Not requiring employees at a company making COVID-19 vaccine to be vaccinated against the disease seems counterintuitive, experts said. Vivian Riefberg, a professor of practice at the Darden School of Business at the University of Virginia, said a vaccine mandate from vaccine makers could show faith in their product. "It could send a signal to other companies that could be valuable," she said.

The Blue Ridge Poison Center is seeing several calls about snakebites. According to a release, the center has received more than 85 calls about snakebites. "I would say we're about on where we usually are," said Dr. Chris Holstege, chief of UVA’s Division of Medical Toxicology. 

(Podcast) Physician and Evolution News writer Howard Glicksman discusses an exciting new discovery by researchers at the University of Virginia School of Medicine, described at Science Daily as uncovering “the location of natural blood-pressure barometers inside our bodies that have eluded scientists for more than 60 years.”

Marine biologists have known for a while that the secret lies somewhere in the way they can alter the rigidity of their tails. The problem is that it’s difficult to measure that while a fish swims. However, using a combination of fluid dynamics and biomechanics, researchers from the University of Virginia say they’ve derived a formula that not only provides an answer to that question but also allows a robot with a specially designed tail to be nearly as good as its natural counterpart at speeding up and slowing down in water.

Central Shenandoah Planning District Commission Chair Frank Friedman cut the ribbon Monday to launch the eagerly anticipated Afton Express commuter bus, which is scheduled to begin service on Sept. 1. Rebecca White, director, of the UVA Department of Parking & Transportation, Waynesboro Mayor Bobby Henderson and Jen DeBruhl, chief of public transportation with the Virginia Department of Rail and Public Transportation, shared remarks and excitement for the new service connecting Staunton, Fishersville and Waynesboro to destinations in Charlottesville and Albemarle County.

Emerson Stevens was granted an absolute pardon on Monday by Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam. Stevens was convicted in 1986 of murdering Mary Keyser Harding, a 24-year-old mother of two, in a small fishing town on Virginia’s Northern Neck. The Innocence Project at the University of Virginia had been working to exonerate him since 2009.

Two men convicted decades ago of serious crimes in Norfolk have received pardons thanks to the University of Virginia School of Law’s Innocence Project. According to two law school news releases, the cases were unrelated but both carried hefty sentences.

A Reedville man who served three decades in prison for an abduction and murder in Lancaster County for which he always maintained he was innocent has been pardoned by Gov. Ralph Northam. Emerson Eugene Stevens, paroled in 2017, was granted an absolute pardon on Friday by the governor who cited an April 2020 opinion from a judge on the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals who wrote that the evidence overwhelmingly showed no reasonable juror would have convicted him. It was the third absolute pardon won by the The Innocence Project at the University of Virginia School of Law since July.

Rangina Hamidi is the first female minister of education for Afghanistan in 30 years. Born in Afghanistan, she fled to Pakistan during the Soviet occupation and immigrated to the U.S., where she attended high school and received a degree in religion and gender studies at the University of Virginia. In 2003, she returned to her home country to help rebuild Afghanistan and champion the rights of girls and women. 

Dr. Taison Bell, whose expertise is in pulmonary and critical care at UVA Health, reiterates the new social norms the virus and vaccines have created. “It adds to just how awkward social interaction can be in general,” Bell said. “Do we hug, do we shake hands? I’ve learned to just ask ahead of time, ‘What are the rules of engagement?’ so to speak.”

Shooting on a Noah system is nothing new for many of these prospects – they’ve already been doing it for years. Per team and conference sources, the service is in more than 100 NCAA practice gyms, including some of the top basketball programs in the country. “Some of the best shooters I’ve ever coached who are now playing in the NBA have used it and still use it because they think it’s valuable,” said Tony Bennett, University of Virginia men’s basketball head coach.

Four women from the University of Virginia appeared with their coach Thursday to talk about winning three silver medals and one bronze in Tokyo.  

They’ve come from all corners of Connor Jones’ life: friends, his parents’ friends, people from his old neighborhood, former coaches and children he’s instructed in the finer points of pitching. Coming home has its advantages, and not just at the ballpark. Jones, a former Great Bridge High and University of Virginia star now pitching for the Memphis Redbirds, has spent the week staying at his Virginia Beach home and welcoming familiar faces to Harbor Park as his team has faced the Norfolk Tides.

(Commentary by Elyse Sheppard, Class of 2020) My father has given me tons of advice over the years, but one message will always stand out. On the Greek island of Poros, my father stopped me and, trying to signify the importance of his message, gave me what he called his “one piece of advice”: don’t be so high-strung that you miss the serendipitous moments of life.

[UVA alumnus] Scott MacLeod was never an Apollo astronaut, but he did play one on TV. If you were among the millions who tuned in for CBS’s live coverage of NASA’s moon missions from 1969 through 1972, you no doubt saw MacLeod, clad in a spacesuit and standing inside a lunar module simulator to provide Walter Cronkite with play-by-play descriptions of every move the real astronauts were making.

[UVA Darden School of Business alumnus] Mark McLaughlin and Arch Watkins are both naval aviation veterans. McLaughlin has a background in business and finance, while Watkins is a trained engineer. Separately, those are valuable skills in today’s workforce. Together, it meant a booming distilling business.

What the Boston Celtics saw in Sam Hauser was pretty apparent Thursday night. In a blowout win over the Orlando Magic, the rookie was on fire from deep, leading Boston with 21 points, seven assists and six 3-pointers in 26 minutes on the court. The performance made it easy to see why the team signed the University of Virginia product to a two-way deal, officially announced Friday, amid questions about his defense and upside. But because Hauser went undrafted, there was some competition.

The Los Angeles Rams lost their preseason debut to the Los Angeles Chargers 13-6 but there were a ton of bright spots to take from the game. One such highlight was second-year quarterback Bryce Perkins out of the University of Virginia and it will be interesting to see how the Rams handle his development and whether or not they’ll be able to keep him through final cuts and waiver pickups.

University of Virginia students are coming back and looking for some sense of normalcy. Students living on the Lawn started their move-in process Friday.