In the News
-
April 23, 2025
“As long as the salaried employee is working hard enough not to get fired, the employee has done everything they owe to their employer and is not obligated to reveal that they are moonlighting for someone else,” said Elizabeth Anderson, professor of philosophy, on whether secretly working simultaneous remote jobs is unethical.
Business Insider -
April 23, 2025
Jennifer Head, assistant professor of epidemiology, said open-access journals that are free to authors removes “barriers … that might otherwise prevent researchers from underfunded contexts from sharing their scientific findings” — something that is particularly important given the global nature of many public health threats.
Science -
April 22, 2025
“Generative AI has been applied in genetics just recently and has made amazing progress because it can analyze massive amounts of data at the same time and start to associate variants in genes with health outcomes,” said Kayte Spector-Bagdady, associate professor of obstetrics and gynecology. “(But) every time you’re putting it into a commercial platform, it is not protected by our health privacy laws. And I don’t think that people really understand that.”
USA Today -
April 22, 2025
“We have a boy-who-cried-wolf situation,” said Ryan MacDonald, research fellow in astronomy, about claims the James Webb Space Telescope picked up signs of molecules produced by living organisms on a faraway planet. “Any claim of life beyond Earth needs to be rigorously checked by other scientists, and unfortunately many previous exciting claims … haven’t withstood these independent checks.”
New Scientist -
April 22, 2025
“The White House is asserting the power, essentially, to regulate or to deregulate by executive order. That is novel,” said Nina Mendelson, professor of law, if the courts allow Donald Trump to direct federal agencies to withdraw various rules and skip the usual steps in the process of changing regulations. “The entire array of federal regulations would be open to rapid repeal.”
The Hill -
April 21, 2025
“Batteries are nasty chemical devices that wear out after about 10 years, create enormous environmental damage in mining the materials to produce (them) … and when they’re dumped into landfills,” said Ian Hiskens, professor emeritus of electrical and computer engineering. Michael Craig, assistant professor of energy systems and industrial and operations engineering, is helping to develop battery technologies that can store more power and last longer, eventually getting “to something that’s even longer like hydrogen, which can do hundreds or thousands of hours cheaper and cheaper.”
Michigan Public -
April 21, 2025
During a period of unusual activity in Earth’s magnetic field, early humans may have protected themselves from harmful solar radiation using ochre, a natural mineral known for its rich yellow, red and brown hues, said Raven Garvey, associate professor of anthropology: “While archaeologists cannot directly observe the behaviors of peoples who lived over 40,000 years ago, we can hypothesize that the increased use of ochre may have been, in part, for its sun-protective properties.”
BBC Science Focus -
April 21, 2025
Market watchers see “many echoes of Brexit in the rhetoric and policymaking coming out of the White House these days,” said Paolo Pasquariello, professor of finance. “Brexit has cost the U.K. tens of billions of pounds and much more in missed growth in the last few years alone.”
Detroit Free Press -
April 18, 2025
“Microorganisms that are in your mouth that are completely normal, they metabolize sugar and produce acids that damage your tooth … But many times the calcium and the phosphate and saliva (are) just not enough with the diets we have. So fluoride makes this process of minerals coming back into the tooth … much more effective. And without fluoride, the levels of tooth decay that we would have would be significantly higher,” said Margherita Fontana, professor of dentistry.
CNN -
April 18, 2025
“If heteronormative marriage was not such an absolute criterion for childbirth and child raising, more single people and more same-sex couples in Japan would be free to have children without facing social criticism,” said Jennifer Robertson, professor emerita of anthropology and women’s studies, on one of the reasons why Japan’s birth rates are so low.
Deutsche Welle (Germany)
