science wire

Latest UT/Texas Tribune Poll: Tax Pledge Issue Reveals Conservative Divide
AUSTIN, Texas — Although a plurality of Texans say candidates should not take an anti-tax pledge before the primary elections, such a pledge has strong support among voters who identify with the tea party movement, according to a University of Texas at Austin/Texas Tribune poll. Forty-seven percent of those polled said candidates should not make pledges before the fiscal situation is clear, while 36 percent believe candidates should make pledges not to increase taxes before the primary elections.

SDSC to Host "Summer Institute" Supercomputer Workshop August 6-10
The San Diego Supercomputer Center (SDSC) at the University of California, San Diego, is expanding upon its successful Gordon Summer Institute program to include both its Gordon and Trestles supe

SDSC to Host Summer Institute for Geosciences August 6-10
The San Diego Supercomputer Center (SDSC) at the University of California, San Diego, will host its ninth annual Cyberinfrastructure Summer Institute for Geoscientists (CSIG'12) August 6-10.

Center for the Art of Performance at UCLA announces 2012-13 season

Device may inject a variety of drugs without using needles
Getting a shot at the doctor's office may become less painful in the not-too-distant future. MIT researchers have engineered a device that delivers a tiny, high-pressure jet of medicine through the skin without the use of a hypodermic needle.

Penn Offers Benefits-tax Offset to Same-sex Couples
Beginning July 1, the University of Pennsylvania will provide a tax offset of as much as $125 per month for employees who are covering same-sex domestic partners under their Penn medical plans, with a maximum of $1,500 per year.

Lighting control system at U-M saves energy and costs
ANN ARBOR, Mich. - Installation of energy-saving lighting technology has helped the University of Michigan reduce electrical costs in the Hill Street parking structure by 68 percent in its first year of operation.

UC San Diego Receives $7 Million from DOD for Innovative Neural Research
Schematic of cooperative brain centers interactiing to produce functional neural behavior associated with learning and decision making. An interdisciplinary team of scientists at UC San Diego composed of physicists, biologists, chemists, bioengineers and psychologists has received a five-year, $7 million grant from the U.S. Department of Defense to investigate the dynamic principles of collective brain activity.

Better response plans needed for children exposed to domestic violence
CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - Each year, millions of children are exposed to domestic violence, a traumatic experience that has been associated with cognitive, behavioral, social and emotional problems in childhood as well as a higher incidence of depression and premature death in adulthood. Numerous studies over the past two decades also have indicated that exposure to domestic violence (EDV) places children at higher risk of abuse and neglect.

Exotic particles, chilled and trapped, form giant matter wave
Physicists have trapped and cooled exotic particles called excitons so effectively that they condensed and cohered to form a giant matter wave. This feat will allow scientists to better study the physical properties of excitons, which exist only fleetingly yet offer promising applications as diverse as efficient harvesting of solar energy and ultrafast computing.

Stem-cell-growing surface enables bone repair
ANN ARBOR, Mich. - University of Michigan researchers have proven that a special surface, free of biological contaminants, allows adult-derived stem cells to thrive and transform into multiple cell types. Their success brings stem cell therapies another step closer. To prove the cells' regenerative powers, bone cells grown on this surface were then transplanted into holes in the skulls of mice, producing four times as much new bone growth as in the mice without the extra bone cells.

The Search for the Earliest Signs of Alzheimer’s
For the past five years, volunteers from the City of Berkeley and surrounding areas have come to Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory to participate in an ongoing study that's changing what scientists know about Alzheimer's disease.

Fowler Museum to display whimsical animal figures from Mexico

Penn GSE and Milken Family Foundation Announce 2012 Education Business Plan Competition Finalists

Researchers develop new genetic method to pinpoint individuals’ geographic origin
Understanding the genetic diversity within and between populations has important implications for studies of human disease and evolution.

Prevalence of kidney stones doubles in wake of obesity epidemic
The number of Americans suffering from kidney stones between 2007 and 2010 nearly doubled from 1994, according to a new study by researchers at UCLA and the RAND Corp. "While we expected the prevalence of kidney stones to increase, the size of the increase was surprising," said Charles D. Scales Jr., a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation/U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs Clinical Scholar in the departments of urology and medicine at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA.

