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<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?><rss version="2.0" xmlns:content="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/content/" xmlns:wfw="http://wellformedweb.org/CommentAPI/" xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/" xmlns:atom="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom" xmlns:sy="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/syndication/" xmlns:slash="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/slash/" > <channel> <title>University of Michigan News</title> <atom:link href="https://news.umich.edu/feed/" rel="self" type="application/rss+xml" /> <link>https://news.umich.edu</link> <description></description> <lastBuildDate>Thu, 02 May 2024 19:19:19 +0000</lastBuildDate> <language>en-US</language> <sy:updatePeriod> hourly </sy:updatePeriod> <sy:updateFrequency> 1 </sy:updateFrequency> <item> <title>Six U-M faculty elected to the National Academy of Sciences</title> <link>https://news.umich.edu/six-u-m-faculty-elected-to-the-national-academy-of-sciences/</link> <dc:creator><![CDATA[]]></dc:creator> <pubDate>Wed, 01 May 2024 19:28:22 +0000</pubDate> <category><![CDATA[Announcements]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Education & Society]]></category> <category><![CDATA[News Releases]]></category> <guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.umich.edu/?p=187967</guid> <description><![CDATA[Six University of Michigan professors are among 120 new members inducted into the National Academy of Sciences for distinguished and continuing achievements in original research.]]></description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Six University of Michigan professors are among 120 new members inducted into the National Academy of Sciences for distinguished and continuing achievements in original research.</p> <p>In addition, 24 international members were recognized.</p> <figure class="wp-block-image alignright size-thumbnail"><a href="https://news.umich.edu/wp-content/uploads/mc-image-cache/2024/05/six-u-m-faculty-elected-to-the-national-academy-of-sciences-kent-berridge.jpeg"><img decoding="async" width="100" height="100" src="https://news.umich.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/six-u-m-faculty-elected-to-the-national-academy-of-sciences-kent-berridge-100x100.jpeg" alt="Kent Berridge" class="wp-image-187996"/></a><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Kent Berridge</figcaption></figure> <p><a href="https://lsa.umich.edu/psych/people/faculty/berridge.html"><strong>Kent Berridge</strong></a>, the James Olds Distinguished University Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience, has a research lab that seeks answers to questions about the brain, particularly regarding “wanting” and “liking.”</p> <div style="height:5px" aria-hidden="true" class="wp-block-spacer"></div> <figure class="wp-block-image alignright size-thumbnail"><a href="https://news.umich.edu/wp-content/uploads/mc-image-cache/2024/05/six-u-m-faculty-elected-to-the-national-academy-of-sciences-lee-image.jpeg"><img decoding="async" width="100" height="100" src="https://news.umich.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/six-u-m-faculty-elected-to-the-national-academy-of-sciences-lee-image-100x100.jpeg" alt="Lee Hartmann" class="wp-image-188003"/></a><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Lee Hartmann</figcaption></figure> <p><a href="https://lsa.umich.edu/astro/people/emeritus-faculty/lhartm.html"><strong>Lee Hartmann</strong></a>, the Leo Goldberg Collegiate Professor of Astronomy, emeritus, studies how vast cold clouds of gas and dust fragment and then collapse, forming stars and their surrounding disks. His research examines how planets form within these disks. Using models that link observation and theory, Hartmann looks at how variations in initial conditions and the physical processes that dominate a star’s evolution contribute to the variety of systems we observe—from binaries to planetary systems like our own.</p> <div style="height:5px" aria-hidden="true" class="wp-block-spacer"></div> <figure class="wp-block-image alignright size-thumbnail"><a href="https://news.umich.edu/wp-content/uploads/mc-image-cache/2024/05/six-u-m-faculty-elected-to-the-national-academy-of-sciences-lagarias-10.jpeg"><img decoding="async" width="100" height="100" src="https://news.umich.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/six-u-m-faculty-elected-to-the-national-academy-of-sciences-lagarias-10-100x100.jpeg" alt="Jeffrey Lagarias" class="wp-image-188017" srcset="https://news.umich.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/six-u-m-faculty-elected-to-the-national-academy-of-sciences-lagarias-10-100x100.jpeg 100w, https://news.umich.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/six-u-m-faculty-elected-to-the-national-academy-of-sciences-lagarias-10-300x300.jpeg 300w" sizes="(max-width: 100px) 100vw, 100px" /></a><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Jeffrey Lagarias</figcaption></figure> <p><a href="https://lsa.umich.edu/math/people/faculty/lagarias.html"><strong>Jeffrey Lagarias</strong></a>, the Harold Mead Stark Distinguished University Professor of Mathematics, has contributed to number theory, applied mathematics, and theoretical computer science. At U-M, he has been active in the number theory group over the last few years, with additional contributions to many other fields.</p> <div style="height:5px" aria-hidden="true" class="wp-block-spacer"></div> <figure class="wp-block-image alignright size-thumbnail"><a href="https://news.umich.edu/wp-content/uploads/mc-image-cache/2024/05/six-u-m-faculty-elected-to-the-national-academy-of-sciences-vonnie-image.jpeg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="100" height="100" src="https://news.umich.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/six-u-m-faculty-elected-to-the-national-academy-of-sciences-vonnie-image-100x100.jpeg" alt="Vonnie McLoyd" class="wp-image-188010"/></a><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Vonnie McLoyd</figcaption></figure> <p><a href="https://lsa.umich.edu/psych/people/faculty/vcmcloyd.html"><strong>Vonnie McLoyd</strong></a>, the Ewart A.C. Thomas Collegiate Professor of Psychology, researches the role of parental behavior and family relations as paths through which economic conditions such as poverty, parental job loss, and parental work characteristics influence youth’s socioemotional adjustment. She also studies processes that protect youth from, or increase youth’s vulnerability to, the effects of experiences in peer and neighborhood contexts known to compromise socioemotional adjustment (e.g., neighborhood violence, peer victimization, racial discrimination).</p> <div style="height:5px" aria-hidden="true" class="wp-block-spacer"></div> <figure class="wp-block-image alignright size-thumbnail"><a href="https://news.umich.edu/wp-content/uploads/mc-image-cache/2023/08/hawaii-fires-u-m-experts-available-to-comment-overpeck-2022.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="100" height="100" src="https://news.umich.edu/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/hawaii-fires-u-m-experts-available-to-comment-overpeck-2022-100x100.jpg" alt="Jonathan T. Overpeck" class="wp-image-176944"/></a><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Jonathan T. Overpeck </figcaption></figure> <p><a href="https://seas.umich.edu/research/faculty/jonathan-t-overpeck-phd"><strong>Jonathan Overpeck</strong></a>, the Samuel A. Graham Dean and William B. Stapp Collegiate Professor, School for Environment and Sustainability. An interdisciplinary climate scientist, Overpeck is an expert on climate change, climate-vegetation interactions, Earth history, environmental science, and sustainability.</p> <div style="height:5px" aria-hidden="true" class="wp-block-spacer"></div> <figure class="wp-block-image alignright size-thumbnail"><a href="https://news.umich.edu/wp-content/uploads/mc-image-cache/2024/05/six-u-m-faculty-elected-to-the-national-academy-of-sciences-henry-image.jpeg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="100" height="100" src="https://news.umich.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/six-u-m-faculty-elected-to-the-national-academy-of-sciences-henry-image-100x100.jpeg" alt="Henry Wellman" class="wp-image-187989"/></a><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Henry Wellman</figcaption></figure> <p><a href="https://lsa.umich.edu/psych/people/emeriti-faculty/hmw.html"><strong>Henry Wellman</strong></a>, the Harold W. Stevenson Collegiate Professor Emeritus of Psychology, has research interests that focus on children’s acquisition of foundational knowledge – early acquired understandings that shape and frame later cognitive developments – studied via naturalistic and laboratory studies with infants and young children.</p> <p>Those elected bring the total number of active members to 2,617 and the total number of international members to 537. International members are non-voting members of the academy, with citizenship outside the United States.</p> <p>NAS is a private, nonprofit institution established under a congressional charter signed by President Abraham Lincoln in 1863.</p> <p>It recognizes achievement in science by election to membership and, with the National Academy of Engineering and the National Academy of Medicine, provides science, engineering, and health policy advice to the federal government and other organizations.</p>]]></content:encoded> </item> <item> <title>More local officials see relevance of electric vehicle planning, cite costs of preparation</title> <link>https://news.umich.edu/more-local-officials-see-relevance-of-electric-vehicle-planning-cite-costs-of-preparation/</link> <dc:creator><![CDATA[]]></dc:creator> <pubDate>Wed, 01 May 2024 13:00:00 +0000</pubDate> <category><![CDATA[Business & Economy]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Environment]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Law & Politics]]></category> <category><![CDATA[News Releases]]></category> <category><![CDATA[electric vehicles]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Michigan]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Michigan government]]></category> <category><![CDATA[transportation policy]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Transportation Technology]]></category> <guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.umich.edu/?p=188036</guid> <description><![CDATA[Local officials across Michigan increasingly view electric vehicle infrastructure planning as relevant for their governments, though many cite too few public charging stations and costs associated with adding them as barriers to expansion.]]></description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><a href="https://news.umich.edu/wp-content/uploads/mc-image-cache/2024/05/more-local-officials-see-relevance-of-electric-vehicle-planning-cite-costs-of-preparation.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1024" height="640" src="https://news.umich.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/more-local-officials-see-relevance-of-electric-vehicle-planning-cite-costs-of-preparation-1024x640.jpg" alt="Charging an electric vehicle. Image credit; Chuttersnap, Unsplash" class="wp-image-188039" srcset="https://news.umich.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/more-local-officials-see-relevance-of-electric-vehicle-planning-cite-costs-of-preparation-1024x640.jpg 1024w, https://news.umich.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/more-local-officials-see-relevance-of-electric-vehicle-planning-cite-costs-of-preparation-300x188.jpg 300w, https://news.umich.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/more-local-officials-see-relevance-of-electric-vehicle-planning-cite-costs-of-preparation-768x480.jpg 768w, https://news.umich.edu/wp-content/uploads/mc-image-cache/2024/05/more-local-officials-see-relevance-of-electric-vehicle-planning-cite-costs-of-preparation.jpg 1500w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></a></figure> <aside class="wp-block-michigan-news-callout alignright "> <p>Survey: <a href="https://closup.umich.edu/michigan-public-policy-survey/122/michigan-local-government-leaders-report-increases-local-planning-electric-vehicles">Michigan local government leaders report increases in local planning for electric vehicles (EVs)</a></p> </aside> <p>Local officials across Michigan increasingly view electric vehicle infrastructure planning as relevant for their governments, though many cite too few public charging stations and costs associated with adding them as barriers to expansion.</p> <p>The findings come in the latest Michigan Public Policy Survey conducted by the University of Michigan’s Center for Local, State, and Urban Policy. It presents the views of local government leaders statewide on a range of EV policies and practices as the automotive industry tilts toward electrification and EV use increases.</p> <p>According to the survey conducted last fall, just under 40% of local leaders say EV infrastructure planning is somewhat or very relevant, up from 23% who responded similarly in 2019. Just over a quarter say planning for EVs isn’t relevant in their jurisdictions—a big drop from 40% in 2019.</p> <p>Over a third of respondents (34%) say their community has too few public charging stations, compared with 29% in 2019. Still, among places that have considered energy policy issues, only 15% believe there are no significant challenges to adding new charging stations in their jurisdictions, while a majority point to costs associated with adding new stations (53%) and a lack of interest among residents (51%) as barriers to local expansion.