In the News
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December 9, 2021
“When supporting others, we need to offer the comfort of Kirk and the intellect of Spock,” wrote Ethan Kross, professor of psychology, and of management and organizations, who believes that a little bit of “I feel your pain” is good, as long as it transitions into concrete advice.
The Wall Street Journal -
December 9, 2021
“This apocryphal moment, like so many others constituting the epic search for DNA’s structure, has long been exaggerated, altered, shaped and embellished. … If life was fair, which it’s not, it would be called the Watson-Crick-Franklin model,” wrote Howard Markel, professor and director of the Center for the History of Medicine, about the overlooked role of British chemist Rosalind Franklin in the discovery of the DNA double helix by James Watson and Francis Crick.
PBS NewsHour -
December 8, 2021
Elizabeth Birr Moje, professor and dean of the School of Education, says equitable resource distribution means accounting for opportunity gaps rather than treating every student equally. To provide better opportunities for students to learn, “we need a far better, well-prepared, diverse teaching force. And we need to support teachers. Teachers need support resources. Teachers need more training than ever before. Teachers need to be paid more,” she said.
WDET Radio -
December 8, 2021
“While the economy’s pandemic-driven malaise might feel as if it has dragged on forever, in reality we have been experiencing an unusually rapid recovery,” said Justin Wolfers, professor of economics and public policy. “Starting from April 2020, it took only 17 months for the unemployment rate to fall below 5 percent, while in the previous three post-recession recoveries, it took 75 months, 26 months and 59 months.”
The New York Times -
December 8, 2021
Eve Brensike Primus, professor of law, says authorities must show gross negligence and causation if they want to prove the parents of Oxford school shooter Ethan Crumbley guilty of involuntary manslaughter: “The prosecutor is going to need facts to support the argument that these parents really knew there was a risk that their son would take a gun and shoot people dead — not just that their son was troubled in some way.”
The Associated Press -
December 7, 2021
Marc Zimmerman, professor of public health and director of the Michigan Youth Violence Prevention Center, says the COVID-19 pandemic could be partially responsible for an uptick in school violence: “The pandemic has created isolation, has created stress in families and in kids, and it’s all just coming to a head when school reopened. … We’re talking about lots of violence more broadly, not just firearm violence, but lots of incidents of bullying and fighting.”
Michigan Radio -
December 7, 2021
Low-income households in Detroit spend at least a quarter of their disposable incomes on water and sewer bills, putting the city’s poorest residents among the hardest hit by rising water costs in Michigan, according to research by Jennifer Read, director of the U-M Water Center, and colleagues. “If we continue on this trajectory, more people are going to have challenges affording their water and more communities are going to run into problems,” she said.
The Detroit News -
December 7, 2021
“We can transition away from our current energy system, make communities cleaner while improving health outcomes and building jobs,” said Tony Reames, assistant professor of environment and sustainability and senior adviser to the U.S. Department of Energy, whose research suggests that new zoning codes could “reduce future energy needs and related carbon emissions for the tens of millions of homes that will be built in the U.S. in coming decades.”
Grist -
December 6, 2021
“The average person is probably getting about five grams of plastic per week into their body from what you eat, what you drink and what you breathe. … This is equivalent to eating a credit card every week,” said Anne McNeil, professor of chemistry and macromolecular science and engineering.
National Public Radio -
December 6, 2021
“You can’t separate this from the history of blackface, yellowface and redface in this country, even if you have the most sensitive actors in the world playing these characters,” said Apryl Williams, assistant professor of communication and media, and digital studies, on a corporate education company’s use of white actors to play black characters in virtual reality diversity training.
BuzzFeed News
