Penn State spirit commodified

For Penn State students, it is no longer sufficient to exude enthusiasm by simply cheering on their football team or flailing pompoms.

Thanks to Katie Masich, president and CEO of Masik Collegiate Fragrances, students are now exhibiting school spirit by dousing themselves in perfume.

A Pennsylvania native who grew up around Penn State fans, Masich devised the idea of the collegiate fragrance after observing the popularity of celebrity brands.

However, in her pursuit to bottle up the essence of Penn State, she went beyond sticking a brand on a flask of perfume.

“I didn’t want to just put a Nittany Lion logo on a bottle, I wanted the scent to be unique and signature to the school,” she said.

Masich even went so far as to take samples of trees and plants she found on campus paths along with pictures of Penn State to renowned perfumers in New York City and asked them to concoct a signature scent for the school.

“The perfumers are amazing at working to evoke certain emotions with aromatics,” Masich said.

Putting her chemical engineering degree to work, Masich collaborated with the perfumers, harnessing her knowledge of Penn State’s mascot, colors and traditions to formulate a cologne and a perfume that evoke “class and elegance, blue, white — like Penn State University,” Masich said.

Rebecca Brower, the assistant store manager of the Penn State Bookstore, said the fragrances are sold the most during football games, with twice as many men buying cologne as women perfume.

Big Fish surfaces in

professor’s inbox

Move over, Ewan McGregor, the Big Fish legend is no longer confined to the silver screen. The Gulf of Mexico’s spindly-legged version of the Loch Ness Monster has finally been identified by an Australian marine biologist.

University of Sydney researcher Adele Pile discovered the creature in her inbox last week, after it had circled the globe, in an e-mail video under the title, “What is it?”

Pile and student Dan Jones solved the mystery by identifying the Magnapinna, or “big fish,” squid.

The footage of the squid was captured by a remote-controlled submersible camera at one of the world’s deepest drilling sites in the Gulf of Mexico. An article in National Geographic News this week said it was filmed by the Shell oil company in November 2007.

The video was e-mailed to Pile because of her involvement in SERPENT -Scientific and Environmental ROV Partnership using existing industrial technology.

“We identified it as a big finned squid and as the adult forms have never been collected, we recommended that the ROV pilots try and capture one if they see them again,” Pile told The Age, an Australian newspaper.

Pile expressed confidence that cooperation between scientists and oil companies would do much to further knowledge about the deep sea environment.

“If it were not for the voluntary collaboration of our industry partners, Australia could not meet it’s moral and legal obligation to understand the deep sea environment,” Pile said.

Reach columnist Sara Grimes at news@dailyuw.com.