</p> <p>The increasing interest over the past few years reflects industry and consumer shifts. Although only about 33,000 EVs were registered in Michigan as of 2022, that represents an 89% increase year-over-year, and electric and hybrid vehicles are expected to constitute just over half of all sales by 2030, according to the report.</p> <p>The researchers also note that millions of dollars in state and federal funds have been devoted to bolstering the state’s EV infrastructure, and private companies have made significant investments regarding EVs in Michigan.</p> <p>Still, there is rising uncertainty around consumer demand, and many respondents said the costs that would fall to their jurisdictions for installing charging stations and related infrastructure were still too high. In particular, leaders in rural areas were more likely to express concerns about cost and lack of demand.</p> <p>The urban-rural divide is reflected in the findings: Village and township leaders were less likely to say planning for EVs is very relevant for their local governments (14% and 10%, respectively) than their counterparts leading cities and counties (32% and 30%).</p> <p>“The transition toward electric vehicles is well underway, as we see here in the significant growth in the number of local governments beginning to plan for EV infrastructure needs, such as publicly accessible charging stations,” said Tom Ivacko, executive director of CLOSUP. “Seeing this growth first in urban areas is not surprising, but it will be helpful to track how this spreads across the state in the coming years as more EVs hit the roads.”</p> <p>Debra Horner, senior program manager for the survey, said there is a need to balance capital commitments with community concerns.</p> <p>“Many larger cities and counties are incorporating EVs into their local policies in a number of other ways, such as purchasing EVs for their jurisdiction’s vehicle fleet or adding EV policies to their master plan,” Horner said. “But even with recent huge commitments of state and federal funding to promote EV infrastructure, a majority of local officials in Michigan communities of all sizes still see the costs of development as a barrier.”</p> <p>CLOSUP, which is part of U-M’s Ford School of Public Policy, surveyed county, city, township and village officials from 1,315 jurisdictions across the state. The study was funded by the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy, to help the state better understand local government perspectives around EVs and related infrastructure.</p>]]></content:encoded> </item> <item> <title>New U-M data dashboard sheds new light on US criminal justice system</title> <link>https://news.umich.edu/new-u-m-data-dashboard-sheds-new-light-on-us-criminal-justice-system/</link> <dc:creator><![CDATA[Jon Meerdink, U-M Institute for Social Research]]></dc:creator> <pubDate>Wed, 01 May 2024 13:00:00 +0000</pubDate> <category><![CDATA[Education & Society]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Law & Politics]]></category> <category><![CDATA[News Releases]]></category> <category><![CDATA[incarceration]]></category> <guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.umich.edu/?p=187987</guid> <description><![CDATA[A new data dashboard developed at the University of Michigan's Institute for Social Research will give an unprecedented look into the effects and outcomes of the U.S. criminal justice system.]]></description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><a href="https://news.umich.edu/wp-content/uploads/mc-image-cache/2024/05/new-u-m-data-dashboard-sheds-new-light-on-us-criminal-justice-system.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1024" height="574" src="https://news.umich.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/new-u-m-data-dashboard-sheds-new-light-on-us-criminal-justice-system-1024x574.jpg" alt="Concept illustration of the U.S. criminal justice system. Image credit: Nicole Smith, made with Midjourney" class="wp-image-188028" srcset="https://news.umich.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/new-u-m-data-dashboard-sheds-new-light-on-us-criminal-justice-system-1024x574.jpg 1024w, https://news.umich.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/new-u-m-data-dashboard-sheds-new-light-on-us-criminal-justice-system-300x168.jpg 300w, https://news.umich.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/new-u-m-data-dashboard-sheds-new-light-on-us-criminal-justice-system-768x430.jpg 768w, https://news.umich.edu/wp-content/uploads/mc-image-cache/2024/05/new-u-m-data-dashboard-sheds-new-light-on-us-criminal-justice-system.jpg 1456w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></a></figure> <p>A new data dashboard developed at the University of Michigan’s Institute for Social Research will give an unprecedented look into the effects and outcomes of the U.S. criminal justice system.</p> <p>The <a href="http://joe.cjars.org">Justice Outcomes Explorer</a>, or JOE, makes millions of statistics available in an accessible, easy-to-navigate format that should bring about a greater understanding of how the U.S. criminal justice system shapes the lives of millions of people throughout the country.</p> <p>Developed by ISR’s Criminal Justice Administrative Records System, or CJARS, the dashboard leverages billions of lines of raw data from the justice system and blends it with data sourced from the U.S. Census Bureau to produce an unprecedented look at crime statistics and outcomes.</p> <p>“Our goal was to create a product that meets the needs of a number of different stakeholder audiences,” said CJARS Director Mike Mueller-Smith, U-M assistant professor of economics. “Whether you are an advocate, a policymaker, a researcher, working in the criminal legal system or a directly impacted individual, I think there is something that you can gain and learn from JOE.</p> <p>The project was born out of a desire to solve a specific problem with data from the American criminal justice system: It’s notoriously hard to access. The sheer volume of data is difficult to manage and privacy restrictions make it a challenge to create a unified picture of what’s happening within the system. But since its inception eight years ago, CJARS has been well-positioned to address this challenge, and after three years of development, JOE is ready to shed new light on the effects of the justice system.</p> <p>As constructed, the data dashboard will allow users to see aggregate statistics representing interactions between individuals and the justice system, tracking key issues like recidivism and its wide effects, a noteworthy use case for researchers.</p> <p>The dashboard strives to present a harmonious representation of numerous different data sources, ranging from local jurisdictions to the federal level. The intersection of data is a key feature, according to Keith Finlay, co-founder of CJARS and a research economist at the U.S. Census Bureau.</p> <p>“The Justice Outcomes Explorer highlights how an ecosystem of administrative records increases the value of any individual dataset,” he said. “By harmonizing data from across the country, the CJARS team has unlocked previously hard-to-access information and made it possible to compare outcomes across agencies. By leveraging the Census Bureau’s Data Linkage Infrastructure, JOE adds further value to CJARS data—enabling an unprecedented look at how the justice system fits into the lives of many Americans.”</p> <p>The dashboard’s three-year development process included key stakeholders at both CJARS and the U.S. Census Bureau. As the work grew, CJARS partnered with independent web-development firm Hyperobjekt to create and refine the user interface that’s now available for online use. Work on the dashboard was funded by The Annie E. Casey Foundation, Arnold Ventures, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the National Science Foundation and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.</p> <p>It all comes together to make a new data dashboard that ISR Director Kate Cagney calls “groundbreaking.”</p> <p>“The CJARS Justice Outcomes Explorer is a pioneering platform that sheds light on criminal justice outcomes across the United States,” she said. “This groundbreaking initiative will enable greater evidence-based research and policymaking, giving stakeholders unprecedented access to socioeconomic and recidivism data.”</p>]]></content:encoded> </item> <item> <title>Study: Racial bias is no ‘false alarm’ in policing</title> <link>https://news.umich.edu/study-racial-bias-is-no-false-alarm-in-policing/</link> <dc:creator><![CDATA[]]></dc:creator> <pubDate>Tue, 30 Apr 2024 17:35:35 +0000</pubDate> <category><![CDATA[Education & Society]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Law & Politics]]></category> <category><![CDATA[News Releases]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Black Americans]]></category> <category><![CDATA[police]]></category> <category><![CDATA[racial disparities]]></category> <guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.umich.edu/?p=187919</guid> <description><![CDATA[Black drivers are more frequently searched during traffic stops without finding contraband than white drivers, according to a University of Michigan study.]]></description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><a href="https://news.umich.edu/wp-content/uploads/mc-image-cache/2024/04/study-racial-bias-is-no-false-alarm-in-policing.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1024" height="574" src="https://news.umich.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/study-racial-bias-is-no-false-alarm-in-policing-1024x574.jpg" alt="Concept illustration of a Black man driving a car. Image credit: Nicole Smith, made with Midjourney" class="wp-image-187921" srcset="https://news.umich.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/study-racial-bias-is-no-false-alarm-in-policing-1024x574.jpg 1024w, https://news.umich.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/study-racial-bias-is-no-false-alarm-in-policing-300x168.jpg 300w, https://news.umich.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/study-racial-bias-is-no-false-alarm-in-policing-768x430.jpg 768w, https://news.umich.edu/wp-content/uploads/mc-image-cache/2024/04/study-racial-bias-is-no-false-alarm-in-policing.jpg 1456w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></a></figure> <aside class="wp-block-michigan-news-callout alignright "> <p>Study: <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10940-024-09585-4?utm_source=rct_congratemailt&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=oa_20240427&utm_content=10.1007/s10940-024-09585-4">Detecting bias in traffic searches: Examining false searches of innocent drivers</a></p> </aside> <p>Black drivers are more frequently searched during traffic stops without finding contraband than white drivers, according to a University of Michigan study.</p> <p>Institute for Social Research scientists <a href="https://lsa.umich.edu/psych/people/graduate-students/margem.html">Maggie Meyer</a> and <a href="https://faculty.isr.umich.edu/gonzo/">Richard Gonzalez</a> analyzed data from 98 million traffic stops, and showed that innocent Black drivers were likely to be searched about 3.4% to 4.5% of the time while innocent white drivers were likely to be searched about 1.9% to 2.7% of the time. Their results are published in the Journal of Quantitative Criminology.</p> <p>“We show that there’s this pervasive bias in multiple states and multiple counties across different stop and search reasons that we need to understand,” said Meyer, a doctoral candidate in psychology. “We’re not the first people to find racial bias in policing and we won’t be the last, but hopefully, this gives a clear place to intervene.”</p> <p>Meyer and Gonzalez, director of the Research Center for Group Dynamics at ISR and professor of psychology, used data from the Stanford Open Policing Project, a database of traffic stops from law enforcement agencies across the country. They examined traffic stops in 14 state police departments and 11 local law enforcement departments between the years 1999 and 2017.</p> <p>Meyer says that, for example, in Durham County, North Carolina, the false alarm rate for Black drivers ranges from 6% to 8% while the false alarm rate for white drivers is 3% to 4%. This equates to 11,000 Black drivers compared to about 2,500 white drivers who are searched while innocent.</p> <p>“We know that there’s at least this 2% difference at most, where the two values are the closest. That’s where we can start to make these claims of bias,” Meyer said. “The really powerful part about these data is that these findings aren’t massive—they’re not 30, 40%, they’re 2, 3, 4, 5%. But at 98 million traffic stops across 14 states, that’s still a very large and meaningful number of innocent drivers who are searched.”</p> <p>Officers’ decisions result in tradeoffs between the probability of contraband in the population, the probability of finding contraband among those the officer selects to search, and the costs of making errors such as failing to search someone with contraband and needlessly searching someone without contraband, Gonzalez says.</p> <p>The researchers had three pieces of information about these traffic stops: the total number of traffic stops during the time period in a given county or state, whether the officer searched their car, and whether they found contraband. They don’t know whether drivers who weren’t searched held contraband.</p> <p>To account for this unknown, the researchers developed what they call the Overlapping Condition Test. They base this test on a standard descriptive tool in statistics called a 2×2 table. This table allows researchers to jointly evaluate a decision and an outcome. To do this, researchers use hit rates and false alarm rates.