In the News
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February 12, 2025
Detroit soil and street dust contain high levels of PCNs and PCBs — toxic and persistent contaminants that could pose a threat to human health, says Stuart Batterman, professor of environmental health sciences: “The problem happens to be near waste sites or waste piles that aren’t really controlled. … So removing these waste piles, characterizing the soils, covering them with clean fill is a way to control the problem.”
Michigan Public -
February 12, 2025
“(The Trump) administration appears to be not just setting priorities, but enforcing ideological conformity in a way that if your (research) grant is studying something that’s not aligned with a particular view of the world, it’s just not going to be funded. I think taking that away has the potential to undermine the whole scientific enterprise,” said Elizabeth Popp Berman, professor of organizational studies.
National Public Radio -
February 11, 2025
“It feels like we are under attack. … It’s an ethical imperative to address public health, and by not doing that, whether it’s through not studying gender or specifically erasing transgender people from public health, we have a real problem on our hands,” said Sari Reisner, associate professor of epidemiology, whose research with Kristi Gamarel, associate professor of health behavior and health equity, on federal defunding of HIV prevention among transgender minority youth.
The Washington Post -
February 11, 2025
“The law on the books is not all that different from state to state. But there’s a herding effect. Because there are so many companies incorporated in Delaware, there are a lot of Delaware decisions on issues that might not come up all that often — but it probably has come up at some point in Delaware,” said Adam Pritchard, professor of law, on why the Diamond State has become the center of the business law world.
Slate -
February 11, 2025
“They do not believe that France’s presence offers them anything but actual French interference in their domestic affairs … but this does not mean that countries of the region are cutting diplomatic ties with France,” said Kamissa Camara, professor of practice in international diplomacy, about the withdrawal of the French military from Africa’s Sahel region after 65 years.
Australian Broadcasting Corporation -
February 10, 2025
“Black people have been taught in America, for the most part, that their history begins when someone else does something to them. Black people are actors. They’re subjects, they do things, and those things are important — not just the things that happen to them,” said Jamon Jordan, lecturer in the Residential College.
CBS News Detroit -
February 10, 2025
Higher immunity rates and effective vaccines have kept COVID relatively mild this winter, but the current virus also avoided the kind of mutations that may have allowed for faster transmission or greater sickness, says Aubree Gordon, professor of epidemiology: “You have two or three years of it being really bad. Usually the first year is the worst — as far as incidence rates and severity goes — and then it settles out.”
The New York Times -
February 10, 2025
Thanks to social media, “there’s more power for (slang) words that are part of very small communities to break out” and a shorter lifespan of words and phrases that catch on, says Jessi Grieser, associate professor of linguistics. “That does seem to be related to the cycle of social media and just how quickly a given term can pop up on TikTok, be used, be changed and then just be gone.”
The Wall Street Journal -
February 7, 2025
“Trump announces tariffs, so markets fall. Trump walks back tariffs, markets rise. If this is a way of writing a TV show, it’s a pretty compelling script and I’m watching it pretty closely. But if this is a way of managing the economy, it doesn’t make any sense,” said Justin Wolfers, professor of economics and public policy.
CNN -
February 7, 2025
“Congress has no ability to really intervene and monitor what’s happening because these aren’t really accountable public officials. So this feels like a hostile takeover of the machinery of governments by the richest man in the world,” said Don Moynihan, professor of public policy, about the young, inexperienced engineers in Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency playing critical roles in seizing control of federal infrastructure.
WIRED
