Tag Archives: delaware

China and the Internet

Internet bringing change to Chinese society, China Forum speaker says

The Internet is affecting every facet of Chinese life and shaping public opinion, according to Sanjiu Yan, the guest speaker at the inaugural China Forum, held Friday, Oct. 26, at the University of Delaware.

Yan, a former journalist who is now the dean of the College of Communication at East China Normal University in Shanghai, presented the first talk in the China Forum, a new monthly lecture series hosted by the Confucius Institute at UD. (more…)

Read More

PTSD Consortium

Researchers seek better ways to diagnose, treat disorder

Tania Roth studies what happens to the brain when stress occurs early in life, seeking to pinpoint how those kinds of bad experiences can cause molecular changes to DNA.

Now, by participating in a national consortium of researchers, the assistant professor of psychology at the University of Delaware is hoping to use her expertise to contribute to a better understanding of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). (more…)

Read More

Driver’s ed for Robots

UD joins research team teaching robots to respond in disaster emergencies

How do you teach a robot to get into vehicle and drive it? Three University of Delaware professors plan to figure it out by the end of next year.

Christopher Rasmussen, Ioannis Poulakakis and Herbert Tanner are part of a team competing in a new U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Challenge. The team, with members from 10 schools, led by Drexel University, is one of several groups worldwide working to advance robotics technology for disaster relief. (more…)

Read More

Hungry Black Hole

Astronomers poised for galactic chow-down

The super-massive black hole at the center of the Milky Way Galaxy has a healthy appetite, frequently snacking on asteroids and comets. Now, a cloud of gas and dust called G2 is on a dangerous course to become its next meal.

Even though Sagittarius A* (pronounced “Sagittarius A-star”) hasn’t been easy to see through the cosmic dust, sitting 25,000 light years away at galaxy central, scientists know it is a black hole — and a hungry one at that. Its weight has been estimated to be more than that of 4 million suns. (more…)

Read More

‘Earth Perfect?’

Professor’s new book examines nature, utopia and the garden

“the result of humanity’s attempt to carve out an ideal place in nature, thereby fashioning a ‘perfect’ earth” — is the subject of a new book, co-authored and edited by the University of Delaware’s Annette Giesecke.

Earth Perfect? Nature, Utopia, and the Garden is a lushly illustrated, 303-page volume that brings together essays from writers and experts across disciplines to study the relationship — historical, present and future — between humanity and the garden. (more…)

Read More

Speaking of Ethics

Lecturer explores the imperatives of environmental ethics

Speaking to University of Delaware faculty and students and community members in Brown Lab on Monday night, Oct. 15, environmental philosopher Kathleen Dean Moore discussed how important it is for humans to realize their ethical responsibility to save the world from a climate crisis.

In a lecture titled “Why It’s Wrong to Wreck the World: Climate Change and the Moral Obligation to the Future,” Moore reflected on the relationship humans have with the environment and argued that once humans realize the impact of their actions, they will naturally feel a moral obligation to care for the planet. (more…)

Read More

Driving Force

UD prof leads photonics revolution to help researchers access high-tech foundry services

Michael Hochberg joined the University of Delaware in the spring of 2012 as an associate professor in electrical and computer engineering.

An industry leader in silicon photonics and large-scale photonic-electronic integration, Hochberg is renowned for establishing Optoelectronic Systems Integration in Silicon (OpSIS), a high-tech foundry service for silicon photonics in which the community shares the cost of fabricating complex chip-scale systems across many projects. (more…)

Read More

Shark Social Networking

Shark migrations studied with underwater robot along Delmarva Peninsula

University of Delaware researchers are using an underwater robot to find and follow sand tiger sharks that they previously tagged with transmitters. The innovative project is part of a multi-year partnership with Delaware State University to better understand the behavior and migration patterns of the sharks in real time.

“In the past week our new, specially equipped glider OTIS – which stands for Oceanographic Telemetry Identification Sensor – detected multiple sand tiger sharks off the coast of Maryland that were tagged over the past several years,” said Matthew Oliver, assistant professor of oceanography in UD’s College of Earth, Ocean, and Environment. “This is the first time that a glider has found tagged sharks and reported their location in real time.” (more…)

Read More