In The News

Responsible for 2.1 million injuries and 50,000 deaths annually in the U.S., traumatic brain injury (TBI) is the leading cause of death in individuals under the age of 35. ... One of the challenges associated with TBI, which has been identified as a major public health problem, is obtaining a prompt and accurate diagnosis. To address these issues, researchers at the University of Virginia Health System (including James Stone, MD, PhD, assistant professor of radiology and medical imaging, and Greg Helm, MD, PhD, professor of clinical neurological surgery and biomedical engineering at the UVA Sc...

Gary Gallagher History professor What ‘union’ meant The Boston Globe (Ideas blog) / April 24 Mavis Hetherington Psychology professor emeritus Fairy tales for straitened times Financial Times / April 23 Wendy Huber Darden Associate Director of Admissions Inside the $20 Million MBA Draft Poets & Quants / April 20 James Davison Hunter Sociology professor Commentary: Greg Rodriguez: The War Between The Whites Los Angeles Times / April 25 Peter Rodriguez Darden professor Three Hidden Market Signals The Wall Street Journal / April 23 Larry Sabato Professor of Politics and directo...

Tina Fey alumna

By Brandon Garrett Law professor Troy Webb was convicted of rape and spent almost eight years in prison in Virginia before DNA tests proved his innocence in 1996. Across the country, growing numbers of innocent people have been cleared by DNA tests, creating new awareness that our criminal justice system is not as accurate as it should be. My new book, "Convicting the Innocent," examines what went wrong in the cases of the first 250 people freed by such DNA tests. I located and reviewed their trial materials and found systemic failures. Those patterns also appear in the 12 cases of p...

“Evita,” the final production in the University of Virginia Department of Drama’s season, can be seen at 8 tonight, Wednesday and Thursday in Culbreth Theatre.

Some folks at the University of Virginia are trying to put together a group for undergraduate military veterans. So far, however, none of those behind the effort is actually an undergraduate military veteran. But organizers say they want to plant the seed for the group, Military Veterans @ UVa, or MV@UVA for short, then let it become a veteran-run organization.

... A recent report from the Wason Center for Public Policy at Christopher Newport University and the Weldon Cooper Center for Public Policy at the University of Virginia offered pointed criticisms of the plan. The report demonstrated that the plan approved by Senate Democrats marks a significant step backwards in redistricting, making the average district much less compact and increasing the number of split localities. ...

On Saturday, Charlottesville listeners will have a world of music at their fingertips. The inaugural Virginia Guitar Festival will bring in several top, fingerstyle guitarists from across the country and will open the stage to contestants who share a fondness for the rich complexities of the acoustic guitar. Organizer Hong Mun Tong, [a U.Va. Echols scholar and] a fingerstyle guitarist himself, said he’d like to see audience members come away with a broader picture of the style beyond its customary folk, blues and jazz settings. “I want the festival to be celebrating contemporary ge...

Of all the names that have echoed off the walls of the Beaumont Juvenile Correctional Center over the decades, those of Leo Tolstoy and Fyodor Dostoevsky are among the least likely. Beaumont, since 1918 the home for some of the state's most dangerous youths, this year hosted a University of Virginia Russian literature class attended by 14 U.Va. students and 21 high- and medium-security offenders. The classic 19th-century stories served as vehicles for conversation about contemporary issues for two groups of students who at first glance appear to be peers in age only, said Andrew Kaufman, the i...

Valerie Cooper Assistant professor of religious studies What Does it Mean to Be a Christian? Virginia Insight / WMRA public radio / April 21 Robert Fatton Jr. Politics professor Haiti's Martelly must win parliament to his policies Reuters / April 21 Wendy Huber Darden Associate Director of Admissions Inside the $20 Million MBA Draft Poets & Quants / April 20 Dr. Robert G. Sawyer Professor of surgery and public health sciences and chief of acute care surgery Novel Minimally Invasive Surgery Tames Fulminant C. difficile Internal Medicine News / April 21

Data from two randomized trials suggest that an artificial pancreas may improve overnight blood glucose control and reduce the risk for nocturnal hypoglycemia in adults with type 1 diabetes. ... Boris Kovatchev, PhD, of the University of Virginia, said that closed-loop control shows promise in a research setting. However, further development and system miniaturization is needed in practice to really improve the health and lives of people with type 1 diabetes.

