A painful childhood health problem is on the upswing in Charlottesville. UVA pediatrician Dr. Abigail Kumral says a combination of social distancing and masking kept ear infections at a record low in Charlottesville last year. With more relaxed COVID-19 regulations, cases are popping up, but there is a way to turn it around. “The biggest thing right now is probably getting a flu shot for all kids over 6 months old. We know that in little kids, up to about 40% of them can get an ear infection when they get the flu,” Kumral said.
“Nebulized hydrogen peroxide is not effective for COVID-19 and is potentially dangerous,” Dr. Taison Bell, director of UVA Health’s medical intensive care unit, said via email. “If you want to protect yourself, get vaccinated.”
(Subscription required) A new national Covid-19 commission plans to join the search for the pandemic’s origin in the next few months, said Philip Zelikow, director of the commission’s planning group and a UVA professor of history. The new commission, supported by several foundations, is forming a task force that will include experts in emerging disease epidemics and scientists with experience in and concerns about high-risk laboratory research, said Zelikow, who was executive director of the 9/11 Commission. “We are very interested in the origins issue,” he said. “We all think there is a chanc...
(Commentary by Mehr Afshan Farooqi, associate professor in the Department of Middle Eastern and South Asian Languages and Cultures) Naqsh Faryaadi is the first ghazal in the 1816 manuscript of Mirza Asadullah Khan Ghalib’s Divan. In the 1821 manuscript, it has the original seven verses and there are two additional verses in the margin, in handwriting that’s definitely not Ghalib’s. They were added to the ghazal in the 1826 Divan as verses seven and eight, for a total of nine.
(Subscription may be required) Valley Health this week reinstituted what hospital officials called “crisis measures” first put in place at the height of the pandemic, including limiting visitors and postponing elective surgeries. Winchester Medical Center has had to send patients as far away as Pittsburgh and Philadelphia when the facility is full, and University of Virginia, Inova and Hopkins hospitals are too full to take transfers as they would otherwise.
Intensive care units at the UVA Medical Center are almost full, officials said Friday. Eighty-six of the hospital’s 93 ICU beds are currently occupied. About one-third of those in the ICU are COVID patients. “It’s a highly dynamic number, but our ICUs are nearing capacity,” Wendy Horton, the chief executive officer of the medical center.
This discovery led Robert Orth to start a series of experiments in collaboration with the University of Virginia, first transplanting eelgrass from other areas into the bay in 1999. Once the eelgrass survived, Orth and his team began scattering seeds across a total of four bays: South Bay, Cobb Bay, Spider Crab Bay, and Hog Island. Not only did the seeds grow into plants, the plants thrived and spread. South Bay even successfully reintroduced bay scallops for the first time in nearly a century.
A new study by researchers from UVA and the University of Southern California provides insight into how employees think. The researchers found that staff would be willing to track them, and may even welcome it, if the information collected was analyzed by a technical device and not by humans. According to the researchers, people view technical analysis as valuable information, which can help them do their jobs better. The study found that surveillance that only provides information to employees increases their sense of autonomy and motivation, and causes them to resign less.
The U.S. is home to more than 40 species of bats, but habitat loss, climate change, and disease have taken a toll on populations with many species facing potential extinction. Bats often nest under bridges or overpasses as a way to seek shelter, but lack of awareness about their presence can cause repair projects to unintentionally disrupt or kill groups of these threatened species. To address this issue, a team of UVA researchers has created an artificial intelligence system that can quickly and efficiently detect bat presence without the need for human inspections.
As a more human-centric approach has gained momentum in recent years, there is an incentive to understand how people perceive and respond to their surroundings. UVA’s Center for Design+Health used mobile electroencephalography, or mobile EEG, to explore “what happens in the brain as it navigates the city,” essentially registering the emotions and behaviors triggered by the built environment.
It appears Virginia has reached the peak of the current surge, UVA’s Biocomplexity Institute reported Friday. The path forward contains many roads portrayed by varying models. “Case rates are leveling off, and we could see a significant decline in the coming weeks,” researchers wrote in Friday’s report.
The University of Virginia has been planning for a biennial democracy celebration for the past two years. Kimberly Dove found out recently that she was selected to be a part of it. Dove, a social studies teacher at Wilbur S. Pence Middle School, was selected to be the 2021 UVA Democracy Biennial Ambassador – one of four middle or high school teachers in the state selected to attend the UVA Democracy Biennial this weekend.
Two professors at the University of Virginia are leading an effort to improve care for kids with autism and other disabilities. The Leadership Education in Neurodevelopment and Related Disabilities, known as the LEND program, is actually getting its own Blue Ridge sector. This program provides a range of graduate-level training for an important field.
The University of Virginia has announced plans for a new performing arts center funded by a $50 million donation.
A $50 million gift from a Charlottesville fine arts supporter will fund a new performing arts center at the University of Virginia, UVA President Jim Ryan announced at the school’s Board of Visitors meeting on Friday.
In his most recent book, University of Virginia professor Christopher Ali argues that the ongoing battle for improved connectivity is not only far from over, but also critically flawed. “Farm Fresh Broadband” proposes a new approach to national rural broadband policy to narrow the rural-urban digital divide.
“Our research found that people didn’t tend to enjoy their thoughts,” says Timothy Wilson, a social psychologist at the University of Virginia and lead study author. “We’re usually not willing to put in the effort because we have the allure of so many other things to take our attention.”
(Subscription may be required) Paul Cantor, a UVA English professor who has written extensively on how popular culture reflects the country’s character, looks across history and sees far more discord than harmony. “This has always been a deeply fractious nation,” Cantor said. … In a more balkanized country, in which many people focus on their ideology, race, gender, ethnicity or sexuality as much as their identity as Americans, the idea of rallying to a shared patriotism has been politicized, said Kevin Gaines, a historian at UVA who focuses on the country’s struggles with racial integration.&...
Ericke S. Cage will serve as interim president until a new permanent president for the university is selected. Cage is a graduate of the University of Virginia’s Sorensen Institute for Political Leadership.
Jayme Swain, VPM and Virginia Foundation for Public Media president and CEO, was elected to serve a three-year term as a professional director on the Public Broadcasting Service Board, PBS President and CEO Paula Kerger announced Wednesday. Swain is a graduate of the University of Virginia.