Multimedia Features | The University Record

February 7, 2023

Clothing recycling ‘game changer’?

Brian Iezzi, a postdoctoral researcher, scans and measures the photonic fibers in the fabric he developed at the North Campus Research Center. Iezzi and Max Shtein, professor of materials science and engineering in the College of Engineering, are helping develop woven-in labels made with inexpensive photonic fibers. The fibers would serve as a barcode for clothing and other textiles to assist in sorting them for recycling purposes. (Photo by Marcin Szczepanski, College of Engineering)

Read more about this research and its potential impact

February 6, 2023

Brain health, concussions and sports

Not enough is understood about the long-term relationship between brain health, concussion history and sports. To that end, the Michigan Alumni Brain Health Study will examine whether sport participation and concussions are associated with later-life brain health in former U-M athletes and nonathletes. In this video, Jarrett Irons, former All-Big Ten linebacker and a U-M football co-captain in the mid-1990s, discusses his and his father’s experience with football as it relates to brain health, and U-M’s research into the effects of concussion.

Read more about the Michigan Alumni Brain Health Study

February 3, 2023

Fishing for knowledge

A 319 million-year-old ray-finned fish fossil at U-M provides new information about early evolutionary history. CT scanning helped create a 3D rendering of the skull, revealing the soft tissue brain and associated nerves inside, a rarity found in fossils. In this video, researchers discuss how comparing modern ray-finned fish to the fossil allows them to further study what conditions were like early in the evolutionary history of ray-finned fish.

Read more about the 319 million-year-old fish

February 2, 2023

Helping hands

Some of the personalized hand splints designed by Augusta Simmons, a board-certified hand therapist who works at the Northville Health Center. Simmons has been fitting patients with splints for over 25 years. She got tired of looking at the standard white- or cream-colored splint material, so she created custom-designed splints to help boost the mood and self-esteem of her patients. (Photo courtesy of Augusta Simmons)

Cubing and fiddling

Stanley Chapel, a violin performance major at the School of Music, Theatre & Dance, is a world champion in solving a Rubik’s Cube blindfolded. With a similar confidence — and as with cubing, maintaining incredible speed — Chapel can perform the “Presto” from Bach’s “G minor Violin Sonata” from memory. In this video, Chapel discusses cubing and playing the violin.

Virtual job interviews

Matt Smith, professor of social work and director of the Level Up: Employment Skills Simulation Lab, and his team have developed a virtual job interview tool to assist individuals returning to their communities after completing a prison sentence. This video explores how Smith’s team works with the Michigan Department of Corrections to help incarcerated persons build skills to help them re-enter society.

Read more about Smith’s work to assist incarcerated persons

January 27, 2023

‘I’m supposed to be here’

José Carlos Díaz was just 11 years old the first time his knack for engineering and love of science merged and made the world better for the people around him in Cuba. Today he’s a doctoral student in chemical engineering whose research aims to solve some long-standing problems in his home country — unreliable access to both electricity and fresh water. This video showcases Díaz’s journey, which took him from being a microscope prodigy in rural Cuba to an ion-diffusion researcher at U-M.

Fun in the snow

A shroud of snow covers this bronze puma as it guards the entrance to U-M’s Museum of Natural History on Jan. 25. A near-constant gentle snowfall left a blanket of winter’s bounty around the Ann Arbor campus. The day provided many opportunities to showcase the campus’ beauty under fresh powder, or join a raucous snowball battle on the Diag. (Photo by Daryl Marshke, Michigan Photography)

View galleries of snow photos

January 25, 2023

Augmented reality art exhibition

An augmented reality art exhibition, “Traces,” from Camila Magrane, is on view at U-M’s Institute for the Humanities Gallery through Feb. 10. While viewing “Traces,” the cell phone — or a tablet provided on-site — serves as a vessel to explore the full story of the art on the gallery walls. In this video, Magrane showcases how it works by walking through the exhibition with a tablet.

Harvesting trash for nutritionless ‘food’

When what you harvest is trash, your crops are in season year-round and they yield overwhelming surplus. Robin Frohardt has artfully repurposed plastic trash to create and fill a 6,000-square-foot supermarket. The Plastic Bag Store, on display at the 777 Building, 777 E. Eisenhower Parkway, in Ann Arbor through Feb. 5, highlights the enduring effects of single-use plastics. In this video, Frohardt talks about the exhibit.