BTN to show recent 'Boiler Bytes' video highlights

The Big Ten Network has scheduled a telecast in Purdue's "Boiler Bytes" video news series for 11 p.m. Thursday (Oct. 17), providing glimpses into the founding of Purdue in 1869, an archaeological dig in the Sudan, and a look into the University's Integrative Data Science Initiative to better prepare students for success in a high-tech world. The videos are available also on the Boiler Bytes webpage and on Purdue's YouTube site.

To search on the Boiler Bytes site, sorting by "Upload date" will assist in finding the recent videos.

The three segments are:

* Purdue early years: Could the Indiana University and Purdue University rivalry have started before athletics were introduced on the two campuses? Before Purdue could be established in 1869, John Purdue and Lafayette were in a bidding war against Indiana University to become Indiana’s land-grant school. Indiana University had an established school and campus, but John Purdue had a vision for starting a school in Tippecanoe County.

* Integrative Data Science Initiative: In the next 10 years, it is projected, 1 trillion devices will be connected to the internet. With the growing number of electronics comes a colossal amount of data available from every click made on the devices. Data science is critical to finding relevant information that will help advance and improve society. At Purdue, the importance of instilling data literacy in students has become a key goal. Purdue has started an interdisciplinary collaboration to become a national leader in applying data science to solve large and pressing problems from food insecurity to disease. Purdue’s data science program will cover big data from understanding the fundamentals of data to applying findings for immediate use in society.

* Archaeology: When it comes to archaeology, people often think of Egypt and its grand pyramids, royalty and dynasties. So what else is there to learn about ancient civilizations? Michele Buzon, professor in Purdue’s Department of Anthropology, started working at the archaeological site Tombos in modern-day Sudan while she was still a graduate student. She and a collaborator, Stuart Tyson Smith from the University of California, Santa Barbara, have been excavating the Nubian site since 2000. When they began excavating, they presumed they were digging up an Egyptian civilization inhabited by administrators of the Egyptian government who expanded into Nubia.

The segments will be telecast under the BTN category of "University Showcase."