New research from the University of Virginia Health System shows that nicotine use during pregnancy affects genes important in the formation and mechanism of myelin, a fatty brain substance that insulates brain cell connections in regions of the brain associated with neurobehavioral development. The findings … may explain why the children of mothers who smoke during pregnancy are more likely to develop such psychiatric disorders as attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, depression, autism and drug abuse.

The mystery of how the moon got its surface water has just got deeper, following the failure of an attempt to replicate the mechanism that was thought to produce it. … Many planetary scientists assumed the water was created when particles from the solar wind hit lunar soils, but this idea has now been thrown into doubt. "The solar wind cannot produce water in sufficient quantities to account for the results of the three missions that observed it," says Raúl Baragiola, a member of the team at University of Virginia, Charlottesville, that tried to reproduce this effect in...

When Brendon Fox visited the University of Virginia back in his high school days, he said that he would like to return one day. Fox – after spending 15 years as a successful director in Chicago, San Diego and Los Angeles – has returned to Charlottesville. He is in town this week to direct the University of Virginia Department of Drama’s production of "A Midsummer Night's Dream."

The University of Virginia Library is continuing to preserve civil rights-era television news footage that includes clips of civil rights leaders discussing plans for demonstrations and then-Gov. Lindsay Almond vowing to fight racial integration.

Last month, UVA held a ceremonial ground-breaking at the future site of the Ruth Caplin Theatre, a 300-seat, 20,500 square-foot "thrust stage" theater that will rise beside the Culbreth Theater on Culbreth Road – courtesy of Ruth Caplin, 89, and husband, Mortimer Caplin, 94, who donated $4 million for the $13.5 million addition to the Drama Building and whose lives have been as drama-filled as the plays and films they hope to nurture.

Lexi Moutafakis is among the UVa students who volunteer with Campus Kitchen, a group that cooks meals from unused portions from the university's dining halls and provides the meals to Charlottesville-area families and individuals in need. For this Thanksgiving, the students launched a massive effort called "Turkeypalooza" to collect food and cash contributions from across UVa to provide a full Thanksgiving meal to their recipients.

The University of Virginia four years ago joined Harvard and Princeton in a much-publicized revolt against early-admissions policies that the schools termed unfair to some applicants. But the revolution never spread, and it now appears to be over. U-Va. announced Nov. 16 that high school seniors may again apply early in 2012, though under a more flexible policy than before.

The University of Virginia is considering a move to accelerate the pace of its student enrollment growth, but only if the state agrees to pony up to help the university cope with the added costs.

[Carl L. Cash of Charlottesville is a wounded veteran of the Korean War] Cash ended up in the U.S. Naval Hospital in Yokosuka, Japan. While there, he was told that most of the men in his unit had been killed. The wounded Marine’s spirits were lifted considerably when he was visited by soldiers and sailors from Charlottesville who were stationed nearby. A surgeon from the University of Virginia raised his spirits even more. "This doctor from UVa operated on me, and if it hadn’t been for him, I’m not sure I would have made it,” Cash said. “I can’t remembe...

“We never used to see 20- and 30-year-old women with endometrial cancer, but with the obesity epidemic, I routinely operate on young women for endometrial cancer who are over 300 pounds,” said lead investigator Susan Modesitt, MD, director of the Gynecologic Oncology Division at the University of Virginia, Charlottesville. In a study published last year, Dr. Modesitt’s team showed that obese women are at high risk for developing breast and endometrial cancers and often do so at comparatively young ages.

Starting Jan. 1, 2012, Susan Murley, based in Boston, and Robert Novick, based in Washington, will begin a three-year term as co-managing partners. Murley is currently chair of the firm’s transactional department, which is made up of 11 practice groups. She graduated from the University of Virginia School of Law in 1986 and joined Hale and Dorr that same year.

George Hatcher, Jr. of Easton is the new  director of advancement and visitor services for the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum in St. Michaels, Maryland. … Hatcher earned his bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering with distinction from the University of Virginia before serving in the aerospace industry earlier on in his career.

Somdev Devvarman and Sanam Singh, who have a lot of things in common, including their alma mater the University of Virginia, broke the hearts of around 5,000 Chinese spectators at the Aoti tennis stadium and million others' around China, beating Gong Maoxin and Li Zhe 6-3, 6-7 (4-7), 10-8 in the men's doubles final.

Defense attorneys for Justin Michael Wolfe last week presented the clearest picture yet of possible alternate theories in the March 15, 2001, murder of a Centreville man, that they say should free Wolfe from a death sentence … The Virginia Capital Defense Resource Center and the Innocence Project, which enabled a group of University of Virginia law students to analyze police records released recently from the case, worked closely with the King & Spalding attorneys on Wolfe's behalf.

Peter Onuf Thomas Jefferson Memorial Foundation Professor of History Half-truth: Rick Scott says Thomas Jefferson called regulations an "endemic weakness" Miami Herald and PolitiFact, Nov. 22 Lili Powell Professor of business administration in the Darden School Charlottesville Right Now: The World Peace Game WINA 1070AM, Nov. 22 Larry Sabato Commonwealth Professor of Politics and director of the Center for Politics Poll: Tea Party support grows; USA divided USA Today, Nov. 22 and Senate Democrats View 2012 with Trepidation Fox News (blog), Nov. 22

The University of Virginia wants to take its technology to the next level. The UVA Applied Research Institute has partnered with defense contractors to improve communication for first responders when disaster strikes.

By Daniel Willingham, professor of psychology Is there a social cost to academic achievement? In other words, do adolescents punish high achievers by calling them nerds? At the roughest cut, the answer seems to be “no.” Academic success seems to go hand in hand with social success—it’s not a sizable effect, but it is present. A more fine-grained theory has it that the answer to that question varies with ethnicity.

When it comes to pay, is there something unique about the financial industry? Thomas Philippon, an economist at N.Y.U.’s Stern School of Business, thinks there is. After studying the large pay differential between financial-sector employees and people in other industries with similar levels of education and experience, he and a colleague, Ariell Reshef of the University of Virginia, concluded that some of it could be explained by growing demand for financial services from technology companies and baby boomers. But Philippon and Reshef determined that up to half of the pay premium was due...

Published by the University of Virginia Press, ["Carolina Cottage"] mixes the history of the archetypal coastal cottage, with its deep porch and natural ventilation, with personal detail about her own rescue of the Joseph Lane house, an 18th century cottage known as the second-oldest house in Wake County.

Georgia State is one of just a handful of business schools that have started experimenting with the iPad in the classroom. IMD Business School in Switzerland used the iPad in an executive education program in May of 2009, and schools like the University of Virginia’s Darden School of Business said they are looking to develop course material specifically for the iPad.