ANN ARBOR — Gangs now occupy two spaces: the streets and the Internet.
A new University of Michigan study reports that, in addition to carrying guns, gang members have armed themselves with social media sites such as Twitter, Facebook and YouTube to incite dares, trade insults or make threats that may result in homicide or other crimes.
Researchers have described this new interaction as “Internet banging.” They examine several factors, including the role of hip-hop music in this phenomenon and urban masculinity’s influence on social media behavior. (more…)
A person’s style of speech — not just the pitch of his or her voice — may help determine whether the listener perceives the speaker to be male or female, according to a University of Colorado Boulder researcher who studied transgender people transitioning from female to male.
The way people pronounce their “s” sounds and the amount of resonance they use when speaking contributes to the perception of gender, according to Lal Zimman, whose findings are based on research he completed while earning his doctoral degree from CU-Boulder’s linguistics department. (more…)
First UD student successfully defends doctoral dissertation via Skype
Samuel Mathey, a graduate student in the Department of Economics at the University of Delaware, has become the first doctoral student in the Alfred Lerner College of Business and Economics to successfully defend a dissertation via Skype.
On Tuesday, June 12, Mathey’s dissertation committee sat in a Pearson Hall video conference room on UD’s Newark campus while he attended his defense virtually from France.
Committee members for Mathey’s defense included Burt Abrams (chair), professor of economics; Jim Butkiewicz, professor of economics; Laurence Seidman, professor of economics; and Robert Schweitzer, professor of finance. (more…)
U alum Maria Bamford gains fame as a comic, voice actress, and quirky commercial character
Sometimes it’s good to draw the long straw on work assignments.
That’s how it feels when you start doing research (read: watch a few Youtube clips) for a story on Maria Bamford, the University of Minnesota alumna who has made her mark as a stand-up comedienne, a versatile voice-over actress, and, in recent years, as the hyper-intense Black Friday shopper in Target television commercials.
Bamford’s credits are lengthy, including multiple appearances on the late-night talk show circuit (“The Tonight Show,” “Late Night with Conan O’Brien,” “The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson,” and “Jimmy Kimmel Live”), her own web series, and a number of comedy albums. She has guest starred on “The Sarah Silverman Program” on Comedy Central, and is the first female comic to have two half-hour “Comedy Central Presents” specials.(more…)
Sitting Prime Minister Vladimir Putin won the presidential election in Russia. He received the votes from 63.82 percent of electors, who took part in the voting on March 4th. Gennady Zyuganov, the head of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, comes second with 17.18 percent. Ninety-nine percent of ballot papers have been processed so far.
Mikhail Prokhorov takes the third place with 7.77 percent. Vladimir Zhirinovsky comes next with 6.23 percent. Sergei Mironov comes last with only 3.84 percent. (more…)
