Don’t believe in Santa Claus? Magic, you say? In fact, science and technology explain how Santa is able to deliver toys to good girls and boys around the world in one night, according to a North Carolina State University researcher.
NC State’s Dr. Larry Silverberg, professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering, can explain the science and engineering principles that allow Santa, also known as Kris Kringle or Saint Nicholas, to pull off the magical feat year after year. (more…)
Arizona State Museum zooarchaeologist Barnet Pavao-Zuckerman and her students are analyzing the remains of an early American president’s dining table.
Arizona State Museum archaeologists are looking through historic table scraps in an effort to find out more about the kitchen of America’s fourth president and author of the U.S. Constitution.
For about a decade, Barnet Pavao-Zuckerman and her students from the University of Arizona have been part of ongoing excavations at Montpelier, the home of James and Dolley Madison. The archaeology of Montpelier’s grounds offer some light on what day-to-day life was like from the pre-Revolutionary War era to well into the 18th century. (more…)
But Williams, who spent a combined 13-and- a-half years in prison, has dedicated his life to preventing others from following in his footsteps. (more…)
EAST LANSING, Mich. — Racial minorities pay systemically more for basic water and sewer services than white people, according to a study by Michigan State University researchers.
This “structural inequality” is not necessarily a product of racism, argues sociologist Stephen Gasteyer, but rather the result of whites fleeing urban areas and leaving minority residents to bear the costs of maintaining aging water and sewer infrastructure. (more…)
U of T leading centre for study of global Christianity
A century ago, 80 per cent of the world’s Christians lived in Europe and North America; today, nearly 70 per cent live in Africa, Asia, and Latin America, making Christianity a predominantly non-Western religion.
A critical mass of scholars who are looking into the implications of this shift has made the University of Toronto a leading centre for the study of global Christianity.
Christianity today has more than 2.2 billion adherents worldwide. The majority are overwhelmingly poor, displaced from rural villages into overcrowded cities in search of work, and adhere strictly to the word of Scripture, which can command their loyalty far more than state or society. (more…)
Former U.K. Prime Minister Tony Blair, founder of the Tony Blair Faith Foundation, applauded the efforts of the foundation’s six Canadian Faiths Act Fellows to help eradicate malaria and address other pressing community issues.
Blair recently took part in a discussion at the Multi-faith Centre on U of T’s St. George Campus where he talked about the impact of faith communities on global health outcomes alongside expert U of T academics, faith leaders and his foundation’s Faiths Act Fellows (See photos of Blair’s visit). Faiths Act is the foundation’s multi-faith social action program comprising 34 fellows across the world taking action together against preventable disease and extreme poverty. (more…)
*A forgotten artist’s work can help us understand ourselves, says U graduate*
“I am a detective of sorts,” Annika Johnson says. “And I find clues in paintings, documents, and letters that tell me about who the artist was that made them and when, where, and why they made them.”
Johnson, who received her art history degree from the U this past May and is now applying to graduate schools across the country, did undergraduate research on Clara Mairs—a little known Minnesota artist from the depression era. Johnson describes Mairs’ work as “playful yet psychological, monumental yet humble” and says she not only helped activate the state’s modern and avant-garde art movements but also was central in the early development of arts education in St. Paul. (more…)
