Families spending their holiday at University of Virginia Medical Center got a festive surprise Friday. A Charlottesville nonprofit has donated hundreds of toys to bring them holiday cheer. Mason's Toy Box is a nonprofit that collects toys for children in the hospital during the holidays. This year, they're calling the drive Season's Treatings.
The University of Virginia Medical Center transformed an area of the hospital into Santa's workshop on Friday. The "Season's Treating Shoppe" gave parents an opportunity to pick out presents for their children who are patients in the hospital.
New research finds that people who live in poor countries that have a strong collective sense of religiosity feel that their life is meaningful, even in the face of economic hardship. Residents of wealthier countries, which also tend to be less religious, don’t have the same sense of a purpose in life. Psychology professors Shigehiro Oishi and Ed Diener, from the University of Virginia and University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, respectively, looked at Gallup World Poll results in which people were asked: “Do you feel your life has an important purpose or meaning?” and if...
Finding an article about reincarnation in Scientific American is as unlikely as finding a recipe for pork chops in a kosher cookbook. How surprised I was, therefore, to read “Ian Stevenson’s Case for the Afterlife: Are We ‘Skeptics’ Really Just Cynics?” in Scientific American’s online issue of November 2, 2013. Its author, Jesse Bering, a former professor of psychology, is a self-proclaimed skeptic. “If you’re anything like me, with eyes that roll over to the back of your head whenever you hear words like ‘reincarnation’ or ‘par...
They’ve tolerated taunts and accusations by conspiracy theorists and movie producers, but they draw the line at respected university educators. Two former staff members of the Warren Commission, which investigated the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, say University of Virginia professor Larry J. Sabato’s book on Kennedy sullies and besmirches the commission as incompetent and biased, even though Sabato reaches the same conclusion as the commission did.
A new report shows that black male students in Virginia schools are suspended at twice the rate of white male students. The report also finds that schools suspend most black students for relatively minor misbehavior, such as being loud or disruptive in class, leading to fresh questions about how to create safe, disciplined schools while ensuring fairness. The report was jointly released by the University of Virginia’s Curry School of Education and Charlottesville’s Legal Aid Justice Center.
Kids who start rapidly gaining weight early in childhood are more likely to have higher blood pressure and other signs of future heart trouble as preteens, a new study suggests. "There's a natural tendency early in life for children to thin out as they grow taller and gain stature faster than they gain weight," Dr. Mark D. DeBoer said.
Though it will be some time before shovels are in the ground, or pencils are even on the drawing board, Albemarle County already has accrued more than half the necessary funding for a police firing range. The state attorney general’s office announced last week a gift of $2.9 million for the Regional Public Safety Firearms Training Center, just four months after the county decided to pursue the option. In August, Albemarle supervisors voted to construct an indoor range – over considerably more controversial options – that will be developed as a joint venture between the county...
The decisions on whether to grant exemptions are often controversial, said Terry Rephann, a regional economist with the University of Virginia’s Weldon Cooper Center for Public Service, with some convinced that the nonprofits merit the breaks by helping the community. “But the argument could be made [that some of these] act a lot like for-profit organizations. Some, like in the medical and social services, compete with for-profit firms.”
Law professor Robert Turner, a national-security expert at the University of Virginia, said it was likely that the Supreme Court would refuse to hear the cases if no federal appeals court disputes the constitutionality of the NSA program. "When all of the circuits are in accord, the Supreme Court usually does not bother to take a case," Mr. Turner said.
Douglas Laycock, a University of Virginia professor of law and religious studies, said he would be surprised if the U.S. Supreme Court takes up the photographer’s case. If it does, the ruling would not be binding anywhere outside of New Mexico, though it could be cited as a persuasive argument by other courts taking up similar cases, he said.
If 2012 was the "Year of the MOOC," as The New York Times famously called it, 2013 might be dubbed the year that online education fell back to earth. Faculty at several institutions rebelled against the rapid expansion of online learning — and the nation's largest MOOC providers are responding.
If you want to be covered by January 1, you have until Monday to purchase private health insurance through the Healthcare.gov. “Just under half of the people who have tried to access the site have been successful in getting it to start up,” says Tom Guterbock, director of the Center for Survey Research. But even when HealthCare.gov starts up, a survey shows locals aren't necessarily signing up and purchasing insurance. Researchers for the Jefferson Area Community Survey reached out to nearly 600 people in Charlottesville, Albemarle, Nelson, Greene, Fluvanna and Louisa counties.
Lung transplants are exceedingly difficult to pull off. Once a donor dies, doctors typically have between six and eight hours to perform the transplant. Many of the lungs expire before then, said University of Virginia microbiologist Victor Laubach. But Laubach and a team of researchers at the UVa Medical Center believe they can change that with the development of a new drug. The idea is to use the drug, in combination with existing technology, to preserve lungs for up to 24 hours. That means doctors could conceivably get lungs to people on the transplant list in any part of the country.
The University of Virginia Health System has earned national recognition for a video that highlights efforts to improve care for children with asthma.
After delivering toys around the world Santa Claus made a special trip to The University of Virginia Children's Hospital to deliver toys to the patients there. Leaving the reindeer at home after an exhausting night, Santa arrived at the hospital via helicopter. With plenty of presents donated by the Student Nurses Association, Santa had gifts for all the girls and boys in the hospital and their siblings.
It is the tie that binds. Whether it is the colorful tie that Jim Crinkley sports on his dress shirt to go to work or the tie that this coach has for the game of basketball, it is the tie that ultimately binds it all together. For the past 37 years, Crinkley has sported many ties including friend, coach and teacher. But now he can sport the best tie of them all as a fan as Crinkley was welcomed by his family, friends and former players to honor his career as girls basketball coach on Dec.19.