</p> <p>In this context, hit rate is a measure of officer accuracy that depends on the contraband rate on any driver that was stopped, even if they were not searched. False alarm rates refer to the proportion of drivers officers search but do not find contraband, and it depends on the total number of innocent drivers that were stopped—even if they were not searched.</p> <p>In this 2×2 table, the researchers filled in these known pieces of information: whether the officer searched and whether the officer found contraband when they searched. The researchers explored the possible values of the missing information—whether the drivers who were not searched had contraband or not.</p> <p>“It’s analogous to presidential elections with the electoral college. An election can be called because one candidate already has enough electoral votes to win, even though all of us haven’t been counted,” Gonzalez said. “So even though there may still be missing information, the outcome of the election is set. Even if those uncounted votes went for the other candidate, one candidate has already got it in the bag.”</p> <p>The researchers say their method can be used to inform policy to help mitigate the issue.</p> <p>“We can move forward. We can say, ‘Hey, there’s a problem. We have to think about policy,”’ Gonzalez said. “We have to figure out why officers are searching innocent Blacks more than innocent whites. We don’t need to wait until we know the actual values of the missing information, because it doesn’t matter what they are. The bias is there.”</p>]]></content:encoded> </item> <item> <title>U-M research reveals overlooked factor driving China’s real estate crisis</title> <link>https://news.umich.edu/u-m-research-reveals-overlooked-factor-driving-chinas-real-estate-crisis/</link> <dc:creator><![CDATA[]]></dc:creator> <pubDate>Tue, 30 Apr 2024 15:42:33 +0000</pubDate> <category><![CDATA[Business & Economy]]></category> <category><![CDATA[International]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Law & Politics]]></category> <category><![CDATA[News Releases]]></category> <category><![CDATA[China]]></category> <category><![CDATA[housing]]></category> <category><![CDATA[real estate]]></category> <guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.umich.edu/?p=187901</guid> <description><![CDATA[The default of Evergrande, one of China’s largest developers, set off a chain of defaults among developers, triggering the ongoing property market crisis in China.]]></description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1024" height="683" src="https://news.umich.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/u-m-research-reveals-overlooked-factor-driving-chinas-real-estate-crisis-1024x683.jpg" alt="Residential buildings developed by Evergrande in Yuanyang County, Henan. Image credit: Windmemories - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0" class="wp-image-187904" srcset="https://news.umich.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/u-m-research-reveals-overlooked-factor-driving-chinas-real-estate-crisis-1024x683.jpg 1024w, https://news.umich.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/u-m-research-reveals-overlooked-factor-driving-chinas-real-estate-crisis-300x200.jpg 300w, https://news.umich.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/u-m-research-reveals-overlooked-factor-driving-chinas-real-estate-crisis-768x512.jpg 768w, https://news.umich.edu/wp-content/uploads/mc-image-cache/2024/04/u-m-research-reveals-overlooked-factor-driving-chinas-real-estate-crisis.jpg 1080w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Residential buildings developed by Evergrande in Yuanyang County, Henan. Image credit: Windmemories – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, <a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=101099032">https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=101099032</a></figcaption></figure> <p>The default of Evergrande, one of China’s largest developers, set off a chain of defaults among developers, triggering the ongoing property market crisis in China.</p> <aside class="wp-block-michigan-news-callout alignright "> <p>Study: <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/02673037.2024.2334797">Housing production and the structural transformation of China’s real estate development industry</a></p> </aside> <p>While analysts frequently attribute the crisis to China’s tax system, land finance, state intervention and various other factors, recent University of Michigan research has revealed an often overlooked aspect–the concentrated nature of the real estate industry.</p> <p>The research, led by <a href="https://taubmancollege.umich.edu/faculty/directory/lan-deng/">Lan Deng</a>, professor of urban and regional planning, examined China’s real estate industry from the early 2000s to 2018. It found that the industry became increasingly concentrated, with large firms accounting for a growing share of the country’s housing production, which played a significant role in the market’s downturn.</p> <p>For instance, the top five real estate developers in China accounted for 30% of the country’s total housing production in 2018, compared to a share of 13% in the U.S. Housing production in the U.S. was only about a quarter of what China has produced in the last decade. The China Real Estate Top 10 Research Group further highlights this concentration–among 10,000 registered real estate development firms in the country, the market share of the top 100 firms as measured by sales revenue increased from 28% in 2012 to 58% in 2018.</p> <p>The repercussions of such conglomerates failing are wide-ranging, as demonstrated by Evergrande and Country Garden, the top two property developers in China. Evergrande, once boasting an annual construction of 72 million square meters, filed for bankruptcy protection in August 2023.Country Garden, whose annual housing production was about twice the size of Evergrande before the pandemic, defaulted in October 2023 and faced liquidation petition from its creditor the following year, according to the latest news reports. The collapse of these industry leaders has placed a drag on the entire Chinese property market.</p> <p>The concentration of the real estate sector in China was mostly due to the advantages large developers enjoy, according to the study. Large developers often had access to low-cost capital. In China, all major banks are state-owned and banks’ ability to lend is thus heavily regulated by the state. Concerned about the country’s economic overdependence on the real estate industry, the state mandated only developers assessed as low risk could obtain bank loans–these were typically large developers with direct or indirect ties to the state.</p> <p>Another factor that contributed to the concentration was China’s presale model in the property market. Under the presale model, buyers’ down payment as well as their mortgage loans are transferred to developers during the development process, which are then used as development capital. Because of the risks associated with presales, homebuyers in China would prefer purchasing housing from large firms with established records.</p> <p>China’s open land market system also favored large developers. In China, land is owned by the state and is sold to the highest bidder via an auction process. As a result, only developers with sufficient financial resources can win the bid–usually they are large developers. Since 2006, the Chinese central government has imposed a land quota system that limits the amount of land local governments can supply for urban development.</p> <p>As a result, from 2004 to 2018, the annual increase in land cost averaged about 17%, while the average annual increase in housing price was about 9%. That land cost has risen at a much faster pace than housing price indicates a declining profit margin for real estate development over time, making it difficult for small developers.</p> <figure class="wp-block-image alignright size-thumbnail"><a href="https://news.umich.edu/wp-content/uploads/mc-image-cache/2024/04/Lan-Deng.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="100" height="100" src="https://news.umich.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Lan-Deng-100x100.jpg" alt="Lan Deng" class="wp-image-187911" srcset="https://news.umich.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Lan-Deng-100x100.jpg 100w, https://news.umich.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Lan-Deng-300x300.jpg 300w" sizes="(max-width: 100px) 100vw, 100px" /></a><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Lan Deng</figcaption></figure> <p>“The concentration of the real estate industry not only exacerbates challenges for the national economy, but also brings negative impacts to local economies,” Deng said.</p> <p>The real estate sector contributed around 20% of China’s GDP. Large developers often expanded nationally, looking for new development opportunities outside their home cities, especially in regions with lower land cost, leading to housing oversupply in those places. For instance, China’s top 30 real estate development firms were building across an average of 80 cities in 2017, compared to an average of only five cities in 2003. Evergrande has grown from building in 25 cities in 2009, to building in 228 cities in 2018.</p> <p>As firms expanded across cities, real estate development was less of a local business, as profits earned through local residents’ home purchases were often sent back to those firms headquarters, which are usually located in more prosperous regions, contributing to the rising regional disparities, the study found. Furthermore, when local markets turn in a negative direction, those large national firms could quickly withdraw their investment from the less-developed places, as seen during the covid-19 pandemic. This exposes local economies, often reliant on real estate as a growth engine, to dire consequences with little development activity, according to the study.</p>]]></content:encoded> </item> <item> <title>Michigan Minds podcast: Geoff Chatas says campus becomes ‘living lab’ for environmental stewardship</title> <link>https://news.umich.edu/michigan-minds-podcast-geoff-chatas-says-campus-becomes-living-lab-for-environmental-stewardship/</link> <dc:creator><![CDATA[]]></dc:creator> <pubDate>Mon, 29 Apr 2024 14:02:14 +0000</pubDate> <category><![CDATA[Advisories]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Education & Society]]></category> <category><![CDATA[News Releases]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Michigan Minds]]></category> <guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.umich.edu/?p=187773</guid> <description><![CDATA[U-M's vision to be the defining public university outlines four areas where the university will make dramatic and focused impact: life-changing education; human health and well-being; democracy, civic and global engagement; and climate action, sustainability and environmental justice.]]></description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><strong>LEADERSHIP Q&A</strong></p> <div class="wp-block-michigan-framework-accordion mfw-accordion " id="mfw-accordion-1"> <input id="mfw-accordion-action-1" type="checkbox" > <label for="mfw-accordion-action-1" role="heading" aria-level="6"> <span class="mfw-accordion-title" id="mfw-accordion-action-button-1" role="button" aria-controls="mfw-accordion-content-1" aria-expanded="true">Transcript</span> </label> <div class="mfw-accordion-content-wrap transition" id="mfw-accordion-content-1" role="region" aria-labelledby="mfw-accordion-action-button-1" style=""> <div class="mfw-accordion-content"> <p>Welcome to the Michigan Minds Podcast, where we explore the wealth of knowledge from faculty experts at University of Michigan. I’m Greta Guest, state communications manager, for the Michigan News office. </p> <p>Last January, president Santa J. Ono set the university on a path to imagine what aspirations the University of Michigan could achieve in the next 10 years. UM’s Vision 2034 is the outcome of the yearlong strategic visioning process that engaged more than 25,000 students, faculty, staff, alumni, donors, and local community members. </p> <p>UM’s vision to be the defining public university of our time, boldly exemplified by our innovation and service to the common good, outlines four areas where the university will make dramatic and focused impact; life-changing education, human health and well-being, democracy, civic and global engagement, climate action, sustainability, and environmental justice. </p> <p>Geoff Chatas, the university’s chief financial officer, is here to talk with us about climate action, sustainability, and environmental justice. Welcome to the Michigan Minds podcast, Geoff.</p> <p>Geoff Chatas:</p> <p>Thank you. Nice to be here.</p> <p><strong>When it comes to sustainability, where are we right now and where might we be headed over the next decade?</strong></p> <p>We are currently undertaking our committed plan towards carbon neutrality. It’s a daunting task, but it’s an important one that we have to continue. In May of 2021, the campus and the community agreed to approach our desire to get to carbon neutrality over time, and that’s what we’re implementing right now. That includes reducing our purchased electricity to net-zero by 2025, and establishing goals by 2025 as well, for a wide range of indirect emission sources. What does that mean, indirect? They call it the final phase of our commitment, which is, for example, when we all fly, the planes use carbon-based fuel in general, and that’s a problem. So that’s an example where we’ve actually bought biofuel for Delta to help them offset the carbon we’re using, but that’s a big challenge.