• Watt a Journey!

    WATT a Journey

    It is early morning when a group of University of Michigan students embark on the boats in northwestern Brazil. The sun's intensity is still low, but its rays pierce the immense tree branches and reflect in the flooded forest's waters, one of the largest in the world. The sky already shines blue. "Shhh!" says native guide Tito Jonas Cavalcanti Martins, cutting the vessel engine. All must remain quiet, not moving too much to avoid interfering with the locals' routine.

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  • Two researchers kneel near a piece of scientific equipment—a metallic box roughly the size of a toaster on four short legs—next to a plot of forest used for a long-running soil carbon experiment. Small, green juvenile trees grow on the plot that’s demarcated by tall green posts.

    A leaky sink: Carbon emissions from forest soil will likely grow with rising temperatures

    The soils of northern forests are key reservoirs that help keep the carbon dioxide that trees inhale and use for photosynthesis from making it back into the atmosphere.

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  • Micheal Traugott on opinion polling during election season

    Poll position: Opinion surveys still matter

    Whether it's the polls' margin of error or their fairness and accuracy, the information can become important for some voters in their election choices. And do the polls matter since the presidential winner will be determined by the Electoral College? "Yes," said Michael Traugott, University of Michigan professor emeritus of political science and communication studies, and research professor emeritus at the Center for Political Studies at the Institute for Social Research.

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  • Concept illustration of a glass of alcohol next to some cannabis. Image credit: Nicole Smith, made with Midjourney

    Cannabis, hallucinogen use among adults still at historic highs

    The percentages of adults using cannabis and hallucinogens over the past year stayed at historically high levels in 2023, according to the latest findings from the University of Michigan's Monitoring the Future survey.

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  • Infant formula shortage. Image credit: John Crowley, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

    U-M business expert shares insights from panel formed to examine infant formula crisis

    Researchers nationwide probed the systemic causes of the 2022 infant formula shortage, finding numerous production failures and risks exposed by the shortage, as well as recommending regulations to policymakers. Ross Professor Ravi Anupindi, vice chair of the study overseen by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, discusses the researchers' work.

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  • Paralympic Flag. Image credit: Scazon, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

    Going for Gold: U-M experts can discuss the 2024 Paralympic Games

    The 2024 Paralympic Games will begin Aug. 28 and run through Sep. 8. University of Michigan experts are available to discuss key topics related to the games, including personal and evolution of adaptive sports at the global, national and collegiate levels.

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  • A nebula made up of cloudy gas and dust in the form of soft and wispy clouds and, in the center, thin and highly detailed layers pressed close together. Large, bright stars surrounded by six long points of light are dotted over the image, as well as some small, point-like stars embedded in the clouds. The clouds are lit up in blue close to the stars; orange colors show clouds that glow in infrared light.

    In six new rogue worlds, Webb Telescope finds more star birth clues

    An international collaboration that included the University of Michigan has spotted six likely rogue worlds—objects with planetlike masses but untethered from any star’s gravity—using the James Webb Space Telescope, or JWST. The discovery includes the lightest rogue planet candidate ever identified with a dusty disk around it. The elusive objects offer new evidence that the Read more

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  • Concept illustration of a handgun. Image credit: Nicole Smith, made with Midjourney

    Gaps in firearms relinquishment laws may weaken court orders, increase illegal gun possession

    State and federal laws across the United States prohibiting firearm possession in cases of domestic violence often lack enforcement mechanisms, which may lead to continued possession of firearms despite court orders, according to a University of Michigan study.

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  • A group of nine researchers wearing white or blue clean room garments with facemasks, hairnets and hard hats stand in a white room near a large cylindrical instrument used in the search for dark matter.

    LZ experiment sets new record in search for dark matter

    One of the greatest puzzles in the universe is figuring out the nature of dark matter, the invisible substance that makes up most of the mass in our universe. New results from the world's most sensitive dark matter detector, LUX-ZEPLIN, have narrowed down possibilities for one of the leading dark matter candidates: weakly interacting massive particles, or WIMPs.

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  • James Duderstadt was inaugurated as University of Michigan president in 1988. Image courtesy of the James J. Duderstadt Collection, U-M’s Bentley Historical Library

    Former U-M President James Duderstadt dies at 81

    University of Michigan President Emeritus James J. Duderstadt, who devoted his academic career to an institution he shaped with his zeal for technology, innovation and equality, died Aug. 21 at age 81.

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  • Concept illustration of a factory with smokestacks emitting pollution into the sky, against a background of trees and cityscape. Image credit: Nicole Smith, made with Midjourney

    Support for carbon capture positive overall, but varies by group and aspect of technology

    A range of technical and policy approaches are being considered to mitigate global climate change. Whether and how these approaches are prioritized or abandoned often depends directly on public approval. For one such technology—carbon capture and utilization (CCU)—public support depends on which aspect of the technology is being considered and which people are considering it, Read more

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  • A composite satellite image shows North America, with Mexico easily visible against a deep blue sea. The northern U.S. and Canada are hidden, however, under dense white clouds, swirling around an extratropical cyclone center above Minnesota.

    U-M research forecasts warmer, rainier winter storms ahead for Great Lakes region

    Anyone who’s spent their winter months around the Great Lakes has probably had the uncanny experience of living through three seasons in a single weekend. According to new research from the University of Michigan, these wild weather swings are poised to become even more common in the future. Behind this forecast is an analysis spanning Read more

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  • Concept illustration of a group of business people in silhouette sitting around an office desk, with digital graphs and stock market charts on the screen behind them, symbolizing financial data analysis for precision trading. Image credit: Nicole Smith, made with Midjourney

    U-M business experts: After years of research, there’s still much to mine—and learn—about insider trading

    FACULTY Q&A Nejat Seyhun and Cindy Schipani are among the most knowledgeable scholars on insider trading, having individually or collectively contributed to more than two dozen studies on the topic and whose research has the ear of Wall Street’s watch dogs. Yet, the professors at the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business are still Read more

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