In the News
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April 7, 2026
Michigan Republicans are pushing to ban kratom, a supplement they say is linked to addiction and deaths, but sudden policy changes could affect a large number of users, said Sean Esteban McCabe, director of the Center for the Study of Drugs, Alcohol, Smoking and Health: “If we have 100,000 or 150,000-plus people who all of a sudden stop using kratom, we need to think about unintended consequences and get out ahead of it.” Eliza Hutchinson, assistant professor of family medicine, says removing access without expanding treatment options could create additional risks.
MLive -
April 7, 2026
“The manosphere is a catchall term for websites, forums, blogs and influencers promoting a particular kind of hypermasculinity … And those digital spaces are rife with antisemitism,” wrote Miriam Eve Mora, managing director of the Raoul Wallenberg Institute. “The conspiratorial thinking that blossoms in the manosphere blames Jewish men for weakening masculinity. Because in the manosphere, failures of manhood are never your own.”
The Conversation -
April 6, 2026
“One way in which FIFA can rack up the highest possible ticket prices is if they can create a belief that (World Cup) tickets are incredibly scarce and that they are going to be really hard to get hold of. And one way they seem to be trying to do that is just to keep you in the dark so that you don’t know,” said Stefan Szymanski, professor of sport management.
National Public Radio -
April 6, 2026
“Removing firearms, preventing access to firearms, is something that we know from research works to save lives,” said April Zeoli, policy core director at the Institute for Firearm Injury Prevention and director of a new state-funded group tasked with implementing the red flag law that allows police to confiscate the firearms of individuals believed to be a risk to themselves or others.
The Detroit News -
April 6, 2026
“There are elements of purity, humility and appreciation all condensed into this small action of bowing. So there was nothing surprising from a Japanese perspective about seeing this caddie bow,” said Shinobu Kitayama, professor of psychology, about an iconic moment when 2021 Masters Tournament champion Hideki Matsuyama’s caddie appeared on the 18th green after the winning putt and bowed. “It’s very interesting that it conveyed some deep meaning to many individuals who do not share this cultural tradition.”
The New York Times -
April 3, 2026
“Many residents remain unsure about the benefits of these technologies, and concerns about data sharing are particularly pronounced. If the city hopes to expand the use of AI, it will be important to first build trust by clearly explaining how these systems will be used and how residents’ information will be safeguarded,” said Mara Ostfeld, faculty lead of the Detroit Metro Area Communities Study, whose survey with DMACS data manager Yucheng Fan and research fellow Heonuk Ha found that Detroiters view the use of artificial intelligence in local government with caution rather than enthusiasm.
DBusiness -
April 3, 2026
Nora Becker, assistant professor of internal medicine, was forced to drop parts of her research on how medical debts from serious illness can affect a person’s health after the Trump administration cut off her career development grant from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality last fall: “It just disappeared.” The loss of AHRQ funding “has made it very uncertain whether I will be able to build a longtime career in the field.”
Science -
April 3, 2026
Research by Richard Rood, professor emeritus of climate and space sciences and engineering, suggests that northern Michigan could see more ice storms in the future, as a warming world shifts the range for freezing rain further north: “Places where it used to be cold, below freezing all the time, it’s not always below freezing anymore. … You can’t think of what we’re experiencing as, ‘this is how it used to be, and this is where it will be.’ You are right in the middle of the change here.”
Michigan Advance -
April 2, 2026
“The increasing use of the term ‘anchor babies’ was the inflection point” on birthright citizenship, said Josh Pasek, professor of communication and media, and of political science. “It becomes very real to people. They stop thinking about it as a legal issue around the 14th Amendment and start thinking about it as a social issue that matches their views on immigration.”
The New York Times -
April 2, 2026
“Most people have mixed feelings about AI English, whether or not they always recognize it,” wrote Laura Aull, professor of English and linguistics. “Human English contains persistent, if subtle, linguistic patterns of variation and readability. By contrast, AI uses … a rather formal, dense English that is favored in academic tests and papers. It is less varied and less readable. People perceive it as robotic, but they also perceive it as smart.”
Fast Company