</p> <p>So having said that, what are we doing right now? Well, we’ve started a couple of major things. First of all, we’re launching geothermal installations on our campus. I will admit we’re a bit late to that, Greta, but it’s something we are really catching up quickly. So we’re investing in geothermal in the Leinweber building, the new computer science building, in the new dorm down on South 5th, and in the Ginsburg Center just as a start, but a lot more to come.</p> <p>We’ve also started to install or invest in solar power on campus. We’re in the midst of a process right now to identify a provider to install about 25 megawatts on campus across the three campuses, I should say, Ann Arbor, Dearborn, and Flint. We’re also working on a 200 megawatt solar farm that’s going to be built outside of Ann Arbor but to bring direct power to us. So these are important steps as we go forward to make sure that we’re going to meet this goal.</p> <p>The other thing is that every time we do a new building over $10 million, we do a carbon emission analysis and we say, what’s it going to take to get that building to carbon zero and how are we going to implement that part of the investment? So that’s a very new way for Michigan to build and make sure we meet those goals.</p> <p>We’re also decarbonizing, excuse me, decarbonizing our entire fleet, our electric cars. We’ve had our first four electric buses and that’s ongoing. We’re hiring right now our inaugural Vice Provost for Sustainability and Climate Action, which will be very exciting. So we can marry both the work we do here in business and finance with the work that the provost is doing. So marrying what we’re actually building and research and engaging the community.</p> <p>Finally, we are committing through our endowment to be net-zero in the endowment investments by 2050. Just over the last two years, we’ve invested over $420 million in sustainable energy investments.</p> <p><strong>Now that Vision 2034 is out, where might we be headed?</strong></p> <p>That’s a great question. The university will gain even more momentum through Vision 2034 and Campus Plan 2050, because both will incorporate carbon neutrality, sustainability, and environmental justice efforts in a range of important ways.</p> <p>Today, the university offers more than 800 courses on sustainability and hosts more than 650 faculty across multiple disciplines conducting research related to sustainability. We have the potential to discover new technologies and generate just in sustainable solutions in a range of critical areas, which include energy, transportation, supply chain, food and water insecurity.</p> <p>Campus Plan 2050 is designed to make Vision 2034 possible through all of the four impact areas, but especially sustainability. Sustainability will be a major aspect, whether it involves new buildings, an infrastructure, or updating existing buildings and infrastructure. This will allow us to use our campus as a living lab and what we learn here can serve as a model for the rest of the world. This is one of the best ways for our students to learn, Vision 2034 calls on us to prepare our students to become true environmental stewards and they will become the leaders we need to chart our future to 2034 and beyond.</p> <p><strong>So you mentioned the campus plan. How does our physical campus connect with our sustainability goals?</strong></p> <p>One example is new projects we’re looking at right now in the campus plan discussions, which include a potential hotel and conference center and an innovation hub for new types of research. We’re keeping sustainability at the forefront for both. We look at construction projects now and in the future, and this is the standard for us. If you’ve driven by the new pharmacy building, you’ve probably seen there’s a lot of timber going up. That’s an example of an early investment we’re making in how we can reduce the carbon footprint of our new buildings. We’re really planning through the campus plan to turbocharge that effort in the coming years.</p> <p>I already talked about Geo-exchange, but there’s a lot more. Right now for those that don’t know, a high percentage of our direct emissions result from how we heat and cool our buildings, in particular, our research facilities and our residential buildings. Geo-exchange uses the steady temperature of the Earth’s surface to heat and cool buildings in a super-efficient way. It uses ground-source heat pumps to allow us to heat water in the winter and cool it in the summer. It has the potential when you link it with our solar investment, to greatly reduce our direct campus emissions.</p> <p>I mentioned solar before. We’re pursuing these installations on our three campuses. Just to give you a sense, the current installation will generate enough power to generate the electricity needed for East Quad, what they consume 10 times over in a year. So it’s a huge step in the right direction to get us off the grid, where they’re using coal and natural gas and have locally based energy. So we’ll be exploring a lot of other approaches as well.</p> <p>I have to say, as the CFO, a lot of people will ask me, doesn’t that cost a lot? Can we afford to do that? I don’t think that’s the right question. I think the right question is not how much it costs, but how do we get it done in a fiscally responsible way, recognizing the urgency we have today, to make sure we’re meeting our commitments towards carbon reduction and helping our environment. We’ve looked at a lot of creative ways, Greta, to make that happen. We issued our first green bonds, $300 million of bonds that are used exclusively for investing in green projects that will help us meet our carbon neutrality goal. We’ve also launched, the provost and I and Dr. Runge, a new renovation and rehabilitation fund for existing buildings where we’ll help the academic units invest in upgrades in their buildings to help meet this carbon neutrality goal. We have to be able to do both. We have to make this work be financially stable, which we are, and invest into our commitments in sustainability.</p> <p><strong>Are the university’s financial investments part of the sustainability strategy? If so, in what ways?</strong></p> <p>They are and it’s incredibly important, because when you think about our endowment, which as of now is in excess of $18 billion and we are investors in companies and countries across the globe and all over the US, it gives us the chance to make an impact. So it’s not just, did we divest from fossil fuels from coal and gas, which we have and we’re undertaking that. That’s important, but it’s equally, how have we invested in new technologies and solving problems? That’s what we’re working on right now. Our goal is to have our entire portfolio of invested companies be net-zero in the endowment by 2050. I’m pleased to tell you we’re ahead of that goal already, we think we’ll be there by 2030. That’s in part because over the last five years, we’ve invested about $750 million in climate solutions strategies over the globe, and we’ll continue to do that.</p> <p>So we have a long-standing policy as you know, that our job at the endowment is to generate well-established risk-adjusted returns to fund our mission, to fund scholarships, and fund teaching and research, but we also are looking for opportunities for impact. So when the University of Michigan invests in a new technology for biofuel, for example, or for new technologies in a building, we’re helping make a tangible difference far greater than just the endowment’s investment. I think that’s incredibly important.</p> <p><strong>So one element of carbon emissions that gets a lot of focus is the transportation sector. You’ve talked a little bit about this already, but as we look ahead to 2034, are there changes that we can expect in terms of transportation and our campus emissions?</strong></p> <p>Transportation is a critical issue on campus and how we can do this in an efficient and sustainable way. As you probably know, you commute to work every day like I do, and whether we walk or drive or take the bus, it’s a challenge in Ann Arbor, and it causes great pollution. I also don’t know if you know, but on a given day on our campus, we move about 30,000 people plus on our buses. So we’re looking for solutions to be more efficient, to help reduce emissions, and get people off the road as best we can.</p> <p>So our first step, we’ve had our first four electric buses. I just rode in one last week, they’re amazing, we’ll do more. We have an efficient charging station. Now with the solar power, when you think about the virtuous circle, then you’re going to be able to move people with electricity generated by the sun, powering the batteries that power the buses. But equally, we’re looking at, how do we connect our campuses? We call it the connector, and that’ll be a combination of looking at an automated transit system, which is a transportation system that’s on fixed guide way, not a rail, uses electric propulsion and operates without a driver, moves more efficiently, and has a very predictable schedule.</p> <p>We’re also looking at our buses though and saying, how can we change our bus routes in the way we deploy these buses over time to make it even more efficient to move people across campus? I think this is really important because we’ve heard from across campus that moving people and mobility is a major issue. We want make sure we can do this in a thoughtful, thoughtful way. I look out my window every day and I see huge lines of people waiting for a bus and that’s not good for our students, our staff, and it’s not good for the environment either. So our first goal is to figure out, can we move people more efficiently and can we get people off the road, quite frankly, in cars? We think we can by combining these two types of transit modality.</p> <p>We also want to try to think about how we can adjust parking to make it more efficient towards the ends of the campus while continuing to have parking in the middle of campus so that people can park, take this very efficient transport down and get to their job, and they need to know they can do that in a predictable way. So we’ll look at all this and we’ll continue to do more, but this is definitely area where you see Vision 2034 and the campus plan coming together.</p> <p><strong>The impact area from the vision that we’re asking you about doesn’t reference just climate action and sustainability, it also references environmental justice. Why is that important to our approach?</strong></p> <p>Honestly, it’s important to our approach because it’s important to thinking about who we are as an institution, as the people at that institution. We often are rushing. I keep talking about the urgency. I hear that all the time, we’ve got to get going, we’ve got to do more. That’s true, but we have to do it in a way that thinks thoughtfully about how it impacts people.</p> <p>There is an example of in Flint, as you know, where they had their water crisis, where that didn’t impact people equally and the investments that were made were harder on those that were at the lower end of the income scale. That is a constant issue when you think about sustainability. I used to work pretty heavily in projects in Southern Louisiana and the same impact there. I recall people not focusing on, what will this do to the community if we put a liquid natural gas plant right here? Really with climate change and in changing weather patterns, you really need to think about that, and that’s what we’re working on here. We say environmental justice, that’s exactly what we refer to.</p> <p>Michigan has a rich history of being very concerned about things like environmental justice and making sure the things we do help everybody and not just a certain part of the community or the nation. So that’s what we’re going to focus on, we’re going to work on that together. I have to say, it looks at things like, well, how do we buy materials? How do we participate in this energy transition? What policies will we put in place and what practices? How do we make sure that we’re thinking very carefully about its impact?</p> <p><strong>How would that approach apply to the University of Michigan’s Center for Innovation in Detroit?</strong></p> <p>Every building we build, we’re going to start looking at building codes. How do we think about what we use in a building, timber, new materials? Then as we’re entering into our existing communities and new communities like Detroit, how do we ensure that we have a building which is meeting our environmental goals, meeting our carbon neutral goals, but also becoming part of the community in which it’s being built to make sure that it serves as kind of a beacon, if you will, for solving problems and looking at new solutions. I think that’s really the thing that we need to focus on, which is, it’s not just the materials we use, but it’s also the impact of how we engage in our communities.</p> <p><strong>What type of investment approach will Vision 2034 require? Will it involve a complete shifting of resources?</strong></p> <p>As President Ono said in Vision 2034 report that he issued, the University of Michigan has sought solutions to our biggest challenges from its very beginning, Vision 2034 continues that tradition. We seek to be bold, we seek to find a call to action to find new ways to reassert the critical role of higher education in society. Yes, this will require changes in how we invest our resources. Obviously I focus on that every day in my job and that’s what we think about. How do we make sure we’re financially solid and how do we make sure we allocate those resources to these pressing problems? So I think it’s going to take new ways of thinking, I think we’re going to have to look at all of this.