• Arts / Biosciences
    Artist Jim Cogswell reviews some of his ink paintings of microorganisms created for his installation of Unseen Worlds. Image courtesy: Constant Motion Productions.

    New art installation at U-M Museum of Natural History explores unseen world of microorganisms

    With COVID-19, microorganisms have migrated from natural science and medicine onto center stage in politics, history, and civil society.

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  • Planet Blue / Sustainability
    Satellite (Landsat) picture of Chesapeake Bay (center) and Delaware Bay (upper right) - and Atlantic coast of the central-eastern United States. Image credit: Landsat/NASA, via Wikimedia Commons

    Changing weather patterns mix up the size, duration of annual Chesapeake Bay dead zone

    The Chesapeake Bay Program and its partners, including the University of Michigan, released information today on the state of the 2021 Chesapeake Bay “dead zone.” While last year’s dead zone was the second smallest observed since 1985, this year’s assessment paints a more complex picture of the bay’s health. This year’s assessment confirms the earlier Read more

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  • Person crying beside bed. Image credit: Claudia Wolff, Unsplash

    Previous trauma can impact expectant mothers during pregnancy and beyond

    FACULTY Q&A Josie Granner, a doctoral candidate at the University of Michigan School of Nursing, studies the childbearing year for new parents who are survivors of trauma and post-traumatic stress. Granner recently co-authored a study with Julia Seng, professor of nursing, that uses theories of post-traumatic stress disorder to help educate perinatal clinicians on how Read more

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  • Mask-protected population awaits service outside bank branch to receive emergency benefit from the Brazilian government during coronavirus pandemic. Image credit: Jair Ferreira Belafacce, iStock

    Brazilian welfare program gambles with poor people’s lives, financial security, research shows

    FACULTY Q&A Luciana de Souza Leão, an assistant professor of sociology at the University of Michigan, studies the politics of cash transfers and inequality from a comparative perspective. Her research has three main areas: 1) the critical role that policy knowledge plays in shaping how states design, implement and evaluate social policies; 2) the enduring Read more

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  • A solar-transparent aerogel is placed into a device that will apply an atom-thick coating for use in solar-thermal power plants. Image credit: Evan Dougherty/Michigan Engineering

    $3.4M to turn up the heat at solar-thermal plants

    To decarbonize industrial heat—a major contributor to global greenhouse gas emissions—and advance a form of solar power that’s cheaper to store, the Department of Energy is backing a transparent solar sponge with $3.1 million for further development by a University-of-Michigan-led team. A second U-M project, to be funded with $300,000, will produce an open-source materials Read more

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  • Randy Prickett (left) pilots the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute's remotely operated vehicle Doc Ricketts while MBARI Senior Scientist Steven Haddock documents the mammoth tusk before beginning the retrieval operation. Image credit: Darrin Schultz © 2021 MBARI

    California researchers, with assist from U-M, recover mammoth tusk during deep-sea expedition

    The ocean’s dark depths hold many secrets. For more than three decades, the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute has been exploring the deep waters off the coast of central California. During an expedition aboard the R/V Western Flyer in 2019, MBARI remotely operated vehicle pilot Randy Prickett and scientist Steven Haddock made a peculiar observation. Read more

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  • UM School of Dentistry students run a dental clinic at Kigane Primary School in Nkubu, Kenya, 2020. Image credit: Austin Thomason

    Long-awaited study abroad trips back on track, with a few extra steps

    FACULTY Q&A About 1,500 University of Michigan students, so far, have applied to travel to 33 countries during winter 2022, a number that is fast approaching pre-pandemic levels. During winter semester 2020, before the spread of COVID-19 significantly disrupted education abroad, 2,294 U-M students applied to travel to 50 countries. Patrick Morgan, U-M chief international Read more

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  • A man rubs his temples with a Zoom meeting in the background. Image credit: iStock

    Zoom disrupts the rhythm of conversation

    If you’ve felt exhausted or burned out after a Zoom video conferencing for work or social life, you’re not alone. The frustration and mental drain, in part, can be connected to trying to catch subtle cues during conversations over Zoom, in the face of internet lag time, according to a new University of Michigan study. Read more

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  • Factory chimney smoke trail at sunset.

    Researchers from U-M, MSU, OU team up to develop wearable pollution-measuring technology

    A walk in the park could soon include getting real-time measurements of pollutants in the air and updated walking routes to avoid the most toxic ones, all while wearing a gadget the size of a smart watch. With the support of a $2.78 million grant from the National Institutes of Health, researchers at the University Read more

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  • This is Michigan
    Lizzy Rueppel, left, a U-M public health student, and Bobbie Jean Gill, a resident at Hillside Terrace Senior Living, chat in person after months of virtual meetings.

    Generations connect: U-M students establish strong ties, fight loneliness

    When Bobbie Jean Gill and Lizzy Rueppel finally met in person, they had ice cream together, shared a long conversation and discovered new common passions. It was in an “Ice Cream Sunday” event at the Hillside Terrace Senior Living, and Rueppel, a University of Michigan public health student, spent a couple of hours with her Read more

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