A wake-up call for manufacturing
ANN ARBOR, Mich. - U.S. factories produce about 75 percent of what the country consumes, but the right decisions by both business and political leaders could push that to 95 percent, say University of Michigan researchers.

Stanford Shakespeare Company’s Romeo and Juliet brings the feuding families of Verona together for a eulogy
The all-student theater company tweaks the classic tale by staging a ceremony of remembrance for the dead lovers.

Lying in Wait for WIMPs
Although it's invisible, dark matter accounts for at least 80 percent of the matter in the universe.

Economic power of self-employment felt countywide
University Park, Pa. - People in rural counties who work for themselves may add a boost to local economies, improving income and job growth, according to economists.

Social welfare cuts ultimately come with heavy price, researchers say
CHAMPAIGN, Ill.

Engineers use plasmonics to create an invisible photodetector
A team of engineers at Stanford and the University of Pennsylvania has for the first time used "plasmonic cloaking" to create a device that can see without being seen – an invisible machine that detects light. It may not be intuitive, but a coating of reflective metal can actually make something less visible, engineers at Stanford and the University of Pennsylvania have shown.

Insect pollinators contribute $29 billion to U.S. farm income
Bees and other insects that pollinate plants in the United States have suffered in recent decades from mites, pesticides, pathogens, land development and habitat fragmentation. Nevertheless, production of insect-pollinated crops has mostly increased this century. Now, new research shows that insect pollinators' value to farmers may be hard to replace.

Hacking code of leaf vein architecture solves mysteries, allows predictions of past climate
UCLA life scientists have discovered new laws that determine the construction of leaf vein systems as leaves grow and evolve. These easy-to-apply mathematical rules can now be used to better predict the climates of the past using the fossil record. The research, published May 15 , has a range of fundamental implications for global ecology and allows researchers to estimate original leaf sizes from just a fragment of a leaf.

The Older We Get, The Less We Know (Cosmologically)
Cambridge, MA - The universe is a marvelously complex place, filled with galaxies and larger-scale structures that have evolved over its 13.7-billion-year history.

Savings where the rubber meets the road
Study shows that pavement deflection under vehicle tires makes for a continuous uphill drive that increases fuel consumption. A new study by civil engineers at MIT shows that using stiffer pavements on the nation's roads could reduce vehicle fuel consumption by as much as 3 percent - a savings that could add up to 273 million barrels of crude oil per year, or $15.6 billion at today's oil prices.

Not a one-way street: Evolution shapes environment of Connecticut lakes
Environmental change is the selective force that preserves adaptive traits in organisms and is a primary driver of evolution.

UC San Diego Superfund Research Program Receives $15 Million Grant Renewal
Among The National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS), part of the National Institutes of Health, has renewed funding for the Superfund Research Program (SRP) at the University of California, San Diego. Over the next five years, the $15 million grant will fund continued research on the molecular and genetic consequences of exposure to uncontrolled toxicants from Superfund and other hazardous waste sites.

Jury Selects Winners for 'Take a Seat!' on Exhibition at Morris Arboretum and Woodmere Art Museum

Scav Hunt 2012 in pictures
Stagg Field hosted a pod racing competition, in which two team members dressed as engines pulled a teammate seated on a skateboard around the track.

Researchers Detail Polling Place Effect
Given how much time and money American political parties spend in redistricting, they may want to consider how voters are assigned to particular polling locations. Two University of Pennsylvania professors maintain that where people vote could subconsciously influence how they vote. Jonah Berger , assistant professor of marketing in Penn's Wharton School, and Marc Meredith, assistant professor of political science in the School of Arts and Sciences, began researching the phenomenon while in grad school at Stanford University.

Sustainable Rail International, University of Minnesota Announce Coalition to Develop the World's Cleanest Passenger Locomotive
New steam engine has the potential to change both 'the rail industry and clean energy research Media Note: Images of the cosmetic work performed on the locomotive and historic images of the engine are available by contacting SRI.

