Tag Archives: yale

Mobile computing in the ‘bring your own device’ era

Early in September Yale passed a milestone in mobile computing, with a record 39,414 mobile devices connected to its wireless networks. As on most college campuses the growth of mobile computing at Yale has been explosive, from well under 10,000 devices three years ago to almost 40,000 today.

A recent Gartner study showed that smartphone ownership among college students went from 55% in 2011 to 62% in 2012, and the percentage of students using their smartphones for academic work doubled in the same period. The typical U.S. college student now routinely uses between 2-3 wireless devices, and higher education computing experts predict that average to grow to 3-4 devices over the next year. (more…)

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Indian foresters learn state-of-the art methods in mid-career training at Yale

Officers of the Indian Forest Service (IFS) arrived on the Yale campus July 21 for a two-week training session on state-of-the-art concepts and practices in forestry and environmental management. The session is part of a partnership between the Global Institute of Sustainable Forestry at Yale, TERI University (The Energy and Resources Institute in India), and the Indira Gandhi National Forest Academy acting under the auspices of the Indian Ministry of Environment and Forests.

The Indian Ministry of Environment and Forests conceived the idea of holding short, intensive training sessions as a way of injecting fresh ideas, tools, and techniques into its forest service. The Yale Global Institute has participated from the beginning of the program, making this the fourth year, and the sixth group of Indian foresters welcomed to campus.  (more…)

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Getting to the heart of disease

Scientist works toward molecular therapies for cardiovascular diseases

Born in Leningrad (now St. Petersburg), Russia, to Jewish parents before the fall of the Soviet Union, Michael Simons, M.D., says a medical career was “sort of a default.” Anti-Semitism barred Jews from many scientific pursuits, so his parents, both doctors, encouraged his interest in medicine as the basis for a strong natural science education.

Simons’ family immigrated to Boston in 1978. Simons had begun a 6-year medical program immediately after high school in Russia, so he was admitted to Boston University School of Medicine as a third-year student, but he chose instead to start anew, as an undergraduate. “I thought, if I continue in a medical program, I’ll forever have an inadequate undergraduate education,” he says, speaking with a mild accent and an understated intensity. (more…)

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‘To the Mountaintop’: Journalist Discusses Social Justice Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow

Award-winning journalist, activist, and author Charlayne Hunter-Gault told a packed audience at Yale that lessons learned from the civil rights movement still have relevance for current and future generations.

Hunter-Gault delivered a lecture titled “Social Justice, Equity, and Public Health” during a Branford College master’s tea on Feb. 5. (more…)

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Asteroid that Killed the Dinosaurs also Wiped out the ‘Obamadon’

The asteroid collision widely thought to have killed the dinosaurs also led to extreme devastation among snake and lizard species, according to new research — including the extinction of a newly identified lizard Yale and Harvard scientists have named Obamadon gracilis.

“The asteroid event is typically thought of as affecting the dinosaurs primarily,” said Nicholas R. Longrich, a postdoctoral associate with Yale’s Department of Geology and Geophysics and lead author of the study. “But it basically cut this broad swath across the entire ecosystem, taking out everything. Snakes and lizards were hit extremely hard.” (more…)

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Journalist Blasts Mainstream Media for Failing to Anticipate 2008 Financial Crisis

Dean Starkman, a Pulitzer Prize-winning financial journalist for the Columbia Journalism Review, shared his theories about the 2008 financial crisis with students at a Calhoun College master’s tea on Nov. 29. His talk was sponsored by the Poynter Fellowship in Journalism at Yale.

Starkman, who is currently writing a book on what he regards as the failure of the media to anticipate the financial crisis, explained that he believes the evidence was there, yet no major news sources reported it. “I don’t like the financial press and institutionalized media because they screwed up the pre-crisis coverage, and I don’t like the new media people either — so what do I like?” Starkman joked. (more…)

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Six Facts about Yale’s President-Elect

In the wake of the announcement that Provost Peter Salovey has been named as Yale’s 23rd president (see YaleNews story), here is a look at how he fits in with his presidential predecessors.

• He will be the third psychologist to hold Yale’s top administrative post.

Noah Porter, president 1871-1886, was an early figure in the development of American psychology. His book “The Human Intellect,” which features an “Introduction upon Psychology and the Human Soul” (1868), explored the tensions between religious belief and “scientific” psychology. (more…)

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