</p> <p>Right now as an example, our AVP for Sustainability, Shana Weber, who joined us about a year ago, is doing a complete inventory of all our buildings, all our emissions, and looking at what is that investment going to require to meet that carbon neutrality goal? Then we’ll have to work on that together because it’s not just changing for its sake, it’s the existential crisis that we’re facing. We are going to have to make use of the financial advantages we have to deploy those investments in these solutions.</p> <p>So we’re always open to looking at new ways to find solutions to work together and I think this is the way we’ve always operated. I’m reminded that Earth Day, which everybody celebrates, but something that grew out of an event here at our university, the first teach-in on the environment in 1970. I think we’ll approach resources the same way. We’ll look at what we are able to do today, what we’re going to have to think about in the future, and work together to make sure we can make these investments in a thoughtful way and one that allows us to reach these, what I would say audacious, but incredibly important sustainability goals.</p> <p><strong>Vision 2034 then is more of a shifting of resources and not necessarily something that will require a new budget.</strong></p> <p>I don’t think it’ll require a new budget, per se. I don’t know if it’s just shifting resources. I think it’s saying, what can we do today to look at the way we allocate some of those resources and what can we do to bring in new resources, whether it’s with partners or working with our donors or working with others to say, is there a creative way to approach this problem?</p> <p>The Green Bond was one of those examples. I mentioned it earlier. So this is money that we’re able to borrow at fairly attractive cost, which is specifically used for investment in our facilities and our processes to reduce our emissions. I think you’ll see more things like that as we go forward, that’ll allow us to work together with others to make this possible.</p> <p><strong>Is there a particular total cost involved with Vision 2034? Do you have an estimate of how much doing all of these things will cost?</strong></p> <p>That’s a great question, and I’d say that’s the next step. So you’ve had a lot of discussions around these important themes, and each of these themes will require investment in people, in facilities, and in other things to make the outcomes possible. I’d say in the coming months we’ll be talking more about this as we begin the work of the various groups that look at these areas, we’ll begin to catalog the cost for each of these. As I said, this is something I focus on every day, and we’ll be working with the provost and with Dr. Runge and all other leaders, deans and others to say, let’s make a list of these things and then let’s begin to prioritize how and when we’ll invest.</p> <p>Last year we launched the Capital Council the first time at the University of Michigan, where we’ve established a council to look at building projects. As part of that review, we look at not only the cost of the building, but how it will be built, the impact on our mission, whether it’s a student building, faculty building, staff building, you name it. As part of that review now, we include sustainability. So we’re looking at the impact of the building and the way that that building will help us meet our carbon-neutral goal. I think that’s an exciting moment for us to show how we can engage the whole community together to review projects and look at ways to make sure they help us meet our goals.</p> <p><strong>Any final thoughts, Geoff?</strong></p> <p>I hope you can hear how passionate I am about this. I think Michigan is really positioned to make a major difference. I would say that there’s some work to do today and a lot to do tomorrow, but I think this Vision 2034 process, coupled with our campus planning, is really giving us a great blueprint to focus on sustainability and everything we do to make sure that every member of our community is involved in this.</p> <p><strong>Thank you very much.</strong></p> <p>Thank you.</p> <p><strong>Thank you for listening to this episode of Michigan Minds, produced by Michigan News, a division of the office of the Vice President for communications.</strong></p> </div> </div> </div> <p>President Santa J. Ono set the University of Michigan on a path to imagine what aspirations the university could achieve in the next 10 years.</p> <p>Vision 2034 is the outcome of a yearlong strategic visioning process that engaged more than 25,000 students, faculty, staff, alumni, donors and community members.</p> <iframe loading="lazy" src="https://embed.acast.com/5bbce70b05777cdc119a4a4a/662a7e14437bd70012119bac" frameBorder="0" width="100%" height="80px"></iframe> <p>U-M’s vision to be the defining public university outlines four areas where the university will make dramatic and focused impact: life-changing education; human health and well-being; democracy, civic and global engagement; and climate action, sustainability and environmental justice.</p> <figure class="wp-block-image alignright size-thumbnail"><a href="https://news.umich.edu/wp-content/uploads/mc-image-cache/2024/04/michigan-minds-podcast-geoff-chatas-says-campus-becomes-living-lab-for-environmental-stewardship-MPhoto-OfficeofVP-CFOSeniorStffHds23017-768x984-1.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="100" height="100" src="https://news.umich.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/michigan-minds-podcast-geoff-chatas-says-campus-becomes-living-lab-for-environmental-stewardship-MPhoto-OfficeofVP-CFOSeniorStffHds23017-768x984-1-100x100.jpg" alt="Geoff Chatas" class="wp-image-187775" srcset="https://news.umich.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/michigan-minds-podcast-geoff-chatas-says-campus-becomes-living-lab-for-environmental-stewardship-MPhoto-OfficeofVP-CFOSeniorStffHds23017-768x984-1-100x100.jpg 100w, https://news.umich.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/michigan-minds-podcast-geoff-chatas-says-campus-becomes-living-lab-for-environmental-stewardship-MPhoto-OfficeofVP-CFOSeniorStffHds23017-768x984-1-300x300.jpg 300w" sizes="(max-width: 100px) 100vw, 100px" /></a><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Geoff Chatas</figcaption></figure> <p>In a Michigan Minds podcast, <a href="https://president.umich.edu/leadership-team/executive-officers/geoffrey-chatas/">Geoff Chatas</a>, U-M executive vice president and chief financial officer, discusses climate action, sustainability and environmental justice.</p> <p><strong>Now that Vision 2034 is out, where might we be headed?</strong></p> <p>“The university will gain even more momentum through Vision 2034 and Campus Plan 2050, because both will incorporate carbon neutrality, sustainability and environmental justice efforts in a range of important ways. Today, the university offers more than 800 courses on sustainability and hosts more than 650 faculty across multiple disciplines conducting research related to sustainability. We have the potential to discover new technologies and generate just-in-time sustainable solutions in a range of critical areas, which include energy, transportation, supply chain, food and water insecurity.</p> <p>“Campus Plan 2050 is designed to make Vision 2034 possible through all of the four impact areas, but especially sustainability. Sustainability will be a major aspect, whether it involves new buildings, an infrastructure,or updating existing buildings and infrastructure. This will allow us to use our campus as a living lab and what we learn here can serve as a model for the rest of the world. This is one of the best ways for our students to learn. Vision 2034 calls on us to prepare our students to become true environmental stewards and they will become the leaders we need to chart our future to 2034 and beyond.”</p>]]></content:encoded> </item> <item> <title>U-M experts explore increasing social responsibility, diversity in professional and college sports</title> <link>https://news.umich.edu/u-m-experts-explore-increasing-social-responsibility-diversity-in-professional-and-college-sports/</link> <dc:creator><![CDATA[]]></dc:creator> <pubDate>Mon, 29 Apr 2024 12:51:10 +0000</pubDate> <category><![CDATA[Advisories]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Business & Economy]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Education & Society]]></category> <category><![CDATA[News Releases]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Podcasts]]></category> <category><![CDATA[athletics]]></category> <category><![CDATA[college athletics]]></category> <category><![CDATA[diversity]]></category> <category><![CDATA[sports]]></category> <guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.umich.edu/?p=187734</guid> <description><![CDATA[Sports is big business—as well as big entertainment and big culture—so it stands to reason that what happens on the field and in the front offices of teams and leagues reflects on or resonates with broader society.]]></description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><strong>EXPERTS ADVISORY</strong></p> <p>Sports is big business—as well as big entertainment and big culture—so it stands to reason that what happens on the field and in the front offices of teams and leagues reflects on or resonates with broader society.</p> <p>Two University of Michigan experts—<a href="https://michiganross.umich.edu/faculty-research/faculty/christopher-rider">Chris Rider</a>, the Thomas C. Kinnear Professor of Entrepreneurial Studies at the Ross School of Business, and <a href="https://www.kines.umich.edu/directory/stefan-szymanski">Stefan Szymanski</a>, professor of sport management at the School of Kinesiology—appeared on the latest episode of the podcast Business & Society to discuss the wide world of sports.</p> <iframe loading="lazy" height="200px" width="100%" frameborder="no" scrolling="no" seamless src="https://player.simplecast.com/b9eeec63-4d13-4af9-8f10-11a64383f064?dark=true"></iframe> <p>In addition to topics like the economic impact of the NFL draft or the changing connection between fame and athletics, the major subject of the episode is the increased emphasis on social responsibility and diversity, equity and inclusion across professional and college sports.</p> <p>Rider said one consideration for increasing diversity and equity is implementing inclusive hiring practices and DEI strategies at entry- and mid-level career stages. His <a href="https://michiganross.umich.edu/news/michigan-ross-professor-chris-rider-examines-racial-disparity-nfl-promotion-practices">research</a> shows that this will create more opportunities for coaches of color and women to gain the experience they need in assistant and coordinator positions—opening the door to more diverse team leadership.</p> <p>“Some of the best innovations in terms of DEI policies come from the world of sports,” he said. “Arguably, the world’s most prominent DEI initiative is the Rooney Rule, which is a diverse candidate slate policy that was started in the NFL in 2003. The challenge in saying if the Rooney Rule or any other sort of gap-closing policy is effective is that they aren’t typically implemented in the way that a good social scientist would want to evaluate their effectiveness.</p> <p>“The research that I have done suggests that if we want to be effective, many of the policies or strategies that we see in place would likely be more effective if they were implemented at lower levels—that is, the early career stages.”</p> <p>Szymanski said the NFL is one of many sports organizations struggling to adopt effective DEI strategies. He studies the English soccer industry, particularly the Premier League, and finds similar challenges of inequity in their hiring and promotion practices.</p> <p>“We need to figure out exactly where the bottlenecks are in the process,” he said. “The current research I’m working on is looking at a pool of players or former players and seeing three steps: At what stage do they end up in the management process, how are they promoted within coaching, and when they are fired—and coaches are always fired—at what stage are they fired and why are they fired?</p> <p>“We need to gather more information about this in order to understand better, and also, frankly, to persuade more people that there is a real problem here.”</p> <p><a href="https://michiganross.umich.edu/news/podcasts/business-society">Business & Society</a> is co-produced by JT Godfrey of the Ross School of Business and Jeff Karoub of Michigan News, and hosted by Karoub. The audio engineer is Jonah Brockman.</p>]]></content:encoded> </item> <item> <title>Missing link in species conservation: Pharmacists, chemists could turn tide on plant, animal extinction</title> <link>https://news.umich.edu/missing-link-in-species-conservation-pharmacists-chemists-could-turn-tide-on-plant-animal-extinction/</link> <dc:creator><![CDATA[]]></dc:creator> <pubDate>Fri, 26 Apr 2024 19:55:00 +0000</pubDate> <category><![CDATA[Environment]]></category> <category><![CDATA[News Releases]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Science & Technology]]></category> <category><![CDATA[chemistry]]></category> <category><![CDATA[conservation]]></category> <category><![CDATA[plants]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Wildlife Conservation]]></category> <guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.umich.edu/?p=187728</guid> <description><![CDATA[As the world faces the loss of a staggering number of species of animals and plants to endangerment and extinction, one University of Michigan scientist has an urgent message: Chemists and pharmacists should be key players in species conservation efforts.]]