Tags: Human Nature
The appointment of Alber reflects a renewed focus on the pristine marine laboratory as a field station that supports world-class research and education in coastal ecosystems. UGAMI's international reputation, dating back to the 1950s, is based on groundbreaking ecological research by scientists from UGA and beyond.
An undeveloped barrier island on Georgia's coast, Sapelo is a national treasure as well as a unique living laboratory for…
As the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Science rolls out its fifth assessment report this week, Athletic Association Professor and president of the American Meteorological Society J. Marshall Shepherd weighs in on the need for common sense on climate change:
For me, the hat with the ball from the IPCC report is that it continues to affirm that our planet is warming, and humans are a significant contributor to the warming.
Andrew Dessler,…
For the second time in two months, a group of UGA researchers have received significant grant support from the NIH to study and experiment on the sugar molecules known as glycans:
[The researchers] have received a five-year $7.4 million grant from the National Institutes of Health to help better understand one of the most fundamental building blocks of life.
They are tiny chains of sugar molecules called glycans, and they cover the surface…
The department of physics and astronomy hosts a distinguished guest to campus on Thursday sept. 19 with a very unusual bit of expertise to share with all and sundry:
To some, fire walking is an act of faith, belief or mind-over-matter, but for condensed matter physicist John Campbell, fire walking is a matter of thermal conductivity. Campbell will lecture on the subject at the University of Georgia Sept. 19 at 7 p.m. in the physics auditorium.…
By Jessica Luton
jluton@uga.edu
A University of Georgia historian was featured on the TLC show “Who do you think you are?” earlier this month.
A recent Ph.D. recipient, Joshua Haynes currently teaches four classes in American History and Native American history, but this summer he had a chance to help Trisha Yearwood sort out her family history and discover why her family ended up in Eatonton, Georgia.
Along the way, Haynes learned some…
How do we change or mis-remember what we see with our own eyes? New research from the department of psychology seeks to unpack this intriguing process:
In just a few short seconds, the human brain helps most people extend the scene beyond what is actually seen.
Scientists at the University of Delaware discovered this concept in 1989 when they showed study participants real photographs of 20 scenes for 15 seconds and then had participants draw a…
Great news this month about our faculty, students and alumni. A few of the highlight of accomplishments and awards in the Franklin College:
University Professor Lynn Billard of the department of statistics was selected to receive the 2013 Florence Nightingale David award by the Committee of Presidents of the Statistical Societies. The award recognizes a female statistician who exemplifies David’s contributions to education, science and…
Here's a sampling of Franklin College faculty writing and quoted in the media this month:
“The secret bromance of Nixon and Brezhnev” – Posting by associate professor of history Stephen Mihm in Bloomberg News, picked up by the History News Network.
A second posting by Mihm is in the same outlets on the topic, “How computers took over trading.”
Spalding professor of history James C. Cobb reflects on commencement in Flagpole magazine.
“This…
One of the new Faculty Research Clusters recently launched by the Willson Center for Humanities and Arts is the Digital Humanities Lab co-directed by Franklin faculty in the departments of English (Bill Kretzschmar) and history (Stephen Berry and Claudio Saunt). This initiative combines digital humanities courses and the strengthening of the university’s digital humanities research core through projects such as the Linguistic Atlas Project and…
Glycobiology is very complex science - the study the structures, biosynthesis and biology of the sugar chains, or glycans, that are essential components in all living things. Glycans have been the focus of much attention by UGA researchers recently, and now glycobiology is at the center of big new NIH grant to another team of Franklin College researchers:
Researchers at the University of Georgia have received a five-year, $10.4 million grant…
The Willson Center for Humanities and Arts and the Hugh Hodgson School of Music present a lecture by a noted expert on bringing research into communities and vice-versa. Carol Muller, a South African-born Ethnomusicologist at the University of Pennsylvannia, will speak at the Hodgson Schoo, at 4 p.m. Thursday Sept. 5 in room 408.
