When the University of Virginia Medical Center set out on the design of its University Hospital Expansion project in November 2013, the plan called for expansion of its emergency department, surgical suite and a new six-story inpatient tower. But when the new inpatient tower was only months from completion, the pandemic hit, prompting UVA to rethink the project’s design and make some last-minute changes, according to Health Facilities Management.
Dr. Steven Zeichner and others at the University of Virginia have been studying when the COVID-19 pandemic hit. “We thought if we have these technologies that we think can be beneficial, we really should re-tool and re-orient and see if we can do something,” Zeichner told News 3. He and others across UVA and Virginia Tech have been working on a new COVID-19 vaccine. “We wanted to come up with a vaccine that would be appropriate for the whole world,” he said.
Scientists at the University of Virginia report what may be an important medical breakthrough. Laboratory testing shows the use of two cheap oral drugs can treat a common form of anemia.
The answer to why some patients die unexpectedly following an epileptic seizure may finally have been answered in new research from the University of Virginia School of Medicine. Through looking at a certain type of seizure in a mouse model of epilepsy, researchers found that death occurs only when the seizure induces failure of the respiratory system.
Teasing out the measurement was a lot like “knowing you got this tiger by the tail,” Kent Paschke, a physicist at the University of Virginia and co-author of the new study, said. It took three months of intense runs of the laser, enduring power outages and round-the-clock monitoring of the system. The team wasn’t sure if they’d be able to complete the work in the three months they were given. But ultimately, the atomic-scale marathon turned up an exact measurement, one that redefines our understanding of the size of the neutron skin.
The University of Virginia has eased limits on indoor and outdoor gatherings due to the lower number of COVID-19 cases in the area and increasing vaccination rates. Students in the UVA community can now gather in groups of up to 25 people indoors, which is up from six.
Blowing out birthday candles is a tradition that has been around for centuries, but this celebratory ritual may be going away, as one UVA alum is debuting a cleaner way of making a wish. “Nobody’s handing you the hamburger and blowing on it and being like, ‘Here’s your hamburger. I just blew on it for you,’” Mark Apelt said. When Apelt was out with friends before the pandemic, he had an idea.
(Commentary by former U.S. surgeon general Jerome Adams, writing in his private capacity as a Darden dean’s fellow) We can’t reach the COVID-19 finish line with only half the herd. To finish this race and safely reopen, we urgently need to make it easier for holdouts to get vaccinated and implement new strategies to encourage them to do so.
(Video) The CDC is easing restrictions on masks, allowing those who are fully vaccinated to unmask for some outdoor activities. UVA critical care and infectious disease physician and medical ICU director Dr. Taison Bell discussed the latest coronavirus news.
[UVA alumnus] Jiajun Zhu is the cofounder of Nuro, a robotics company based in Mountain View, California, that develops fully hands-free, self-driving delivery vehicles. Founded in 2016 by Zhu and his fellow former Google teammate, Dave Ferguson, Nuro recently hit the headlines after its flagship R2 model started making autonomous pizza deliveries in Houston after a successful team-up with Domino’s Pizza. If the idea of getting your Margherita delivered to your door by an autonomous delivery bot appeals, you’re in luck – if Zhu’s ambitions play out, you’ll soon be getting everything from pizza...
Astronomers could watch how gamma rays or radio signals from the candidates change over time to double-check that these objects aren’t really pulsars. Researchers could also look for optical or infrared signals that might indicate the candidates are actually black holes. “Obviously this is still preliminary … but it’s interesting,” says Julian Heeck, a physicist at the University of Virginia not involved in the work.
(Podcast) Chloé Zhao became the first woman of color to win Best Director and Best Picture for “Nomadland” at Sunday’s Academy Awards. Hollywood celebrated, but in Zhao’s native China, mentions of her huge night were reportedly scrubbed from the internet and social media, and the state-run media barely reported on the Oscars. The censure is the result of Zhao’s history of criticizing the Chinese government, says Aynne Kokas, author of “Hollywood Made in China” anda UVA associate professor of media studies.
“These deaths are still happening -- and they happen to well-meaning parents,” said Dr. Rachel Moon, a UVA pediatrician who chairs the American Academy of Pediatrics task force on SIDS and authored the AAP policy statement on safe infant sleep. “We have remained at the same rate of sleep-related deaths since around 1998,” she added. “And the rate in the U.S. is much higher than that in most developed -- and even some not-so-developed countries.”
Yesterday’s apportionment results were less dramatic than some analysts had expected. “It was surprising that Texas only gained two seats. I’d assumed they’d be getting three or even four,” said J. Miles Coleman, associate director of Sabato’s Crystal Ball, the political analysis project of the University of Virginia’s Larry Sabato.
“I’d expect, just from reapportionment, the Republicans to win a few seats,” said Kyle Kondik, an election analyst at the University of Virginia. Republicans only need to flip five seats in 2022 to retake the House.
In the states losing seats, the casualties could be split evenly between Democrats and Republicans, said Kyle Kondik of UVA’s Center for Politics. But Republicans could press their advantage in the states gaining seats, especially in Texas and Florida. “Republicans are going to net out an advantage in that trade-off,” Kondik told Bloomberg TV. “They’re states that are competitive to be sure, but they’re states that are dominated by Republicans at the state level.”
Qian Cai, the director of the Demographics Research Group at UVA’s Weldon Cooper Center for Public Service, said there were generally few surprises for Virginia in Monday’s release by the census, which she said is good news for her team of demographers. Their estimate for Virginia’s population in 2020, which was hatched in 2018, was just 479 people off from the official census count.
U.S.-Mexico border issues are the main thing that Biden is getting wrong or needs to work on, according to Larry Sabato, director of UVA’s Center for Politics. The Biden administration has struggled to handle increasing numbers of migrants arriving at the border, leading to plenty of criticism from Republicans as well as Democrats and independents. “It is the one major policy area where Americans already give him low grades,” Sabato said.
“It’s all fairly artificial, but as humans we need these milestones and markers,” Barbara Perry, director of presidential studies at the University of Virginia’s Miller Center, said of the 100-days window. “It’s meaningful at the time. It could be meaningful in the long term. But it could also be overtaken by the swath of history.”
“His trainees were like a 2nd family to him,” Kedes’s son, Dean Kedes, a microbiologist at the University of Virginia, wrote in an email. His father would often have students over for dinner, and their lively discussions were part of what prompted the younger Kedes to pursue a career in science. “In the end, I saw my father’s daily enjoyment of his career not only from his awe of new discoveries in gene expression but also his creation of this super-family ... all of whom shared his joy of science and life. What son wouldn’t also want that type of career?”