Food fight or romantic dinner? Communication between couples is key to improving men’s diets
ANN ARBOR, Mich. - Married men will eat their peas to keep the peace, but many aren't happy about it, and may even binge on unhealthy foods away from home.

Clinical trial: More evidence that cancer drug treats macular degeneration
The second year of data from a nationwide, federally funded trial continues to show that the cancer drug Avastin (bevacizumab) is an effective and economical treatment for age-related macular degeneration (AMD). The Comparison of AMD Treatments Trials (CATT) study, published recently in the Journal of Ophthalmology, built on the one-year results that came out a year ago.

Survivor Beach Brings Community Together in Fight to ’Wipe Out’ Cancer June 10
Attendees will attempt to form record-breaking line of surfboards, showing support for cancer survivors and research at UC San Diego Moores Cancer Center The beach of La Jolla Shores will be home

Green ’Pond Scum’ Holds Hope for Producing Edible Vaccine Against Malaria
Vaccine development among focuses of new Center for Food & Fuel for the 21st Century Most people know by now that algae are a promising source of biofuels that could supplement and eventually replace the world's declining reserves of oil. But UC San Diego biologists working on algal biofuels who joined forces with another team at the School of Medicine studying tropical diseases have discovered another use for algae.

Q&A with Brian Schottlaender
Thousands of students, faculty, staff and community members use the UC San Diego Libraries every day.

Exposure to Environmental Contaminants Today Can Influence Behavior Generations Later
AUSTIN, Texas — Exposure to chemicals has the ability to influence behavior of offspring several generations after the initial exposure, according to a new study published by researchers at The University of Texas at Austin and Washington State University. The findings , published in the latest Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences , put a new twist on the notions of nature and nurture, with broad implications for how certain behavioral tendencies, including responses to stress, might be inherited.

Investigative journalist adapts reportage on police torture scandal into a play
John Conroy isn't letting anyone off the hook.

San Diego Book Arts to Showcase Artist’s Books at Geisel Library Exhibit May 26-July 8
The San Diego Book Arts will hold their Fourth National Juried Exhibition of works of art in book form at UC San Diego's Geisel Library from May 26 through July 8, 2012.

UC San Diego Researchers in Florence Explore New Ways to Search for Lost Leonardo Mural
UC San Diego grad student David Vanoni uses an endoscopic probe on the wall behind which The Battle of Anghiari mural is believed to be hidden.

UCLA hosts major conference on curing brain diseases and disorders
Top researchers from UCLA will join fellow neuroscientists, advocates and policymakers at a three-day conference to promote a common cause: Combining the world's best scientific minds with the sharin

TEDxStanford ’illuminates’ Stanford’s intellectual diversity
Saturday's TEDxStanford featured inspiring presentations and performances, addressing subjects ranging from early cancer detection to the consequences of misguided philanthropy and the joys of unconventional musical composition.

Planned Parenthood president speaks to Stanford on mobilizing for reproductive health in the 21st century
Cecile Richards explained the importance of looking to the next generation, the possibilities offered by new technologies and why Planned Parenthood is arguably stronger than ever.

Stanford scholars examine big money’s influence on elections
Political scientists, Washington insiders and campaign watchdogs gathered at a conference to talk about the corrosive effect of money on politics and whether the economy can predict who will be president.

A robot learns how to tidy up after you
Sooner than you think, we may have robots to tidy up our homes. Researchers in Cornell's Personal Robotics Lab have trained a robot to survey a room, identify all the objects, figure out where they belong and put them away.

Researchers develop way to strengthen proteins with polymers
Proteins are widely used as drugs - insulin for diabetics is the best known example - and as reagents in research laboratories, but they react poorly to fluctuations in temperature and are known to degrade in storage. Because of this instability, proteins must be shipped and stored at regulated temperatures, resulting in increased costs, and sometimes must be discarded because their "active" properties have been lost.

U-M biologist plays key role in effort to create first comprehensive tree of life
ANN ARBOR, Mich. - Since Darwin, assembling an evolutionary tree that shows the relationships between all known species of life has been one of the grandest and most daunting challenges facing biologists.

