Board of Regents to meet virtually Sept. 17
The Board of Regents will conduct a virtual meeting at 4 p.m. Sept. 17. Additional information will become available when the May meeting agenda is posted to the board’s website at regents.umich.edu at noon Sept. 14. People who wish to offer public comment during the meeting can sign up at regents.umich.edu/meetings/public-comments/form by 9 a.m. Sept. 16. They will receive instructions from the university on how to call in at the appropriate time to share their comments as part of the meeting. The public will be able to listen to the meeting by going to umich.edu/watch at the meeting’s scheduled time.
UM-Dearborn team pitches in to improve campus health safety
Since the COVID-19 pandemic began, UM-Dearborn’s Manufacturing Systems Engineering Lab has become a small factory to support campus reopening plans. In particular, the team cranks out made-to-order, clear plastic barriers used everywhere from campus labs to health screening stations to offices. “At one point, the company we were ordering from basically told us we wouldn’t be able to get any acrylic until December,” said MSEL Assistant Director Shawn Simone. To overcome that, the Maker Lab staff put their heads together and found an alternative, devised wooden frames that supported the non-acrylic plastic guards, built stands and handled logistics for new orders from various campus units. In all, the team has made more than 230 plastic guards so far, and saving the university money in the process. Read more about this effort.
Telehealth visits skyrocket for older adults; concerns and barriers remain
One in four older Americans had a virtual medical visit in the first three months of the COVID-19 pandemic, most of them by video, a new telehealth poll finds. That’s much higher than the 4 percent of people over 50 who said they had ever had a virtual visit with a doctor in a similar poll taken in 2019. Comfort levels with telehealth, also called telemedicine, have also increased. Back in 2019, most older adults expressed at least one serious concern about trying a telehealth visit. But by mid-2020, the percentage with such concerns had eased, especially among those who had experienced a virtual visit between March and June of this year. Yet not all older adults see virtual care as an adequate substitute for in-person care, even in a pandemic, the National Poll on Healthy Aging findings show. Read more about this poll.
Upgraded QTO System is more secure and easier to use
A more secure and user-friendly version of Procurement Services’ Quote-to-Order System is now available for the university community. The QTO System allows university employees to, among other things, easily and conveniently obtain estimates — and place orders — from multiple strategic suppliers for a variety of products and services, including printing/mailing, web design, and information technology temp staffing. The new system includes several security enhancements and is now more user friendly and intuitive. Added functionality includes fields to add shortcode selections and easy access from any web browser. Questions about the upgraded QTO System should be directed to QTO.support@umich.edu or 734-764-8212, prompt 2. Read more about the upgrade.
Scientists discover warped disk ‘torn apart by stars’
Pioneering new research has revealed the first direct evidence that groups of stars can tear apart their planet-forming disk, leaving it warped and with tilted rings. An international team of experts, led by astronomers at the University of Exeter and including U-M, has identified a stellar system where planet formation might take place in inclined dust and gas rings within a warped circumstellar disk around multiple stars. Our solar system is remarkably flat, with the planets all orbiting in the same plane. However, this is not always the case, especially for planet-forming disks around multiple stars, like the object of the new study: GW Orionis. This system, located just 1,200 light-years away in the constellation of Orion, has three stars and a deformed, broken-apart disk surrounding them. Read more about the research and its findings, which were published Sept. 4 in Science.
— Compiled by James Iseler and Jeff Bleiler, The University Record
