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First Readings: A first taste of college life

By Guest PostSeptember 17, 2013Culture, Education1938 olympics, anti lbgtq, beautiful souls, berlin, broker, brown university, Chicago, college life, croats, dan harwood, eyal press, first readings, first readings seminars, first taste, florida, hayley bounds, hitler, hong kong, illegal settlements, illinois, israeli commando, labor day, new york, olympic, omer bartov, Ponzi Scheme, president christina paxson, professor of history, russia, sense of empathy, serbian, smuggled jews, south korea, swiss border guard, us states

On Monday morning — Labor Day — first-year students gathered in classrooms around campus for their First Readings seminars. The program, initiated at Brown seven years ago, is designed to give new students a common reading experience and prepare them for college life.

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — Classes don’t officially begin until Wednesday, but first-year students got their first taste of academic life at Brown on the first Monday in September, when all 1,537 of them gathered in classrooms around campus for the annual First Readings seminars. (more…)

Dolphins keep lifelong social memories, longest in a non-human species

By Guest PostAugust 10, 2013Nature, Scienceage, bailey, bermuda, brookfield zoo, Chicago, chimpanzees, cognitive sophistication, dolphin connection, dolphin named allie, dolphin named kai, dolphin quest, dolphins, elephants, florida keys, human social memory, humans, jason bruck, non human species, scotland, sex, signature whistle, social memories, spectrograms, st andrews, stephanie l king, texas state aquarium, university, vincent m janik

Dolphins can recognize their old tank mates’ whistles after being separated for more than 20 years—the longest social memory ever recorded for a non-human species.

The remarkable memory feat is another indication that dolphins have a level of cognitive sophistication comparable to only a few other species, including humans, chimpanzees and elephants. Dolphins’ talent for social recognition may be even more long-lasting than facial recognition among humans, since human faces change over time, but the signature whistle that identifies a dolphin remains stable over many decades. (more…)

Racial and economic gap in awareness of lifesaving HPV vaccine

By Guest PostJune 4, 2013Healthabigail shrader, anal cancer, anees chagpar, asco, asians, awareness, cervical cancer, cervical cancer rates, Chicago, data, economic gap, hispanics, hpv, hpv awareness, hpv infection, hpv vaccination, human papilloma virus, lifesaving hpv vaccine, oral cancers, racial, sexual organs, sexually transmitted virus

There are worrisome racial, economic, educational, and gender gaps in awareness about the lifesaving vaccine for human papilloma virus (HPV), a Yale Cancer Center study has found. The study is being presented at the 2013 annual meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) in Chicago.

HPV is a primarily sexually transmitted virus most widely known for causing cervical cancer, but it can also cause anal cancer, certain oral cancers, and cancers of the sexual organs of both women and men. (more…)

UA Researchers Solve Mystery of Lincoln’s Funeral Train

By Guest PostApril 25, 2013General, Politicsabraham lincoln, american history, benedictine university, brook beam, car project, Chicago, chicago group, color, death, funeral train, karen zimmermann, keck imaging center, lincoln, lincoln funeral, lincoln train project, model, mystery, nancy odegaard, new york, northern population, northern states, presidential funeral procession, presidential use, private railroad car, rich chocolate brown, robert kennedy, sesquicentennial, southern sympathizers, traditional funeral, train, united states, united states military, university of arizona, Washington, wayne wesolowski

With the 2015 sesquicentennial of Abraham Lincoln’s death approaching, interest is rising, and with new tools, UA researchers have turned their attention to one of the last remaining mysteries about what reportedly was the largest traditional funeral in American history – the train’s color.

A trove of information exists about Abraham Lincoln’s funeral, which drew millions of mourners during a two-week railway procession across the Northern states.