></description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><a href="https://news.umich.edu/wp-content/uploads/mc-image-cache/2024/04/missing-link-in-species-conservation-pharmacists-chemists-could-turn-tide-on-plant-animal-extinction-turtle.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1024" height="769" src="https://news.umich.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/missing-link-in-species-conservation-pharmacists-chemists-could-turn-tide-on-plant-animal-extinction-turtle-1024x769.jpg" alt="Green sea turtle with fibropapillomatosis. Image credit: iStock" class="wp-image-187746" srcset="https://news.umich.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/missing-link-in-species-conservation-pharmacists-chemists-could-turn-tide-on-plant-animal-extinction-turtle-1024x769.jpg 1024w, https://news.umich.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/missing-link-in-species-conservation-pharmacists-chemists-could-turn-tide-on-plant-animal-extinction-turtle-300x225.jpg 300w, https://news.umich.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/missing-link-in-species-conservation-pharmacists-chemists-could-turn-tide-on-plant-animal-extinction-turtle-768x577.jpg 768w, https://news.umich.edu/wp-content/uploads/mc-image-cache/2024/04/missing-link-in-species-conservation-pharmacists-chemists-could-turn-tide-on-plant-animal-extinction-turtle.jpg 1182w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></a><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Green sea turtle with fibropapillomatosis. Image credit: iStock</figcaption></figure> <aside class="wp-block-michigan-news-callout alignright "> <p>Study: <a href="https://pubs.acs.org/doi/full/10.1021/acs.jmedchem.3c02334">Medicinal Chemistry Gone Wild</a> (DOI: 10.1021/acs.jmedchem.3c02334)</p> </aside> <p>As the world faces the loss of a staggering number of species of animals and plants to endangerment and extinction, one University of Michigan scientist has an urgent message: Chemists and pharmacists should be key players in species conservation efforts.</p> <p>“Medicinal chemistry expertise is desperately needed on the frontlines of extinction,” said <a href="https://pharmacy.umich.edu/people/tcernak">Timothy Cernak</a>, assistant professor of medicinal chemistry at the U-M College of Pharmacy. “Animals are dying at staggering rates, but they don’t have to. Modern bioscience has achieved enormous breakthroughs in treating disease in humans, and the same medications, and the science behind them, can be applied in the wild.”</p> <p>Local and global efforts to reduce environmental damage are underway, but they are too slow to save the many ailing populations in the wild, he said.</p> <p>“We are in the middle of a mass extinction. We are chasing mass die-offs around the world. Lowland gorillas, Argentinian penguins, the akikiki bird in Hawaii, loggerhead turtles in Florida. The list goes on, and many precious plants are also hanging by a thread,” he said. “So it’s critical to bring the power of modern pharmaceuticals and the dosing expertise of medicinal chemistry into conservation efforts.”</p> <figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><a href="https://news.umich.edu/wp-content/uploads/mc-image-cache/2024/04/missing-link-in-species-conservation-pharmacists-chemists-could-turn-tide-on-plant-animal-extinction-Akikiki.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1024" height="700" src="https://news.umich.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/missing-link-in-species-conservation-pharmacists-chemists-could-turn-tide-on-plant-animal-extinction-Akikiki-1024x700.jpg" alt="`Akikiki or Kaua`i Creeper (Oreomystis bairdi), a Hawaiian honeycreeper. Image credit: Carter Atkinson, USGS, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons" class="wp-image-187755" srcset="https://news.umich.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/missing-link-in-species-conservation-pharmacists-chemists-could-turn-tide-on-plant-animal-extinction-Akikiki-1024x700.jpg 1024w, https://news.umich.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/missing-link-in-species-conservation-pharmacists-chemists-could-turn-tide-on-plant-animal-extinction-Akikiki-300x205.jpg 300w, https://news.umich.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/missing-link-in-species-conservation-pharmacists-chemists-could-turn-tide-on-plant-animal-extinction-Akikiki-768x525.jpg 768w, https://news.umich.edu/wp-content/uploads/mc-image-cache/2024/04/missing-link-in-species-conservation-pharmacists-chemists-could-turn-tide-on-plant-animal-extinction-Akikiki.jpg 1054w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></a><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">`Akikiki or Kaua`i Creeper (Oreomystis bairdi), a Hawaiian honeycreeper. Image credit: Carter Atkinson, USGS, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons</figcaption></figure> <p>Cernak and a team of young scientists, including a local high school student, make the case for establishing and nurturing the emerging field of conservation medicine in a research article published this week in the Journal of Medicinal Chemistry.</p> <p>“It’s hard-core science. It’s bringing the lens of medicinal chemistry and modern pharmaceuticals into the conversation to save other species,” Cernak said. “Drivers of the current mass extinction include habitat loss, global warming and overharvesting, but one specific root cause—wildlife disease—seems ripe for intervention. Medicinal chemistry is that intervention.”</p> <p>Cernak, in one of many roles and research projects, receives samples of dead and ailing species from around the world. Using the same methods and models used to find compounds that work against human disease, his lab at U-M, which recently brought a veterinarian on board, tests chemical compounds on samples to see which ones respond to disease-causing organisms. A major focus is fungus, the single-largest killer of amphibians.</p> <p>In their paper, the authors propose a new role for chemistry and pharmacy on the frontlines of preventing extinction: “A long-term solution to mass extinction is to fix climate change and habitat loss using new technologies and new policies. As a bandage for the short term, chemistry in service of endangered species is needed.</p> <p>“Medicinal chemists interested in preventing extinction are encouraged to talk to zookeepers, foresters, veterinarians, entomologists, wildlife rehabilitators and conservationists to learn about the challenges and solutions where conservation medicine could make an impact, and to share their wisdom from the frontlines of drug discovery.”</p> <p>Cernak is pushing for a new, impactful field of science.</p> <p>“At the higher level, my mission is to have pharmaceutical companies be involved in this space and young scientists view this as the field they want to go into—a field that doesn’t really exist at this point,” he said. “A more immediate goal is fundraising and more research as the field and the value of the field is established.”</p> <p>From deadly fungus decimating Panamanian golden frogs, cancerous tumors killing loggerhead turtles and the numerous pests and illnesses sickening plants such as the hemlock tree, there is no shortage of challenges for conservation medicine to tackle.</p> <figure class="wp-block-image size-full is-resized"><a href="https://news.umich.edu/wp-content/uploads/mc-image-cache/2024/04/missing-link-in-species-conservation-pharmacists-chemists-could-turn-tide-on-plant-animal-extinction-Panamanian-Golden-Frog.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="800" height="506" src="https://news.umich.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/missing-link-in-species-conservation-pharmacists-chemists-could-turn-tide-on-plant-animal-extinction-Panamanian-Golden-Frog.jpg" alt="Panamanian Golden frog. Image credit: Brian Gratwicke, via Flicker Creative Commons: Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0" class="wp-image-187764" style="width:750px;height:auto" srcset="https://news.umich.edu/wp-content/uploads/mc-image-cache/2024/04/missing-link-in-species-conservation-pharmacists-chemists-could-turn-tide-on-plant-animal-extinction-Panamanian-Golden-Frog.jpg 800w, https://news.umich.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/missing-link-in-species-conservation-pharmacists-chemists-could-turn-tide-on-plant-animal-extinction-Panamanian-Golden-Frog-300x190.jpg 300w, https://news.umich.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/missing-link-in-species-conservation-pharmacists-chemists-could-turn-tide-on-plant-animal-extinction-Panamanian-Golden-Frog-768x486.jpg 768w" sizes="(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px" /></a><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Panamanian Golden frog. Image credit: Brian Gratwicke, via Flicker <a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/">Creative Commons: Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0</a></figcaption></figure> <p>One of those challenges may be preventing a disease from threatening public health.</p> <p>“In January, 96% of sea lion pups in Argentina died from avian flu. If it reaches humans, what are we going to do?” Cernak said. “There may be just five akikiki songbirds left in the wild. They are dying from malaria and pox, diseases that can be treated in humans.”</p> <p>Studying wildlife diseases could also provide critical insights to medicinal chemists focused on human health, he said, and possibly a new paradigm where drug development and dosing prediction models, which are currently trained heavily on pharmacokinetics in rodents, could be diversified.</p> <p>“The problem is that too often, conservationists who are trying desperately to treat and save dwindling populations aren’t equipped with the latest pharmaceutical science and tools,” he said. “Given current knowledge gaps, they may not know which drug will work best or what the right dosage might be for an endangered species.”</p> <p>Bringing chemists and pharmacists into the conservation fold isn’t meant to diminish veterinarians and conservation groups, but to blend their experience and expertise and achieve the same goals of saving lives—and the ecosystem, Cernak said.</p> <p>“Modern medicine could prevent the extinction of endangered species. Wildlife disease is a major driver of the current mass extinction yet therapeutic intervention in nonhuman species remains poorly understood,” he said. “In zoos, botanical gardens and animal rehabilitation centers, many diseases are treatable, but the understanding of medicine for endangered species lags far behind our current understanding of human medicine.”</p> <p>At this moment, Cernak’s lab is not only researching faster, safer pharmaceutical development for humans but also testing the Panamanian golden frogs afflicted with a fungus that threatens their existence.</p> <p>Cernak supports the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s concept of One Health, which recognizes the connection between the health of people, animals and the environment.</p> <p>“We look at plants and animals the same,” he said. “The concept of One Health Pharmacy—plants, humans and animals—is we treat any that are sick or in need.”</p> <p>Cernak’s lab has advanced the use of artificial intelligence and other technology in speeding up the process of drug discovery. He said that only increases the opportunities to help animals and plants sooner than later.</p> <p>“Streamlining drug and agrochemical discovery with automation and artificial intelligence is likely to usher in a future era of accelerated medicinal invention tailored to specific patient populations,” Cernak and team wrote in their paper.</p> <p>“While it may still be decades away, one can imagine a future where it is possible to feed a chatbot prompts like, ‘Invent a single-dose antiviral for elephant endotheliotropic herpesvirus with optimal pharmacokinetic properties for Asian elephants.’ Exciting applications of medicinal chemistry on threatened and endangered species are beginning to offer hope.”</p> <p>Cernak’s co-authors include: Tesko Chaganti, a student at Canton High School, Canton, Michigan; Chun-Yi Tsai, a graduate student in U-M’s Department of Chemistry; Yu-Pu Juang, a postdoctoral researcher in the Cernak Lab; and Mohamed Abdelalim, a visiting research investigator at U-M.</p>]]></content:encoded> </item> <item> <title>Consumer sentiment holds steady amid renewed concerns over high prices</title> <link>https://news.umich.edu/consumer-sentiment-holds-steady-amid-renewed-concerns-over-high-prices/</link> <dc:creator><![CDATA[]]></dc:creator> <pubDate>Fri, 26 Apr 2024 14:23:04 +0000</pubDate> <category><![CDATA[Business & Economy]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Education & Society]]></category> <category><![CDATA[News Releases]]></category> <category><![CDATA[consumer behavior]]></category> <guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.umich.edu/?p=187730</guid> <description><![CDATA[Sentiment has remained essentially unchanged since January 2024, continuing the plateau that followed the large gains seen at the end of 2023, according to the University of Michigan Surveys of Consumers.]]></description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Sentiment has remained essentially unchanged since January 2024, continuing the plateau that followed the large gains seen at the end of 2023, according to the University of Michigan Surveys of Consumers.</p> <p>The long-run business outlook lifted slightly to reach its highest reading since June 2021, while views of personal finances softened amid renewed discontent with high prices, said U-M economist <a href="https://isr.umich.edu/about/faculty-profiles/joanne-hsu/">Joanne Hsu</a>, director of the Surveys of Consumers. Overall, consumers perceived few developments, positive or negative, in the state of the economy since the start of the new year.