Muller has published widely on South African music at home and abroad. Her books include Rituals of Fertility…
In continuing with our Humanities Week theme, today the Jane and Harry Willson Center for Humanities and Arts at UGA launches its new Faculty Research Clusters initiative with a reception at 4 p.m. in the Russell Building Special Collections Libraries:
The program supports groups of University of Georgia faculty who are organized to address large-scale humanities and arts questions in partnership with colleagues from allied departments, colleges…
Genetics lectures series begins today
By Jessica Luton
jluton@uga.edu
If the development of species over time is of interest to you, the department of genetics has just the thing for you—a weekly lecture series meant to shine light on genetics research on campus and at other universities. Featuring visiting scholars and campus experts alike, this series of lectures happens each Wednesday at 4 p.m. at the Paul D. Coverdell Center…
Great news for students in our introductory biology courses:
The University of Georgia Center for Teaching and Learning is looking at ways to save students money by offering free e-textbooks for introductory biology courses at UGA through a $25,000 University System of Georgia Incubator grant awarded this summer.
UGA students who take the entry-level biology courses pay around $97 for a new biology textbook. This grant will collectively save…
The Francine Merritt Award or Outstanding Contributions to the Lives of Women in Communication, presented by the National Communication Association's (NCA) Women's Caucus, honors the memory of Francine Merritt, who taught at Louisiana State University between 1947 and 1984. Congratulations to the 2013 Francine Merritt Award winner, professor and head of the department of communication studies, Barbara Biesecker:
Dr. Biesecker's commitment to the…
Well, in a way, I live a double life. In the spring semesters, I teach Organic Chemistry II. This is one of the more challenging courses for pre-professional students in their curriculum, and the class size averages approximately 350 students. This class is high intensity, and I really enjoy lecturing to this class size. On one hand, I get to interact with some of the best students in the university. On the other, many students struggle…
Franklin students share scientific research at symposium
By Jessica Luton
jluton@uga.edu
Scientific research, and plenty of it, was on display this week at an interdisciplinary conference on UGA’s Coverdell Center for Biomedical and Health Sciences. The 5th Annual Scientific Research Day, as it is known, is put together each year by the Graduate Students and Postdocs in Science (GSPS), a…
Researchers from the department of chemistry, in the early online edition of ACS Nano, report progress on an innovative new use for nanoparticles:
The human body operates under a constant state of martial law. Chief among the enforcers charged with maintaining order is the immune system, a complex network that seeks out and destroys the hordes of invading bacteria and viruses that threaten the organic society as it goes about its work.
The…
Researchers at the Complex Carbohydrate Research Center announced a new methodology with broad implications for human health. A research team led by Geert-Jan Boons, Franklin Professor in the department of chemistry, recently published on the first method for synthesizing asymmetrical N-glycans:
According to the study, published in the journal Science on July 25, the approach could lead to a better understanding of how viruses and bacteria enter…
(Many) classes were out, but the media kept the phone calls and emails coming to our faculty this summer. Here's a sampling:
Michael Terns, professor of biochemistry and molecular biology, is quoted in an MIT news article about genome editing.
The work of Mark Abbe, professor of ancient art in the Lamar Dodd School of Art, is featured in Archeology magazine
“Brown ocean” can fuel inland tropical cyclones – Several reports on a newly…
In that, beyond whatever disciplinary road you choose, you are already an adherent of your native language and will continue to study its literature. Nice meditation on reading that actually applies to everyone from the other Chronicle, The Ideal English Major:
Real reading is reincarnation. There is no other way to put it. It is being born again into a higher form of consciousness than we ourselves possess. When we walk the streets of Manhattan…
It is the beginning of a massive influx of students into Athens and the University. By one count I heard this morning, there are 7,500 new people moving into dorms and apartments and houses around town this week. That's a lot of new energy to contemplate entering a large university in a very small town, and there are all kinds of local news stories about the experience, as well there should be. Young people beginning a new part of their lives -…
This is an issue that everyone in higher is following (and if you're not, you should be). Legislation in California aimed at getting state institutions to award credit for massive open online courses from non-university system providers has been shelved for a year:
The bill, SB 520, caused a stir when it was introduced, in March, by State Sen. Darrell Steinberg, a powerful Democrat in the California Legislature. Faculty unions strongly…
The pipeline that connects university research to the public, from new drug treatments to insights about our own history, is one of the very important functions of higher education. The pipeline that connects young students to one day become those very researchers is just as important:
Run by UGA Human Resources, Young Dawgs is doing more than capturing the imaginations of high school students and preparing them for future careers. It's also…
It is with a heavy heart but great pride that we share reports that senior associate dean Hugh Ruppersburg has been named interim vice provost of UGA:
Ruppersburg served as interim dean of the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences from 2011 to 2012 and has served as its senior associate dean since 2005. Earlier this year, he was named University Professor, an honor bestowed selectively on UGA faculty who have had a significant impact on the…