Vargas hosts Borlaug Fellow to study carbon cycle science, policy in Mexico
Karla Toledo of the National Commission for Knowledge and Use of Biodiversity (CONABIO) in Mexico arrived at the University of Delaware to conduct research with Rodrigo Vargas, assistant professor in UD’s Department of Plant and Soil Sciences (PLSC), to review the state-of-the-art carbon cycle science and policy in Mexico. (more…)
Like urban bike-sharing programs everywhere, Chicago’s Divvy must contend with a key problem: due to commuting patterns, some bike stations empty out fast while others fill up quickly, leaving no space for more drop-offs.
But such urban problems can be addressed with socially minded computer science, as a group of 50 Chicago high school students learned recently during a daylong conference at the University of Chicago. (more…)
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…)
One of the most notable outcomes of the Nov. 6 election was the record number of women voted into Congress, including 20 women who will occupy seats in the U.S. Senate.
Christopher Berry, associate professor at the University of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy, recently discussed the effects of the increase in female U.S. senators. Berry co-authored a 2011 study that found congresswomen consistently outperform their male counterparts on several measures of job performance.
Potentially of great interest to the constituents of the new female senators is our finding that they consistently bring home more federal projects and federal aid than their male counterparts. When you think about disasters like Hurricane Sandy, the ability to bring home federal aid for rebuilding efforts is really important. It is going to be good for their constituents and the states they represent. (more…)
To Paul Tough, his recent visit to the University of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy was “a nice homecoming.”
During the two years of research for his new book, How Children Succeed: Grit, Curiosity and the Hidden Power of Character, Tough spent time at UChicago and in its surrounding neighborhoods.
“The nerve center of my journalistic enterprise was a small dorm room in International House,” he joked Oct. 18 in a speech at Chicago Harris, saying that many of the ideas in the book drew from work in the Department of Economics, the Economics Research Center, the Crime Lab and from the Consortium on Chicago School Research. (more…)
AUSTIN, Texas — About half of Texas voters believe faith is a better guide than scientific evidence on most important questions, according to a recent University of Texas at Austin/Texas Tribune poll.
According to the poll, which surveyed Texans on a wide range of attitudes related to science and public policy, a similar proportion of voters said that “instinct and gut reactions” are just as good as the advice of scientists in most cases.
However, 66 percent of voters said politicians, when faced with a difficult decision, should follow the advice of relevant experts, even if it means going against their ideology. (more…)
A recent review of research co-authored by Rose McDermott highlights the role that genes play in political preferences, an area of study that began to draw significant attention in the last decade. McDermott speaks with Courtney Coelho about this growing field of research, its evolutionary roots, and whether it means anything for the prediction of future election results.
The connection between biology and political science is relatively new, but it’s one that has grown rapidly, with a boom in research linking genetics and political preferences in the last decade. Rose McDermott, professor of political science, has done research on this topic and recently co-authored a review, published in Trends in Genetics, of studies in recent years. (more…)
AUSTIN, Texas — It’s theoretically possible to produce about 500 times as much energy from algae fuels as is needed to grow the fuels, according to a new study by researchers at The University of Texas at Austin.
However, limited by existing technology, the researchers found in a separate study that their algae growing facility is getting out about one-five hundredth as much energy as it currently puts in to grow the fuels.
“The search for cost-effective biofuels is one of the noble endeavors of our time, and these papers shed insight on where the boundaries are in algae research,” said Robert Hebner, a professor in the Cockrell School of Engineering and director of the Center for Electromechanics. “One of the responsibilities of a top research university is to discover and explain what the boundaries are so we can innovate within those boundaries or create ways to expand them.” (more…)