</p> <figure class="wp-block-image alignright size-thumbnail"><a href="https://news.umich.edu/wp-content/uploads/mc-image-cache/2022/07/Joanne-Hsu.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="100" height="100" src="https://news.umich.edu/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/Joanne-Hsu-100x100.jpg" alt="Joanne Hsu" class="wp-image-129169"/></a><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Joanne Hsu</figcaption></figure> <p>“For a third consecutive month, sentiment has been virtually unchanged, as consumers perceived few developments this year that would take the economy off its current path,” Hsu said. “At the same time, consumers continued to express uncertainty about the future trajectory of the economy pending the outcomes of the upcoming election. Currently, there is no evidence that global geopolitical factors are on the forefront of consumers’ minds.”</p> <h3 class="wp-block-heading">Frustration over high prices rises slightly</h3> <p>Consumers have recognized that inflation has eased substantially over the past two years, and they generally do not expect inflation to come roaring back, Hsu said. However, they showed concerns that the slowdown in inflation may have stalled; signs of their frustration over high prices were visible throughout the survey.</p> <p>About 38% of consumers blamed high prices for eroding their living standards, up from 33% last month. For the third consecutive month, a rising share of consumers spontaneously mentioned food or grocery prices. Sentiment for consumers mentioning food were substantially higher than for those who did not, suggesting that high prices of food continue to weigh on a sizable share of consumers.</p> <h3 class="wp-block-heading">Partisan divides in economic attitudes persist</h3> <p>Partisan differences in views of the economy remain pronounced, with the typical pattern that consumers belonging to the party in the White House hold more favorable views than those whose party does not, with Independents in the middle, Hsu said.<br>While Democrats and Independents saw little change in sentiment this month, sentiment for Republicans fell almost 10%. Republicans’ views of their personal finances, buying conditions for durable goods and year-ahead business conditions all softened.</p> <p>Despite these declines, sentiment for Republicans remains well above 2022 and 2023 levels. Consumers of all three political groups expressed agreement that the future trajectory of the economy is contingent on the outcomes of the election later this year.</p> <h3 class="wp-block-heading">Consumer Sentiment Index</h3> <p>The Consumer Sentiment Index fell to 77.2 in the April 2024 survey, down from 79.4 in March and above last April’s 63.7. The Current Index fell to 79.0, down from 82.5 in March and above last April’s 68.5. The Expectations Index fell to 76.0, down from 77.4 in March and above last April’s 60.6.</p> <p><strong>About the surveys</strong></p> <p>The <a href="http://umich.edu/~umsurvey">Surveys of Consumers</a> is a rotating panel survey at the University of Michigan <a href="http://home.isr.umich.edu/">Institute for Social Research</a>. It is based on a nationally representative sample that gives each household in the coterminous U.S. an equal probability of being selected. Interviews are conducted throughout the month by phone. The minimum monthly change required for significance at the 95% level in the Sentiment Index is 4.8 points; for the Current and Expectations Index, the minimum is 6 points.</p>]]></content:encoded> </item> <item> <title>NPR’s Anastasia Tsioulcas named U-M’s inaugural Knight-Wallace Arts Journalism Fellow</title> <link>https://news.umich.edu/nprs-anastasia-tsioulcas-named-u-ms-inaugural-knight-wallace-arts-journalism-fellow/</link> <dc:creator><![CDATA[Jessica Jenks, U-M Arts Initiative]]></dc:creator> <pubDate>Thu, 25 Apr 2024 18:16:16 +0000</pubDate> <category><![CDATA[Announcements]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Education & Society]]></category> <category><![CDATA[News Releases]]></category> <guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.umich.edu/?p=187726</guid> <description><![CDATA[National Public Radio's Anastasia Tsioulcas has been named the inaugural Knight-Wallace Arts Journalism Fellow in a joint effort between the University of Michigan Arts Initiative and the Wallace House Center for Journalists.]]></description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>National Public Radio’s Anastasia Tsioulcas has been named the inaugural Knight-Wallace Arts Journalism Fellow in a joint effort between the University of Michigan Arts Initiative and the Wallace House Center for Journalists.</p> <p><a href="https://www.npr.org/people/182335974/anastasia-tsioulcas">Tsioulcas</a> is a correspondent on NPR’s Culture Desk and classical music critic at The New York Times—the first journalist to hold such a dual role. Her reporting focuses on music at the intersection of culture, politics, economics and identity.</p> <p>Previously at NPR Music, Tsioulcas curated episodes of the Tiny Desk concert series, hosted live events and created video shorts. She has reported globally from Africa, Asia and Europe. Prior to NPR, she was a reporter and critic for Gramophone and Billboard. A trained classical musician, she has a bachelor’s degree in comparative religion from Barnard College, Columbia University.</p> <p>As a Knight-Wallace Arts Journalism Fellow, Tscioulas will delve into Detroit’s classical music scene, researching the effectiveness and outcomes of efforts to diversify both performers and audiences.</p> <p>Since 2020, nationwide, classical music institutions and presenters have reshaped their offerings to appeal to more diverse audiences. Drawing inspiration from the university’s own programming, Tsioulcas will track initiatives and performances in Detroit and the surrounding region, and examine how well these programs tackle systemic challenges and opportunities for growth.</p> <p>“I’m thrilled and honored to have been selected for this fellowship,” she said. “It’s a unique opportunity to look holistically at the evolution of classical music programming, and to share what I learn with students, NPR’s audiences and the broader public.”</p> <p>The Knight-Wallace Fellowship marks the latest collaborative effort from U-M’s Arts Initiative to expand access to the arts on campus and strengthen the arts ecosystem nationally and across southeast Michigan. As a fellow, Tsioulcas will actively engage in the Arts Initiative, collaborating with artists-in-residents and arts organizations to enhance learning, arts research and the campus experience for students.</p> <p>Drawing from her extensive journalism background, Tsioulcas will lead a series of student workshops for budding arts journalists. Modeled after sessions she led at Stanford University, the workshops will help students develop their skills in arts journalism and explore their creative potential. Additionally, Tsioulcas will mentor students in crafting compelling short-form journalism for social media and other digital platforms.</p> <p>“The broad, enthusiastic response to this new partnership between U-M’s Wallace House and the Arts Initiative has demonstrated the vital importance of supporting arts journalism in this moment,” said Mark Clague, interim executive director of the Arts Initiative. “Welcoming Anastasia as our first fellow opens up a host of opportunities to connect our campus to the community and to inspire our students to engage in arts criticism that addresses urgent cultural issues and social themes.”</p> <p>Tsioulcas will be a member of the 51st Knight-Wallace Fellowship class and participate in biweekly Wallace House seminars, cohort-based workshops and training, and international travel to bring context to the economic and social forces shaping news coverage.</p> <p>“This partnership with the Arts Initiative comes at a critical time when staff positions for arts reporters have all but disappeared in American journalism,” said Lynette Clemetson, director of Wallace House Center for Journalists. “We’re making an intentional statement about the importance of arts coverage in a healthy journalism ecosystem. Reporting that fosters engagement with artistic expression is as vital to society as reporting on any other pillars of our communities or public institutions.”</p> <p>The Knight-Wallace Fellowships offers accomplished journalists access to the rich resources at U-M to pursue ambitious projects. From tackling pressing newsroom challenges to digging into research for a long-term reporting project or developing a journalism venture, fellows undertake a range of projects aimed at advancing the profession and fostering an informed and engaged public. The full class of 2024-25 Knight-Wallace Fellows will be announced in May.</p>]]></content:encoded> </item> <item> <title>Women caregivers are stressed: Transportation infrastructure could help</title> <link>https://news.umich.edu/women-caregivers-are-stressed-transportation-infrastructure-could-help/</link> <dc:creator><![CDATA[Patricia DeLacey, U-M Medical School]]></dc:creator> <pubDate>Thu, 25 Apr 2024 17:18:13 +0000</pubDate> <category><![CDATA[Business & Economy]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Education & Society]]></category> <category><![CDATA[News Releases]]></category> <category><![CDATA[gender inequality]]></category> <category><![CDATA[transportation]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Transportation Technology]]></category> <guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.umich.edu/?p=187715</guid> <description><![CDATA[Caregiving travel—such as taking a child to school or a parent to the doctor—can be associated with stress and decreased happiness among women but not men, according to a University of Michigan study.]]></description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[<h3 class="wp-block-heading">Supporting independent travel for children, older adults and people with disabilities could give working women a break</h3> <figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><a href="https://news.umich.edu/wp-content/uploads/mc-image-cache/2024/04/women-caregivers-are-stressed-transportation-infrastructure-could-help.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1024" height="684" src="https://news.umich.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/women-caregivers-are-stressed-transportation-infrastructure-could-help-1024x684.jpg" alt="Mother drives a car, a child in a safety seat in the rear seat. Image credit: iStock" class="wp-image-187718" srcset="https://news.umich.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/women-caregivers-are-stressed-transportation-infrastructure-could-help-1024x684.jpg 1024w, https://news.umich.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/women-caregivers-are-stressed-transportation-infrastructure-could-help-300x200.jpg 300w, https://news.umich.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/women-caregivers-are-stressed-transportation-infrastructure-could-help-768x513.jpg 768w, https://news.umich.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/women-caregivers-are-stressed-transportation-infrastructure-could-help-1536x1026.jpg 1536w, https://news.umich.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/women-caregivers-are-stressed-transportation-infrastructure-could-help-2048x1368.jpg 2048w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></a></figure> <aside class="wp-block-michigan-news-callout alignright "> <p>Study: <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S136192092400066X">Well-being implications of mobility of care: Gender differences among U.S. adults</a> (DOI: 10.1016/j.trd.2024.104109)</p> </aside> <p>Caregiving travel—such as taking a child to school or a parent to the doctor—can be associated with stress and decreased happiness among women but not men, according to a University of Michigan study.</p> <p>The imbalance, the researchers say, is a reflection of how society—and transportation services and infrastructure—has historically valued travel for jobs more than travel for “mobility of care.”</p> <p>The study, published in Transportation Research Part D: Transport and Environment, offers recommendations for public transportation planners to help close the gap. It is believed to be the first quantitative analysis of how caregiving travel affects well-being, and it builds on recent research showing that women tend to do this type of domestic labor more often than men.</p> <p>The researchers analyzed data from the U.S. Department of Labor’s <a href="https://www.atusdata.org/atus/us2021.shtml">2021 American Time Use Survey</a> to explore the relationships between self-reported daily activities and levels of happiness, stress and sense of meaning.</p> <p>They found that regardless of women’s employment status or that of a male partner, women were roughly 60% more likely than men to engage in caregiving travel on a typical weekday. The probability for women was 23%, compared with 14% for men. And during those trips, only women reported increases in stress and decreases in their happiness and sense of meaning, compared with levels of those feelings during leisure activities.</p> <p>Time pressure could be the culprit, the researchers say, given that women were often juggling family and job responsibilities. Specifically, the findings showed that, in the sample, full-time employed men who performed caregiving travel spent more time on work than equivalently employed women. They were able to do this by spending less time on caregiving itself, as well as on household shopping and maintenance.