State-of-the-art Large Animal Care at Penn Vet’s Moran Critical Care Center
The goal of a hospital it to make patients well, but hospital-acquired infections can result in just the opposite.

Interactive website helps parents keep teen drivers safe
ANN ARBOR, Mich. - Nearly 30,000 parents around the state are using a free, interactive web resource that provides information and tools to help parents protect their teens while they gain experience driving without adult supervision.

Educational games to train middle-schoolers’ attention, empathy
Two years ago, at a meeting on science and education, Richard Davidson challenged video game manufacturers to develop games that emphasize kindness and compassion instead of violence and aggression.

Toxic mercury, accumulating in the Arctic, springs from a hidden source
Harvard study finds circumpolar rivers most responsible for high levels of mercury in the Arctic The Lena River delta.

Stopping cell migration may help block fibrosis and the spread of cancer
Discoveries by a Yale-led team of scientists could lead the way for development of new therapies for treating fibrosis and tumor metastasis. The researchers have both uncovered a signaling pathway that promotes cell migration in certain forms of pulmonary fibrosis, a deadly lung disease, and developed a drug treatment that may block the cancer cell migration.

Design Solutions Workshop emphasizes teamwork, process, and context
Students from across the University, and the community beyond, bring diverse expertise to a creative exercise Participants in the workshop offered definitions for the term "design," settling on

All clear after investigation briefly closes Metra station
Chicago Police gave the all-clear Saturday morning after their investigation of a suspicious package near the 57 th Street Metra station determined the package posed no danger.

Carnegie Mellon, Penn Launch University Transportation Research Center
Inaugural Meeting Recognizes Henry Hillman's Visionary Support for "Smart Transportation" PITTSBURGH—Carnegie Mellon University and the University of Pennsylvania will launch the Univ

Defining the Agenda for "Big Data" Benchmarking
SDSC Workshop Participants See Innovation Potential The move to data-driven science and decision-making is necessitating the need for a comprehensive benchmarking of 'big data' applications as wel

2011-12: The year in review
Highlights from a year of innovative teaching, breakthrough research, inventive student projects, and global impact SEAS alumna Joanne Chang '91, owner of Flour Bakery & Cafe, prepared the enormous cake for Harvard's 375th birthday party in October.

Newfound exoplanet may turn to dust
A planet's dust cloud may explain strange patterns of light from its star. Researchers at MIT, NASA and elsewhere have detected a possible planet, some 1,500 light years away, that appears to be evaporating under the blistering heat of its parent star. The scientists infer that a long tail of debris - much like the tail of a comet - is following the planet, and that this tail may tell the story of the planet's disintegration.

Researchers develop food aid decision-making tool
Shipping food to foreign countries may not always be the best response to food crises; sometimes sending cash or procuring goods locally is cheaper, faster and more effective.

Stanford alumnus Jeffrey Raikes to join university’s Board of Trustees
Jeffrey Raikes, who earned his bachelor's degree from Stanford in 1980, has been elected to serve a five-year term on the university's Board of Trustees beginning June 1.

Senate approves Ways of Thinking, Ways of Doing breadth requirement

Comprehensive report documents impact of urologic diseases on American public
Urologic conditions like urinary tract infections, kidney stones, and prostate cancer are a major economic burden on Americans, resulting in health care costs of close to $40 billion annually, according to a newly released national report that charts the demographic and economic impact of urologic diseases in the U.S. Urologic Diseases in America (UDA), last published in 2007, has been revised and updated for 2012 and includes a wealth of new, detailed information on the utilization of resources and the costs associated with urologic diseases among men, women and children.

Specialist in microhistory, global trade named to prestigious Armenian chair at UCLA
An award-winning young historian has been selected to fill a chair originally occupied by retired UCLA historian Richard Hovannisian, who is widely regarded as the world's dean of Armenian studies.

Probing Question: What is mindfulness?
Ancient wisdom tells us to "stop and smell the roses" and to "live for the moment." Given our busy lives, it's no surprise that this advice is often easier said than done.

