News from other Michigan public universities and U-M peer institutions across the nation.
STATE UNIVERSITIES
Michigan Tech Isle Royale wolf study recognized
Michigan Technological University’s Isle Royale wolf-moose predator-prey study has been elected to the Michigan Environmental Hall of Fame. The project, the longest-running predator-prey study in the world, was started in 1958 by Durward L. Allen, called a pioneer among ecologists for having the foresight to understand the value of continuing to observe over time where others would have drawn conclusions and moved on.
Wayne law students urge new environmental study for I-94 expansion
At Wayne State University Law School, students in the Transnational Environmental Law Clinic are trying to make sure a new environmental review is performed for a proposed $2.7 billion expansion to I-94 through the center of Midtown Detroit. Proposed by the Michigan Department of Transportation, it would expand the highway from six to 10 lanes and add service drives from I-96 to Connor Avenue. The Law Clinic and the nonprofit Great Lakes Environmental Law Center are working together with a coalition of community and environmental groups concerned about the plan.
PEER INSTITUTIONS
Harvard University wins accepts $17M gift to fund behavior study
Harvard University announced April 14 that New York-based The Pershing Square Foundation, founded by alumni Bill and Karen Ackman, has awarded the university $17 million to catalyze the work of its Foundations of Human Behavior Initiative. Created to yield important discoveries about the basic mechanisms that influence human behavior, FHB will immediately expand with this gift through the establishment of three endowed professorships and a $5 million research venture fund, open to all Harvard faculty, doctoral students and postdoctoral fellows.
Floating nuclear plants could ride out tsunamis, say MIT researchers
When an earthquake and tsunami struck the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant in 2011, neither the quake nor the inundation caused the ensuing contamination. Rather, it was the aftereffects — the lack of cooling for the reactor cores, due to a power shutdown. A new design for nuclear plants built on floating platforms, modeled after those used for offshore oil drilling, could help avoid such consequences. The concept recently was presented at the Small Modular Reactors Symposium by Massachusetts Institute of Technology professors, along with others from the University of Wisconsin, and Chicago Bridge and Iron, a major nuclear plant and offshore platform construction company.
