On Sunday night, “A Concert for Charlottesville” brought groups of people to Scott Stadium for a night of musical and social harmony.
Dave Matthews took the stage first, solo. The organizer of Sunday’s A Concert for Charlottesville told the crowd of tens of thousands at the University of Virginia’s Scott Stadium, “look how many people can come together this quickly for unity.”
Student dining at UVA has begun chopping some of its greens and herbs from an unlikely source: trays of ultraviolet-lit plants set up in Clark, Newcomb and Observatory Hill halls. The innovative hydroponics system is the brainchild of UVA alum Alexander Olesen, who founded Babylon Micro-Farms last year.
Peter Norton, an associate professor in UVA’s Department of Engineering and Society, thinks that riding in the back is likely a holdover of the days when people rode in horse-drawn carriages, along with the aristocratic baggage that comes with all that.
When he found out about A Concert For Charlottesville, Brett Ratner decided he couldn’t just stand by and watch. The acclaimed filmmaker said he felt instantly compelled to get involved, opting to direct and film the show taking place Sunday night at UVA’s Scott Stadium.
The idea that people have different styles of learning -- that the visually inclined do best by seeing new information, for example, or others by hearing it -- has been around since the 1950s, and recent research suggests it's still widely believed by teachers and laypeople alike. But is there scientific evidence that learning styles exist? "The short answer is no," says UVA psychology professor Daniel Willingham.
Poison frogs become poisonous by isolating chemicals from their food and storing them in their skin. One such compound, epibatidine, is a stronger painkiller than morphine, but has not been tested in humans because even low doses are deadly to rodents. But for the frogs themselves, this powerful neurotoxin is totally impotent.Another open question centers on the order in which these mutations arose, says UVA evolutionary biologist Edmund Brodie III, who was not involved in the work. “It’s a reasonable conclusion that frogs evolved this resistance first and then [made] compensatory changes afte...
"Looking only at costs distorts the picture greatly," said David Martin, an emeritus professor of law at UVA. "Refugees who stay idle in a first asylum camp cannot contribute to the host society, whereas those who are resettled mostly do, especially over time."
"We are starting to hear concerns out of Washington for the first time ever that Facebook is starting to get too powerful," says Siva Vaidhyanathan, UVA professor of media studies and the author of “The Googlization of Everything (And Why We Should Worry)” and an upcoming book on Facebook. "Those suspicions are growing and they are putting pressure on Facebook."
“Facebook’s algorithms created these categories of anti-Semitic terms,” says UVA media studies professor Siva Vaidhyanathan, author of “Anti-Social Network,” a book about Facebook due out later this year. “It’s a sign of how absurd a human-free system can be, and how dangerous a human-free system can be.”
Health care professionals and community members will soon join forces at the University of Virginia to tackle the growing opioid epidemic. It's all part of a conference coming up next week.
A city council in Virginia has voted to commemorate Indigenous Peoples Day on the same day that Columbus Day has been traditionally observed. When you look around at some of the statues in Charlottesville, it is clear that the role of Native Americans is downplayed in American history, at least according to Karenne Wood from the Virginia Foundation of the Humanities. Wood says the University of Virginia Native American Student Union is lobbying state lawmakers to officially change the holiday.
The University of Virginia announced that it has rescheduled "Dialogues on Race and Inequity" for Saturday, Sept. 23. The event was originally scheduled for Aug.12 but was canceled due to safety concerns stemming from that day's rally in downtown Charlottesville.
The Tom Tom Founders Festival’s inaugural Fall Forum on Friday will feature two panel discussions on major growth industries in the Charlottesville area: biotechnology and machine learning.
Republican Ed Gillespie and Democrat Ralph Northam will meet for one final debate before the Nov. 7 election, this time in Virginia’s coalfields region, which has never before hosted a televised gubernatorial debate. The University of Virginia’s College at Wise will host the third and final gubernatorial debate Oct. 9.
Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, began Wednesday evening -- and some Facebook users received a celebratory message when they logged in. While the note was well received by some, others questioned how exactly the social network was aware of their religious affiliation. Siva Vaidhyanathan, a UVA media studies professor, said the messaging is another example of the extent to which Facebook is tracking us.
UVA on Thursday announced members of its search committee to find a replacement for Craig Littlepage, who plans to retire as athletic director. The group will be chaired by University President Teresa Sullivan, who is also stepping down next summer.
According to the Virginia attorney general’s office, there are more than 1,200 DACA recipients enrolled at Virginia universities. Between UVA and Piedmont Virginia Community College, there are approximately 60 DACA students living in the area.
Education deans and university presidents aren’t often authors of best-selling books on wisdom about life, but James E. Ryan is. Ryan is now dean of Harvard University’s Graduate School of Education but come next fall, he will become UVA’s ninth president, and the first to land on a list of popular books.
A Concert for Charlottesville will be livestreamed beginning at 5:55 p.m. Sunday, organizers announced Wednesday. The free show, organized in the wake of the violent white nationalist Unite the Right rally in August, is expected to pack UVA’s Scott Stadium.