McGill explores possible move for football team to Ontario league in 2013
McGill University has applied to play in the Ontario University Athletics football conference, which, if accepted, would move the Redmen from the Quebec league to Ontario by 2013, the team's 133rd season on the gridiron.

Professor Paul Young re-appointed as vice-president (research)
Professor Paul Young has been reappointed vice-president (research) for the University of Toronto.

Upcoming transportation conference explores role of transitways in maximizing our region's economic competitiveness
MINNEAPOLIS / ST. PAUL (05/17/2012) —By 2030, the Minneapolis–St. Paul region is expected to have a network of 14 transitways.

University of Minnesota begins search for new vice president for research
MINNEAPOLIS / ST. PAUL (05/17/2012) —University of Minnesota President Eric Kaler has named a search committee to lead a national search for the university's new vice president for research.

Scientists document fragile land-sea ecological chain
Intricate, often invisible chains of life are threatened with extinction around the world. A new study quantifies one of the longest such chains ever documented. Douglas McCauley and Paul DeSalles did not set out to discover one of the longest ecological interaction chains ever documented. But that's exactly what they and a team of researchers – all current or former Stanford students and faculty – did in a new study published in Scientific Reports .

Bay Area Photovoltaic Consortium announces $7.5 million in grants to lower the cost of large-scale solar power
The university-industry consortium led by Stanford and UC-Berkeley aims to make utility-scale solar energy cost-competitive by 2020.

Stanford’s Eavan Boland defines what it means to be a ’woman poet’
Through poetry and prose, Stanford professor and acclaimed poet Eavan Boland shares how being a woman, wife and mother influenced her work.

Vilsack: Ag research and education key to prosperity, security
UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. - Investment in agricultural research doesn't benefit just the 2 percent of the population involved in farming.

Herschel Space Observatory study reveals galaxy-packed filament
Finding provides unique opportunity to explore how galaxies and cosmic structure evolve A McGill-led research team using the Herschel Space Observatory has discovered a giant, galaxy-packed filament ablaze with billions of new stars. The filament connects two clusters of galaxies that, along with a third cluster, will smash together and give rise to one of the largest galaxy superclusters in the universe.

Four Columbia Faculty Members Elected to the American Philosophical Society
Five members of the Columbia community—including President Emeritus George Rupp—were elected to the American Philosophical Society, the oldest learned society in the United States.

Study Documents Gender Pay Gap Among Stockbrokers
The excesses of Wall Street may be big news, but behind the headlines is another major story. When it comes to men and women stockbrokers, men take home bigger paychecks. New published research by Janice Madden , professor of regional science, sociology and real estate at the University of Pennsylvania , shows that female stockbrokers can earn as much as 20 percent less than their male counterparts.

David M. Brooks wins ACM SIGARCH Maurice Wilkes Award

Technology convergence may widen the digital divide
UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. - Technology is helping communication companies merge telephone, television and Internet services, but a push to deregulate may leave some customers on the wrong side of the digital divide during this convergence, according to a Penn State tele researcher.

Chef Jamie Oliver, UCLA Health System bring life-changing cooking lessons to L.A. youth
The Jamie Oliver Food Foundation's "Big Rig" Teaching Kitchen will be on the UCLA campus to show kids how to prepare healthy meals as part of the foundation's first-ever worldwide Food Revolution Day May 19.

Imaging Research Center Opens, Bringing New Level of Neuroscience Research to The University of Texas at Austin
AUSTIN, Texas — The University of Texas at Austin's Imaging Research Center (IRC) opened last week, ushering in a new set of research capacities for neuroscience and cancer research at the university.

Researchers map damaged connections in Phineas Gage’s brain
Poor Phineas Gage. In 1848, the supervisor for the Rutland and Burlington Railroad in Vermont was using a 13-pound, 3-foot-7-inch rod to pack blasting powder into a rock when he triggered an explosion that drove the rod through his left cheek and out of the top of his head.

