Life & Style

Breakdance 101 with the Beat Munchers
By Allison Tong
April 23, 2009 - 1:16pm
Meet some of the hottest B-boys on Syracuse University's campus. Wanna learn how to be a B-boy or B-girl, too? Watch for a "how-to" move that will have all your friends ooh-ing and ahh-ing.

From the graffiti-scribbled dark alleys within the streets of the Bronx to college campuses nationwide, the art of break dance has become a popular trend among aspiring b-boys and b-girls nationwide.

On Syracuse University's campus, one break dancing group called the "Beat Munchers", comprised of about 15 to 20 b-boys and b-girls, practice this form of dance with a fiery passion. They have competed against other break dance crews at other New York schools such as Rochester Institute of Technology and State University of New York at Oswego.

Why we smoke?
By Matthew Levin
April 16, 2009 - 3:23pm
Today's college students were raised on anti-tobacco campaigns and smoking bans, yet many still get hooked on cigarettes.

In the 1980s, experts finally started to confirm what had been suspected for the last two decades: Smoking is bad for your health.

The result: Kids growing up in the '90s were inundated with anti-smoking campaigns - from the Truth commercials to bans on smoking in many public places. The days of Joe Camel and the Marlboro Man were long gone. Studies still list smoking as the leading cause of preventable death in the United States, resulting in 435,000 deaths a year (18.1 percent).

The Ice Climbers
By Lauren Rae Bertolini
April 14, 2009 - 11:29am
Nick Grybauskas clings like a spider to the wall of ice. Soon there will be a 20 foot -- and counting -- vertical drop between man and ground.

Grybauskas hugs the hillside. He loves this.

"It's almost like -," says Grybauskas, a senior philosophy major, "I hate to be all spiritual but when you're up there on the ice and it's just you and the ice, it's all about getting in the zone. It's all about mental control just as it's about physical control."

Grybauskas ice climbs with the Syracuse University Outing Club. The group comprises an eclectic group of adrenaline junkies. During Syracuse winters when most folks are bundled up indoors, these SUOC members are outside-climbing mountains of ice.