ANN ARBOR, Mich.— Why is the universe magnetized? It’s a question scientists have been asking for decades. Now, an international team of researchers including a University of Michigan professor have demonstrated that it could have happened spontaneously, as the prevailing theory suggests.
The findings are published in the Jan. 26 edition of Nature. Oxford University scientists led the research. (more…)
ANN ARBOR, Mich.— A new University of Michigan computer model of disease transmission in space and time can predict cholera outbreaks in Bangladesh up to 11 months in advance, providing an early warning system that could help public health officials there.
The new forecast model applies specifically to the capital city of Dhaka and incorporates data on both year-to-year climate variability and the spatial location of cholera cases at the district level. This allowed the researchers to study both local variation in disease transmission and response to climate factors within the megacity of 14 million people. (more…)
University of Michigan visiting professor Stephen Bloom discusses how the Iowa Caucuses can change a presidential candidate’s campaign. – Written by Jared Wadley *Source: University of Michigan
ANN ARBOR, Mich.—They shook light from darkness. They coaxed something out of what we normally think of as nothing—the vacuum of space. And now their work has been named one of the top 10 breakthroughs of the year by Physics World, the international magazine announced today.
University of Michigan physics researcher Franco Nori is involved in the work, which was published in Nature in November.
The physicists directly observed, for the first time, light particles that flicker in and out of existence in the vacuum. They witnessed the long-predicted quantum mechanical phenomenon known as the dynamical Casimir effect. (more…)
ANN ARBOR, Mich.— For the first time, the chemical “fingerprints” of the element mercury have been used by University of Michigan researchers to directly link environmental pollution to a specific coal-burning power plant.
The primary source of mercury pollution in the atmosphere is coal combustion. The U-M mercury-fingerprinting technique – which has been under development for a decade – provides a tool that will enable researchers to identify specific sources of mercury pollution and determine how much of it is being deposited locally. (more…)
ANN ARBOR, Mich.— Among the more important findings from this year’s Monitoring the Future survey of U.S. secondary school students are the following:
*A new study of health insurance in nine Chinese provinces shows that individual coverage surged within a two-year time frame, from 2004-2006, coinciding with new government interventions designed to improve access to health care. The changes were most dramatic in rural areas.*
PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — Health care coverage increased dramatically in parts of China between 1997 and 2006, a period when government interventions were implemented to improve access to health care, with particularly striking upswings in rural areas, according to new research by Brown University sociologist Susan E. Short and Hongwei Xu of the University of Michigan. The findings appear in the December issue of Health Affairs.
Led by Xu, a former Brown graduate student, the study analyzed data from the China Health and Nutrition Survey, which follows households in nine provinces that are home to more than 40 percent of China’s population. Xu and Short specifically focused on patterns of coverage among rural and urban residents. (more…)
ANN ARBOR, Mich.— Existing coherent ultraviolet light sources are power hungry, bulky and expensive. University of Michigan researchers have found a better way to build compact ultraviolet sources with low power consumption that could improve information storage, microscopy and chemical analysis.
A paper on the research is newly published in Optics Express. The research was led by Mona Jarrahi and Tal Carmon, assistant professors in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. The experiment was performed by Jeremy Moore and Matthew Tomes, both graduate students in the same department. (more…)