Stanford to feature live webcast of ’TEDxStanford: Illumination’ on Saturday
Stanford will feature a live webcast of "TEDxStanford: Illumination," an eclectic, all-day celebration of Stanford-related innovation, information, art, products and performance that will take place on Saturday, May 19.

In drug-approval race, U.S. FDA ahead of Canada, Europe
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) generally approves drug therapies faster and earlier than its counterparts in Canada and Europe, according to a new study by Yale School of Medicine researchers. The study counters perceptions that the drug approval process in the United States is especially slow.

Connaught Fund injects $1.1 million into U of’T research
Greg Wells is at the forefront of a relatively new field called exercise medicine, which means he looks at how disease affects a person's ability to exercise—and at how exercise can be used to treat that person.

UC San Diego Biologists Produce Potential Malarial Vaccine from Algae
Mosquitoes from the genus Anopheles transmit the protozoan that causes malaria. Credit: Wikimedia Biologists at the University of California, San Diego have succeeded in engineering algae to produce potential candidates for a vaccine that would prevent transmission of the parasite that causes malaria, an achievement that could pave the way for the development of an inexpensive way to protect billions of people from one of the world's most prevalent and debilitating diseases.

Inaugural personalized medicine symposium scheduled
The inaugural symposium of Penn State Hershey Institute for Personalized Medicine will be held from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Friday, June 8, at Penn State Hershey University Conference Center.

MAJORANA, the Search for the Most Elusive Neutrino of All
In a cavern almost a mile underground in the Black Hills, an experiment called the MAJORANA DEMONSTRATOR , 40 kilograms of pure germanium crystals enclosed in deep-freeze cryostat modules, will soon

Science Underground: Going to Great Depths
The word "campus" brings to mind neo-Gothic bell towers and green lawns, not tunnels and caverns almost a mile underground.

Girl Child Marriages Decline In South Asia, But Only Among Youngest
Findings mixed in India, Nepal, Pakistan and Bangladesh Each year, more than 10 million girls under the age of 18 marry, usually under force of local tradition and social custom. Almost half of these compulsory marriages occur in South Asia. A new study suggests that more than two decades of effort to eliminate the practice has produced mixed results.

Q&A: Professor David Plank on the budget and California’s K-12 education system
A new report by Stanford's nonpartisan research center, PACE, finds that the budget crisis crippled attempts to increase spending on students and snuffed out appetite for reform.

Penn Employees Considering a Home Purchase, Energy Improvements Should Plan to Attend PHOS Seminar May 21

Graduate School of Education Welcomes Education Writers Association Conference to Penn

Gaydar automatic and more accurate for women’s faces, psychologists find
After seeing faces for less than a blink of an eye, college students have accuracy greater than mere chance in judging others' sexual orientation.

L. Rafael Reif selected as MIT’s 17th president
As provost since 2005, the president-elect has inspired innovation and played a critical role in the financial stewardship of the Institute.

Remarks by L. Rafael Reif
As prepared for delivery at the May 16 press conference It is incredibly humbling for me to be standing here as the president-elect of MIT.

University of Minnesota startup to treat challenging bacterial infection
Current treatments often compound problem, potentially making infection lethal MINNEAPOLIS / ST. PAUL (05/16/2012) —A live biological preparation developed by University of Minnesota

Researchers ID gene variants that speed progression of Parkinson’s disease
UCLA researchers may have found a key to determining which Parkinson's disease patients will experience a more rapid decline in motor function, sparking hopes for the development of new therapies and helping identify those who could benefit most from early intervention. In a study published May 15 in the peer-reviewed online journal PLoS ONE , the researchers found that Parkinson's sufferers who possess two specific variants of a gene known to be a risk factor for the disease had a significantly speedier progression toward motor decline than patients without these variants.

Scholars, scientists explore cosmos and culture at Adler Planetarium event
Anthropologist George Murdock once conducted a cross-cultural survey of more than a thousand societies, which revealed a list of “cultural universals”—things that are found in every society.

