(By Michael A. Livermore, an associate professor of law at the University of Virginia School of Law) This week, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) revised its air quality standard for smog (or ground-level ozone), meeting, by a matter of hours, a court-ordered deadline to do so. The EPA tightened the existing standard of 75 parts per billion (ppb), set by the George W. Bush administration, to 70 ppb, the least stringent of the revisions it was considering.
(By Lisa Messeri, an assistant professor of Science, Technology, and Society in the Department of Engineering and Society at the University of Virginia) This week, NASA announced that researchers have found evidence of intermittent flowing water on Mars. The Internet was immediately disappointed. Those who follow the space sciences had already surmised what the announcement was going to be, while those who may have been surprised by the news had to read the coverage very closely to understand why this discovery was a big deal.
While people in emergency medicine often acknowledge how exhausting it is to be in such proximity with tragedy, few hospitals incorporate ways to address death into standard procedure. Trauma workers at the University of Virginia Medical Center in Charlottesville have been doing something different, however. They have started taking a moment of silence after their efforts at bringing a patient from the edge fail in an attempt to ground themselves and acknowledge the magnitude of these moments.
A large collaborative science initiative called the Reproducibility Project at the University of Virginia recently reran 100 psychology experiments and found that only about one in three studies could be replicated. The results were rapidly disseminated in mainstream and social media with most commentators concluding that psychological science shouldn’t be called a science at all.
A breakthrough cancer study by the University of Virginia suggests shedding pounds could mean the difference between life and death. One researcher says cheeseburgers could be more deadly than cigarettes. The UVA Cancer Center looked at the effects of bariatric surgery on obese women most at risk for cancer. On average, the women lost more than one hundred pounds with the surgery.
A study on the effects of bariatric surgery on obese women most at risk for cancer showed it eliminated precancerous uterine growths, among other positive effects it had on the women's health. "If you look at cancers in women, about a fifth of all cancer deaths would be prevented if we had women at normal body weight in the U.S.," said Dr. Susan Modesitt, MD, a researcher at the University of Virginia Cancer Center.
You might expect that neighboring neurons in the brain would be closely related to one another, or that entire regions would arise from the same ancestral cells. But that’s not the case. Christopher Walsh from Boston Children's Hospital has now shown that in one region, the prefrontal cortex, any given neuron is more closely related to cells from the heart than it is to three-quarters of its immediate neighbors.Walsh’s study is one of many which show that “probably every neuron is unique from a genomic perspective,” says Michael McConne...
You might expect that neighboring neurons in the brain would be closely related to one another, or that entire regions would arise from the same ancestral cells. But that’s not the case. Christopher Walsh from Boston Children's Hospital has now shown that in one region, the prefrontal cortex, any given neuron is more closely related to cells from the heart than it is to three-quarters of its immediate neighbors.Walsh’s study is one of many which show that “probably every neuron is unique from a genomic perspective,” says Michael McConne...
(By Larry J. Sabato and Kyle Kondik of the Center of Politics at the University of Virginia) For months we’ve argued that Kentucky’s increasing lean toward the Republican Party and the state’s antipathy toward President Barack Obama gave businessman Matt Bevin, the Republican nominee, a generic edge in the open Kentucky gubernatorial race. While Bevin is not a strong candidate, we thought that ultimately those inherent advantages — advantages that have nothing to do with Bevin’s campaign — nonetheless made him a small favorite over state Attorney General Jac...
(By Jeffery A. Jenkins is a professor in the Woodrow Wilson Department of Politics at the University of Virginia) John A. Boehner’s resignation from the House, and thus the speakership, comes in the midst of a leadership struggle not seen for a century. The last time a sitting speaker was challenged by his own party was in 1910, with a revolt against Joseph G. Cannon (R-Ill.).
The sentiment – “I didn’t know” – is at the root of a wave of initiatives, rolled out over the past few years by both the government and nonprofits, to connect students to the best college options by removing as many fiscal and informational barriers to enrollment as possible. “There are students ready for college who decide not to apply, or who get in and decide not to attend, because they may not be aware they qualify for aid. Or they may be aware aid exists but find the process of applying cumbersome,” says Benjamin Castleman, an assistant professor...
Despite deepening ties with Hollywood, China may not be ready to scrap an unpopular quota that restricts the number of foreign movies it allows into the country. That was the sobering assessment of at least one industry analyst Tuesday at a conference in Los Angeles on the much-ballyhooed China-Hollywood relationship. "There seems to be an assumption that the quota would be lifted in 2017," said Aynne Kokas, a professor and China expert at the University of Virginia. "It doesn't seem like there is as much movement as that."
Jonathan Bartels, an emergency care nurse at the University of Virginia Medical Center, recognized early the value of "The Pause." The practice is now part of the curriculum at the university's nursing school, and has begun to spread to other hospitals across the U.S.
In his meeting with controversial county clerk Kim Davis last Thursday, Pope Francis reportedly told Ms. Davis to “stand strong” as she stands up for her religious beliefs in rural Kentucky. “Kim Davis gives religious liberty a bad name, and endangers it for everybody,” says Professor Laycock, a religious liberty expert at the University of Virginia Law School in Charlottesville. “She does not have to issue marriage licenses. But the county is not entitled to exemption, because the county does not have a religion. That’s the fundamental distinction.”
Sixteen physicians from the University of Virginia Cancer Center have been named to Newsweek’s 2015 list of Top Cancer Doctors. Newsweek worked with Castle Connolly to develop the rankings. A team of physicians from Castle Connolly spoke with hospital leaders and cancer specialists to whittle the nominations down.
A working paper, “Is Kindergarten the New First Grade?,” confirms what many experts have suspected for years: The American kindergarten experience has become much more academic—and at the expense of play. Researchers at the University of Virginia, led by the education-policy researcher Daphna Bassok, analyzed survey responses from American kindergarten teachers between 1998 and 2010. “Almost every dimension that we examined,” noted Bassok, “had major shifts over this period towards a heightened focus on academics, and particularly a heightene...
A study at the University of Virginia (UVA) School of Medicine has found that the brain is directly connected to the body’s immune system through a previously unknown set of lymphatic vessels. The discovery furthers the understanding for medical scientists of how the brain’s immune system works. While it’s been known for decades that lymphatic vessels transport immune cells through the rest of the body, confirming that this also occurs within the brain has been elusive.
The Office of African American Affairs at the University of Virginia has begun a new “strategic leadership” initiative as part of its Cornerstone Plan of academic advising, career advising, coaching, and networking with alumni to prepare Black students to become leaders in society once they graduate from the university.
A partnership between the Woodrow Wilson Presidential Library, Princeton University Press and the University of Virginia Press will digitize the 28th president’s documents in two phases, according to WWPL marketing manager Robert R. Robinson.
Ted Kennedy recorded the oral histories between 2005 and 2008. They were released Wednesday by the University of Virginia and the Edward M. Kennedy Institute for the U.S. Senate.