ANN ARBOR, Mich.— Women who excel in male-dominated science, technology, engineering and mathematic fields are often unjustly stereotyped as unfeminine.
However, if women are perceived as having feminine qualities, their success may actually decrease interest in these fields (usually referred to as “STEM”), particularly among young girls, according to a new University of Michigan study. (more…)
Deep in the Ugandan jungle, David Watts, Yale anthropologist and consultant for new Disney movie “Chimpanzee,” has studied the behavior of humanity’s closest relative. The Ngogo forest boasts one of the largest chimpanzee populations in the world, which not only makes it a great location to film movies, but an unparalleled place to explore chimp […]
ANN ARBOR, Mich.— In parts of the world without reliable electricity, a pedal-powered nebulizer could provide life-saving asthma treatments. Small wax-filled sleeping bags could keep premature infants warm. A salad spinner centrifuge for blood samples could help clinicians diagnose anemia.
University of Michigan researchers have cataloged more than 100 such technologies in a new wiki of medical devices designed for resource-limited settings. The Global Health Medical Device Compendium, an open-source inventory, is hosted by the popular appropriate technology wiki Appropedia. It is expected to serve as an important communication vehicle for end users, non-governmental organizations, researchers and others to help advance such technologies. (more…)
ANN ARBOR, Mich.— Nature teems with examples of evolutionary arms races between predators and prey, with the predator species gradually evolving a new mode of attack for each defensive adaptation that arises in the prey species.
These adaptations are often portrayed as reciprocal, with prey and predator acting as two sides in an endless evolutionary tug of war known as co-evolution. (more…)
ANN ARBOR, Mich.— More young adults today would rather hit the information highway than the open highway, say University of Michigan researchers.
In a new study in the journal Traffic Injury Prevention, Michael Sivak and Brandon Schoettle of the U-M Transportation Research Institute found that having a higher proportion of Internet users was associated with lower licensure rates among young persons.
And this is just not in the United States; it’s happening in other countries, too. (more…)
ANN ARBOR, Mich.—YouTube campaign videos are more positive than ads aired on television, a new University of Michigan study shows.
YouTube videos are more positive because they are narrowly targeted to the highly informed, high motivated, usually supportive people who view a candidate’s online video, said Rob Salmond, the study’s author and assistant professor of political science. (more…)
ANN ARBOR, Mich.— America’s economy will continue its recovery this year and next as it adds nearly 5 million jobs and unemployment falls below 8 percent, say University of Michigan economists.
“The performance of the U.S. economy during much of 2011 did nothing to alter the perception that we were mired in a sluggish recovery,” said U-M economist Joan Crary. (more…)
ANN ARBOR, Mich.— A year after the crisis at Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, scientists and engineers remain largely in the dark when it comes to fundamental knowledge about how nuclear fuels behave under extreme conditions, according to a University of Michigan nuclear waste expert and his colleagues.
In a review article in this week’s edition of the journal Science, U-M’s Rodney Ewing and two colleagues call for an ambitious, long-term national research program to study how nuclear fuels behave under the extreme conditions present during core-melt events like those that occurred at Fukushima following the March 11, 2011, magnitude 9.0 earthquake and tsunami. (more…)