Fluconazole prophylaxis use to prevent Candida infections in low birth weight babies appears to have no long-term adverse effects on quality of life or neurodevelopment of these children 8 to 10 years later. ... David A. Kaufman, MD,of the Division of Neonatology, department of pediatrics at the University of Virginia School of Medicine, and colleagues examined the long-term effects of using fluconazole to prevent Candida, by following up with 38 of 86 survivors who were enrolled in a fluconazole trial at the University of Virginia between 1998 and 2000.

... In a recent study published in the journal Child Development, researchers from the University of Washington, the University of Virginia and Temple University found that teens who work more than 20 hours per week may be doing themselves more harm than good. Some of the pitfalls cited by the research include lower expectations on the academic front, less engagement in school life, and a higher incidence of drug and alcohol use, which is likely not where their parents hoped their extra spending money would go.

Women probably hate belly fat more than the dreaded butt, hip and thigh fat. Burning belly fat should have a higher priority. Subcutaneous (just underneath the skin) and the more dangerous visceral fat (in the abdomen and organs) are targets of concern. ... A University of Virginia study found that middle-aged women who exercised intensely for 16 weeks lost more abdominal fat than those who exercised at a low intensity. The low-intensity group trained at 50-60 percent of maximum effort, usually walking. The high-intensity group did a combination of walking and jogging, or intervals.

Results from a pooled analyses of phase 3 clinical trials of fingolimod — the first oral agent for multiple sclerosis — show the drug (a Novartis product marketed as Gilenya) has transient and long-term cardiovascular effects. ... "Transient heart rate reduction and atrioventricular conduction slowing are expected pharmacodynamic effects of fingolimod therapy initiation and were usually asymptomatic," John DiMarco, MD, from the University of Virginia Medical Center in Charlottesville, said at the meeting. "Rates of hypertension-related adverse events were higher with...

Governor Bob McDonnell stopped by the University of Virginia Medical Center Thursday for a look at what some said is the most important medical advance since the scalpel. McDonnell toured UVA's Focused Ultra Sound Center. The facility offers clinical trials for cancer patients using a new procedure without invasive surgery or radiation.

Almost four years after the project was initially approved by the UVA Board of Visitors, construction on the Ruth Caplin Thrust Theatre began this week. The two-story, $13.5 million addition to UVA's current drama facilities will connect to the Culbreth Theatre lobby and box office, also slated for renovation and expansion. The Caplin building will offer 300 seats and a stage designed to accomodate dance performances and film events.

The University of Virginia’s Curry School of Education has selected Albemarle County Schools Superintendent Pamela Moran to receive the 2011 Distinguished Public Service Award. “Pam is one of the leading innovators in public education in the commonwealth and nationally,” Robert C. Pianta, dean of the Curry School, said in a prepared statement. “Her efforts have strengthened resources available to teachers and recognized their key role in student learning and development.” Pianta praised Moran’s use of technology in the school system, as well as her efforts t...

"Our D-I-V-O-R-C-E becomes final today..." Lyrics from the Tammy Lynette song resonate with Ohio divorce lawyer Denise Mirman, whose case log is growing in the wake of a recession. ... Recession has always been a factor in divorce rates, according to experts with the National Marriage Project at the University of Virginia. It's a time when couples tend to pull together and hunker down simply to survive. But as the economy improves, Mirman says divorce rates tend to spike. She says it also happened during the Great Depression of the 1930s.

Earth Day isn't until Friday, but the University of Virginia stretched the annual celebration into a week long event. The festivities started Monday. On Thursday, the university hosted an outdoor Eco-Fair to shed light on small changes that people can make to go green. About 45 organizations and companies filled the McIntire Amphitheater. Vendors demonstrated the virtues of using more energy efficient fluorescent light bulbs. ... Nina Morris, a UVA Sustainability Coordinator, said, "We just tried to have a little bit of everything here, so people can get a sample of all the things that ar...