Law School Study Suggests Wrongful Execution of Texas Man
A fresh look at the evidence used to convict and justify the execution of Carlos DeLuna more than 20 years ago reveals that there is more to his story than meets the eye Has Texas executed an inno

Nearly 1,000 projects to be presented at Undergraduate Research Symposium

How public should public records be? Increased availability sparks privacy concerns
Online technology has vastly increased citizens' access to public records such as political campaign contributions and real estate transactions.

What does Obama's support for same-sex marriage mean for his bid for a second term?
When US President Barack Obama declared his official support for same-sex marriage on May 9, the Twitterverse went into overdrive.

Stanford professor, IT specialist create interactive map of the Roman Empire
ORBIS, an interactive digital model of the ancient Roman transportation system, shows how the empire was shaped by economic constraints.

Wild blue yonder: Engineers tackle challenges of hypersonic flight
A multiyear collaboration among Stanford engineering departments uses some of the world's fastest supercomputers to model the complexities of hypersonic flight.

Why Omega-3 Oils Help at the Cellular Level
Findings suggest possibility of boosting their health benefit For the first time, researchers at the University of California, San Diego have peered inside a living mouse cell and mapped the processes that power the celebrated health benefits of omega-3 fatty acids. More profoundly, they say their findings suggest it may be possible to manipulate these processes to short-circuit inflammation before it begins, or at least help to resolve inflammation before it becomes detrimental.

Getting news from the Internet not as divisive as many assume
CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - The Internet is changing the way people get their news, but there's little proof that it is fragmenting or polarizing the news audience the way many assume, says professor David Tewksbury , the head of the University of Illinois department of communication.

Maps of miscanthus genome offer insight into grass evolution
CHAMPAIGN, lll. - Miscanthus grasses are used in gardens, burned for heat and energy, and converted into liquid fuels. They also belong to a prominent grass family that includes corn, sorghum and sugarcane. Two new, independently produced chromosome maps of Miscanthus sinensis (an ornamental that likely is a parent of Miscanthus giganteus , a biofuels crop) are a first step toward sequencing the M. sinensis genome.

Calling all cars: U-M takes center stage in safe transportation
ANN ARBOR, Mich. - The University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute will begin equipping safety technology on vehicles that will allow them to send and receive messages - messages that someday will prevent crashes.

More Than 50 Research Fellowships Awarded by the Harry Ransom Center
AUSTIN, Texas — The Harry Ransom Center , a humanities research library and museum at The University of Texas at Austin, has awarded more than 50 research fellowships for 2012-13.

Prominent Marine Ecologist to Receive Prestigious Cody Award from Scripps
A marine ecologist known for his work on community ecology and chemical ecology has been selected to receive the 2012 Robert L. and Bettie P. Cody Award in Ocean Sciences from Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego.

Strong wellness policies improve Connecticut school environments
Strong written school wellness policies lead to better food and more physical activity in schools, according to a study by the Yale Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity.

Reducing off-label use of antipsychotic medications may save money
HERSHEY, Pa. - Reducing the non-FDA-approved use of antipsychotic drugs may be a way to save money while having little effect on patient care, according to a Penn State College of Medicine study. Researchers say that 57.6 percent of patients prescribed antipsychotic medications in data from 2003 did not have schizophrenia or bipolar disorder, the conditions for which the drugs were approved for use.

Unsafe at any speed: Even for driving pros, distractions increase crash risk
The ringing cell phone you're reaching to answer. The text message that demands a reply now. The GPS you're trying to program as you're frantically rushing to your destination.

The elusive capacity of networks
Calculating the total capacity of a data network is a notoriously difficult problem, but information theorists are beginning to make some headway. In its early years, information theory - which grew out of a landmark 1948 paper by MIT alumnus and future professor Claude Shannon - was dominated by research on error-correcting codes : How do you encode information so as to guarantee its faithful transmission, even in the presence of the corrupting influences engineers call "noise"?

Beyond the High-Speed Hard Drive: Topological Insulators Open a Path to Room-Temperature Spintronics
Strange new materials experimentally identified just a few years ago are now driving research in condensed-matter physics around the world. First theorized and then discovered by researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) and their colleagues in other institutions, these "strong 3-D topological insulators" - TIs for short - are seemingly mundane semiconductors with startling properties.