But until now, the precise color of the president’s railcar had been lost to history. (more…)

Proximity to Coal-Tar-Sealed Pavement Raises Risk of Cancer, Study Finds

By Guest PostMarch 28, 2013Environment, Healtharizona, asphalt pavement, barbara mahler, baylor university, benzoapyrene, california, canada, cancer, Chicago, coal tar, continental divide, csa, elevated risk, higher rates, hydrologis, pahs, peter van metre, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, sealant, sealcoat, spencer williams, texas, university in waco, usgs, volatilization

People living near asphalt pavement sealed with coal tar have an elevated risk of cancer, according to a study in the journal Environmental Science and Technology. Much of this calculated excess risk results from exposures in children, age six or younger, to polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) from the sealant.

“The increased cancer risk associated with coal-tar-sealed asphalt (CSA) likely affects a large number of people in the U.S. Our results indicate that the presence of coal-tar-based pavement sealants is associated with significant increases in estimated excess lifetime cancer risk for nearby residents,” said E. Spencer Williams, Ph.D., principal author of the study and Baylor University assistant research scientist at the Center for Reservoir and Aquatic Systems Research in Baylor’s College of Arts & Sciences. (more…)

Molecular Scientists Reveal Extraordinary Properties of Ordinary Glasses

By Guest PostJanuary 8, 2013Scienceaging, amber, amorphous molecular structure, Chicago, computer simulation, configuration, crystallization, evolution, evolution of glasses, glassy material, juan de pablo, mark ediger, mechanical properties, metal, molecular condition, molecular theory, multishaped object, ordinary glass, pharmaceutical, properties, sadanand singh, semi crystalline structure, silico vapor deposition, simulation, structural signature, tetris, ultrastable glasses, university, vacuum chamber, vapor deposition process, void riddled pattern, wisconsin madison

Technologically valuable ultrastable glasses can be produced in days or hours with properties corresponding to those that have been aged for thousands of years, computational and laboratory studies have confirmed.

Aging makes for higher quality glassy materials because they have slowly evolved toward a more stable molecular condition. This evolution can take thousands or millions of years, but manufacturers must work faster. Armed with a better understanding of how glasses age and evolve, researchers at the universities of Chicago and Wisconsin-Madison raise the possibility of designing a new class of materials at the molecular level via a vapor-deposition process. (more…)

Moscow Legislators Visit Chicago Harris to Learn about U.S. Governance

By Guest PostJanuary 3, 2013Politicsamerican elections, american political parties, andrey ambartsumov, center for tax, Chicago, chris berry, city of chicago, cook county, democratic institutions, george palamattam, harris school, maksim motim, marc farinella, moscow, municipal council deputies, natalya chernysheva, objective, open world program, paula worthington, political system, public policy, russian legislators, scott allard, skokie, united states, university of chicago, vladimir garnachuk, washington d.c., william howell, yekaterina kalatskaya

Five Russian legislators visited the University of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy recently to learn about American elections and democratic institutions from Chicago Harris faculty and students.

The Chicago Harris stop on Dec. 3 kicked off a weeklong trip for the delegates to Washington D.C. and Chicago as part of the congressionally sponsored Open World Program. The goal was to expose the legislators, who are all municipal council deputies in Moscow, to American best practices in local governance. (more…)

Exploding Star Missing From Formation of Solar System

By Guest PostDecember 16, 2012ScienceChicago, cosmic cloud, decay, energetic atom, exploding star, formation, gas, haolan tang, iron 60, meteorite, NASA, nicolas dauphas, notion, radioactive isotope, solar system, solar system material, spitzer space telescope, stellar explosion, supernova, time, university

A new study published by University of Chicago researchers challenges the notion that the force of an exploding star prompted the formation of the solar system.

In this study, published online last month in Earth and Planetary Science Letters, authors Haolan Tang and Nicolas Dauphas found the radioactive isotope iron 60 — the telltale sign of an exploding star—low in abundance and well mixed in solar system material. As cosmochemists, they look for remnants of stellar explosions in meteorites to help determine the conditions under which the solar system formed. (more…)

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