Sightings

Photo of a ferret walking down a hall in the Veterinary Medicine building wearing a leash.

One of the resident ferrets at the School of Veterinary Medicine takes a stroll down a hallway in the animal clinic. The school keeps several ferrets on hand, and they dutifully help other ailing mammals by acting as blood donors. Photo by Jeff Miller

Photo of men working on Park Street bridge reconstruction.

Workers brace the framework of the pedestrian walkway over Park Street at the beginning of a summer project to resurface the link between the Mosse Humanities Building and Bascom Hill. The bridge is now open again. Thousands of students and employees each day take the bridge immortalized on screen in the 1980s film “Back to School,” starring Rodney Dangerfield. For more news about construction projects and improvements on campus, see page 7. Photo by Michael Forster Rothbart

Photo of workers replacing face of clock tower on Music Hall.

Physical Plant painter Ray Wahl, left, and glazier Darrell Meyer install a polycarbonate clock face atop Music Hall this summer. A bolt of lightning struck the tower in March, damaging the clock. Photo by Michael Forster Rothbart

Photo of scientist holding one thin and one fat mouse.

The genetically modified mouse that can’t get fat, left, rests in the hand of James Ntambi, professor of biochemistry and nutritional sciences. An unmodified mouse is at right. Ntambi says that subracting a single gene, SCD-1, from the genome of a mouse creates an animal that can eat a rich, high-fat diet without gaining weight or risking the complications of diabetes. Photo by Jeff Miller