Edible ’stop signs’ in food could help control overeating
Once you pop the top of a tube of potato chips, it can be hard to stop munching its contents. But Cornell researchers may have found a novel way to help: Add edible serving size markers that act as subconscious stop signs. As part of an experiment carried out on two groups of college students (98 students total) while they were watching video clips in class, researchers from Cornell's Food and Brand Lab served tubes of Lays Stackables, some of which contained chips dyed red.

Nearly one-tenth of hemisphere’s mammals unlikely to outrun climate change
A safe haven could be out of reach for 9 percent of the Western Hemisphere's mammals, and as much as 40 percent in certain regions, because the animals just won't move swiftly enough to outpace climate change.

Penn-Developed Electronic Medical Record Tool Cuts Down on Unnecessary CT Scans in Emergency Room Patients with Abdominal Pain
A new electronic medical record tool that tallies patients' previous radiation exposure from CT scans helps reduce potentially unnecessary use of the tests among emergency room patients with abdomina

Sundown Syndrome-like Symptoms in Fruit Flies May be Due to High Dopamine Levels
Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania researchers have discovered a mechanism involving the neurotransmitter dopamine that switches fruit fly behavior from being active during the day (diurnal) to nocturnal.

Hip-hop reigns at Stanford’s BlackFest 2012

Hume Writing Center celebrates 10-year anniversary May 16-17

Bertram Cohler, psychologist and esteemed teacher, 1938-2012
Bertram Cohler, a UChicago psychologist and celebrated teacher who was an expert on family life and transitions, died May 9.

Promising academic trends at new Watts-area charter high school
Students at historically low-performing Locke High School in South Los Angeles, which recently was transformed into five smaller charter schools, are now performing better than their traditional-scho

Computer scientist Ryan Adams wins DARPA Young Faculty Award
$300,000 grant will support work on building new computational tools that exploit statistical inference Ryan Adams, Assistant Professor of Computer Science at the Harvard School of Engineering

Session successes position University of Minnesota to advance research and education missions while restoring infrastructure
MINNEAPOLIS / ST. PAUL (05/11/2012) —Minnesota policymakers have approved $64.1 million in bonding and other support this session that will allow the University of Minnesota to advance it

Undocumented, young immigrants face obstacles, uncertain futures
Undocumented Latino youth who migrate to the United States face futures clouded by limited rights and the constant fear of deportation, according to a new report from the University of Chicago and the University of California, Irvine.

Hold the military accountable, ex-ambassador to Afghanistan tells a Stanford audience
Karl Eikenberry, who led coalition forces in Afghanistan and served as U.S. ambassador to that country, said during a lecture at Stanford that Congress and the media must hold the military more accountable.

Researchers Win Five 2012 DOE Early Career Awards
In the third year of the Early Career Research Program managed by the U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Science, five researchers at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) were on the list of 68 recipients from 47 institutions announced earlier this week.

Penn Vet Researcher Tracy Bale Receives the Society for Women’s Health Research Medtronic Prize

Cole Foundation injects $1 million to bolster pediatric leukemia research in Montreal
New grants and fellowships in pediatric leukemia research to be created at Université de Montréal, McGill University and INRS-Institut Armand-Frappier Thanks to the Cole Foundation, pediatric leukemia research has again this year received support to recruit some of the best and brightest researchers in the field.

Columbia Faculty Join Co-founder Brian Greene as Participants in the 2012 World Science Festival
The World Science Festival, cofounded by Brian Greene , professor of mathematics and physics, returns to New York City May 30 – June 3 offering a dynamic set of lectures and programs that bring cutting-edge science to a broader audience.

Jairo Moreno Named National Humanities Center Fellow

University of Minnesota and Minnesota Vikings reach preliminary agreement for Vikings' use of TCF Bank Stadium
MINNEAPOLIS / ST. PAUL (05/10/2012) —The University of Minnesota and the Minnesota Vikings have agreed to a Letter of Intent which allows the Vikings' use of TCF Bank Stadium during poten