The School of Dental Medicine's vertical expansion took 18 months to complete, but now you can see a time-lapse video of the construction that whisks you through the process in just 1 minute and 38 seconds:

Check out earlier coverage of the dental school's vertical expansion, including an audio slideshow showing off the interior and discussing what the expansion means for the school.

Plus, have you seen how cool that building looks at night? Yowza.

Our friends at Tufts Dining celebrated Thanksgiving early yesterday. Check out Facebook photo galleries of the celebrations at both Carmichael and Dewick-Macphie dining halls.

(BTW, did you know you could follow Tufts Dining on both Twitter and Facebook? It's true! Though their daily menu postings may make your stomach growl rather loudly...)

Happy Thanksgiving!

Tufts' Office of Sustainability, in conjunction with the ExCollege class "Environmental Action: Shifting for Saying to Doing," hosted a half-day conference for college students in the New England region to share best practices in peer-to-peer education. Eco-Reps are students who promote environmental stewardship among residential students by raising awareness about ecological issues and encouraging environmentally conscious behavior. Check out their photos and video overview of the event:

Besides having their own YouTube channel, the Office of Sustainability is also tweeting about their programming and events.

Last week, Tufts acknowledged Veterans Day with a ceremony on Memorial Steps that brought together members of the military from today (Tufts ROTC members) and yesterday. Check out these photos and blog post about the occasion by sophomore Eileen Guo, an IR major and blogger with the Office of Undergraduate Admissions.

Filmmaker Justine Shapiro (A'85) and her nonprofit production company, Promises Films, are nearing the release of "My Summer in Tehran," a documentary bringing Shapiro and her six-year-old son into the lives of three Iranian families.

Currently in post-production, Tufts alums in San Francisco recently got to see a rough cut of the film and raise money to help fund its completion. The finished film is expected to be releases in early 2010.

Tufts' Third Day Gospel Choir is a part of the American Repertory Theatre's "Best of Both Worlds" production, a funky revisiting of Shakespeare's "A Winter's Tale." Read more about the performance or watch this video to see the choir in action at rehearsal.

"Best of Both Worlds" begins its run at the ART on Nov. 21. The choir's fall concert is Nov. 20 at Cohen Auditorium.

Looking for gift ideas for the littlest Jumbos? Get some creative inspiration from these hand-knitted originals: a baby hat and baby socks. In Tufts colors!

The web is great and all, but it's hard to replicate the experience of a well-crafted and designed magazine article. Two Tufts graduates recently got the feature treatment in print, and here are the web versions for you to enjoy:

• In its November 2009 issue, Wired profiled Paul Offit (A'73), the pediatrician who co-developed the rotavirus vaccine and authored the 2008 book "Autism’s False Prophets." Offit has endured attacks from critics who claim vaccines such as his cause autism or autoimmune disease.
• Spirit, the inflight magazine for Southwest Airlines, profiled 2008 School of Engineering grad Michael Easton and his wind turbine company, Microwind, in its October 2009 issue. The headline really says it all: "This Man (or Some Geek Like Him) Will Save the Planet (and May Even Turn a Profit)." If you like, you can even read a PDF of the article as it appeared in the print magazine.

Well, you will be if you check out the new blog from the Tufts Culinary Society, a new student group. It features recipes, restaurant reviews and thoughts about eating on and off campus. You can also follow them on Twitter.

A quick check of the blogs yields some cool entries about Tufts students with an international theme:

• The blog for World Learning, an international education and development nonprofit, posted a Q&A with Tufts senior Michelle Eilers, an anthropology and community health double-major who last spring studied abroad in Chile. Eilers, who is interested in minority-related health disparities, recently received an Alice Rowan Swanson fellowship, which sponsors research on human rights.
• "The Idea of India," a visual and narrative examination of India, features a photo essay by junior international relations major Britt Sloan about the rose of Ajmer.

  Sloan's work came out of the Institute for Global Leadership's August 2009 EXPOSURE workshop in India, co-taught by photojournalists Sara Terry and Asim Rafiqui. Rafiqui runs the "Idea of India" blog, featuring several photo essays on topics relating to the country.

  "The Travel Photographer" blog raved about Sloan's essay.

  "I urge you to spend some time, not only looking at her imagery, but to read her essay. She writes beyond her years...if that's the correct expression to use."