with iPads — $40,000 after a discount — is “only slightly more” than the cost of printing paper course materials, a dean said. A handful of other universities are giving students iPads this fall.

Can you tell | Stanford researchers David Larcker and Anastasia Zakolyukina have struck a nerve around the Web with their new study on how to tell whether or not CEOs are lying.

Dial-up | Adults with Internet access at home are more likely to be in romantic relationships than those without, says sociology professor Michael Rosenfeld.

Outside Lands | Stanford-and-elsewhere bloggers Treeswingers recap Saturday and Sunday at the San Francisco festival.

Billionaires | The winner of this contest is not us. But close.

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