</p> <p>“Men who work full time have a lower probability of providing caregiving travel on weekdays compared to men who are not employed. Further, men whose female partners work tend to have a higher probability of performing caregiving travel compared with unpartnered men. For women, neither of these trends apply,” said <a href="https://cee.engin.umich.edu/people/shaw-atiyya/">Atiyya Shaw</a>, U-M assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering and senior author of the study.</p> <p>The study notes that the analysis does not distinguish between same- and different-sex partners and cannot assess the relationship between caregiving travel and well-being across the full spectrum of gender identities and family types.</p> <p>The researchers underscore the role transportation planning has played in causing this disparity, and also how improvements to it can reduce it.</p> <p>“Transportation engineers are increasingly recognizing how culture, social norms and values influenced the design of our transportation systems, and in turn, people’s lives,” said Amy Fong, U-M doctoral student of civil and environmental engineering and first author of the study.</p> <p>U.S. transportation systems were primarily designed for daily commutes, reflecting the greater societal value placed on income-generating activities over unpaid domestic labor.</p> <p>“These findings are a great example of how much work there is left to do when it comes to understanding the impacts of our existing transportation infrastructure systems on all of our lives,” Shaw said.</p> <p>Shaw and Fong’s recommendations include:</p> <ul><li>Local government entities should ensure that alternative walking, biking and transit options for care recipients who typically rely on being escorted are safe and accessible.</li> <li>The federal government can coordinate funding across agencies to improve transportation services for people with disabilities, older adults and low-income individuals.</li> <li>State departments of transportation can prioritize projects facilitating independent travel for older adults and people with disabilities.</li> <li>Local governments and school districts can partner with programs that promote the independent mobility of children, like <a href="https://saferoutesmichigan.org/">Safe Routes to School</a>.</li> <li>Researchers conducting travel surveys should distinguish mobility of care trips from leisure, shopping and social trips in order to understand the specific impact of mobility of care on quality of life.</li></ul> <p>This research was partially supported by the Center for Understanding Future Travel Behavior and Demand, a National University Transportation Center sponsored by the U.S. Department of Transportation under grant 69A3552344815 and 69A3552348320.</p>]]></content:encoded> </item> <item> <title>Alzheimer’s and Arab Americans: More research needed</title> <link>https://news.umich.edu/alzheimers-and-arab-americans-more-research-needed/</link> <dc:creator><![CDATA[]]></dc:creator> <pubDate>Thu, 25 Apr 2024 15:02:56 +0000</pubDate> <category><![CDATA[Education & Society]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Expert Q&A]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Health]]></category> <category><![CDATA[International]]></category> <category><![CDATA[News Releases]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Aging]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Alzheimer's]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Arab Americans]]></category> <category><![CDATA[racial disparities]]></category> <guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.umich.edu/?p=187703</guid> <description><![CDATA[Middle Eastern and Arab American populations may have higher rates of Alzheimer's disease and related cognitive impairments, but researchers don't exactly know because these populations aren't identifiable in national datasets.]]></description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><a href="https://news.umich.edu/wp-content/uploads/mc-image-cache/2024/04/alzheimers-and-arab-americans-more-research-needed.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1024" height="574" src="https://news.umich.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/alzheimers-and-arab-americans-more-research-needed-1024x574.jpg" alt="Concept illustration of Middle Eastern and Arab Americans. Image credit: Nicole Smith, made with Midjourney" class="wp-image-187705" srcset="https://news.umich.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/alzheimers-and-arab-americans-more-research-needed-1024x574.jpg 1024w, https://news.umich.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/alzheimers-and-arab-americans-more-research-needed-300x168.jpg 300w, https://news.umich.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/alzheimers-and-arab-americans-more-research-needed-768x430.jpg 768w, https://news.umich.edu/wp-content/uploads/mc-image-cache/2024/04/alzheimers-and-arab-americans-more-research-needed.jpg 1456w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></a></figure> <p><strong>EXPERT Q&A</strong></p> <aside class="wp-block-michigan-news-callout alignright "> <p>Study: <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30480122/">Arab American cognitive aging: Opportunities for advancing research on Alzheimer’s disease disparities</a></p> </aside> <p>Middle Eastern and Arab American populations may have higher rates of Alzheimer’s disease and related cognitive impairments, but researchers don’t exactly know because these populations aren’t identifiable in national datasets.</p> <p>That’s because historically, Middle Eastern and Arab Americans populations haven’t been included as a distinct ethnic group in the U.S. Census, making it difficult to include them in nationally representative studies. Recently, the U.S. Office of Management and Budget issued <a href="https://www.federalregister.gov/public-inspection/2024-06469/statistical-policy-directive-no-15-standards-for-maintaining-collecting-and-presenting-federal-data">updated standards</a> for maintaining, collecting and presenting race/ethnicity data across federal agencies to include MENA, or Middle Eastern and North African, as a racial/ethnic category.</p> <p>Previously, this population was legally classified as white, according to the University of Michigan’s <a href="https://src.isr.umich.edu/people/kristine-ajrouch/">Kristine Ajrouch</a>, director of the Michigan Center for Contextual Factors in Alzheimer’s Disease and adjunct research professor at the U-M Institute for Social Research.</p> <p>Ajrouch was recently awarded a National Institutes of Health grant to study rates of Alzheimer’s disease and mild cognitive impairment among a regionally representative sample of Middle Eastern and Arab Americans. Her study will focus on the metro Detroit area, home to the largest and most visible concentration of Middle Eastern and Arab Americans in the United States.</p> <p><strong>What motivated you to start this study?</strong></p> <p>I have been studying health and well-being in the Middle Eastern and Arab American community for more than 25 years. I began a program of research around aging among Arab Americans to better understand the strengths and challenges this ethnic group experienced. An issue that rose to the top of people’s concerns was sort of this fear about Alzheimer’s and related dementias. As I began to look into the research that’s been done in the area of Alzheimer’s disease and related dementia, I realized that Middle Eastern and Arab Americans were not represented.</p> <p>We have had some advancement since we began this program of research in 2018. We’ve had research scientists at the Michigan Center for Contextual Factors and Alzheimer’s Disease begin to investigate cognitive health in the Middle Eastern and Arab American population. And what we’ve begun to see is that Arab Americans, especially immigrants, have worse cognitive health compared to their U.S.-born white counterparts or even foreign-born white counterparts.</p> <p>And it’s a really exciting time because the Office of Management and Budget has just recently named MENA, or Middle Eastern and North African, as a racial and ethnic category that federal agencies will have to report on. This is such an exciting development because they had legally been classified as white. You couldn’t find MENA in large datasets because even if they were in large datasets, they weren’t identified distinct from white.</p> <p><strong>Do Arab Americans have higher rates of these diseases?</strong></p> <p>The simple answer is we don’t know. But what we do know is that the research that’s coming out suggests that they have high risk factors for this disease. Risk factors would be, for example, cognitive limitations, higher rates of cardiovascular disease and diabetes. From the limited research that we have, we also find they have higher rates of depressive symptoms. All of these things are risk factors for Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias, but we still don’t really know the prevalence levels of ADRD in this population.</p> <p><strong>What’s important about studying Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias specifically in the Arab American population?</strong></p> <p>We’re going to be able to identify what uniquely puts this population at risk for and what uniquely protects them from Alzheimer’s disease. And there may be a lot of things that are universal: what you find among the general population is also true for this population. But we also might find some unique factors, which again, not only will help this community in terms of allowing us to recognize what kinds of resources we need and lobbying to get those resources, because now we have the data to show it. It can also tell us what kinds of things we should be looking for in other populations that maybe we didn’t think to look for in the past because this particular ethnic group had never been examined before.</p> <p>The National Institutes of Health is pouring millions of dollars into understanding Alzheimer’s disease. It’s important for Middle Eastern and Arab Americans to be included as part of the American mosaic, and to be included in plans, programs and policies that are meant to improve the quality of life and the health of our aging families.</p> <p><strong>What are you hoping to understand by looking at rates of Alzheimer’s disease and mild cognitive impairment among Arab Americans?</strong></p> <p>Looking at rates of Alzheimer’s disease in this population will allow us to discern the extent to which it is prevalent. For example, do Arab Americans have similar cognitive health challenges as other minority groups, or are they more like whites? That’s an important question to answer because that then begins to lead to further inquiries such as: How can we best support this community? What can we learn from this population that can also be relevant for other populations?</p> <p>I’m a real proponent of having diverse samples as a way to advance science. If you only look at one type of population in a research study, you’re oftentimes missing clues and insights and potential advances that can be made by including the diversity of the human population.</p> <p><strong>What challenges are you facing while trying to undertake this study?</strong></p> <p>We obtained the addresses of all households in the Detroit area from the U.S. Postal Service, including Wayne, Oakland and Macomb counties. No names, no phone numbers, just addresses. We are then randomly sending out letters to households to introduce the study and let the community member know that one of our team members is going to be coming by to see if they qualify to participate in this study. Then we send an interviewer out to that house because we have no other way of getting hold of them.</p> <p>I think you can imagine, during these post-COVID days, that any stranger coming to your house is suspect. Once we get over that, we have to find somebody who qualifies for the study, which basically means they have to be 65 or older, they have to be of Middle Eastern or Arab ancestry, and they have to speak either English or Arabic.</p> <p>Let’s say we find a household that qualifies. Our challenge now is getting them to say yes. That can be difficult: They say they are too busy and often just don’t understand why we want to talk to them, or what benefit there is in participating in research. Sometimes there’s suspicion about why we are asking if they are Middle Eastern or Arab. We’re trying to overcome a lot of hurdles that are making it difficult for us to convey how important this research project is.</p> <p>To overcome some of these hurdles, we’ve recruited a team of community influencers. These are individuals who are not part of our interviewing team, but they are members of the community who are known and trusted. They also have a very firm belief in the importance of research.</p> <p>We’ve asked them to follow up with some of the individuals who qualify, but haven’t said yes yet, to tell them about why this study is so important. These include conveying things like making sure that we’re included in efforts to fight Alzheimer’s disease and making sure that we find out what uniquely puts us at risk and what uniquely protects us from Alzheimer’s. Participating in the study is totally confidential. Nobody’s name or contact information will be shared with anyone outside of the study team.</p> <p>We also emphasize the benefits of participating in research, including that it is a way that we can help our family, our children and our grandchildren. We try to address the suspicions around research, stating it is not the government coming in and trying to find out if you’re here legally or not, or to take away some kind of social program you may be on. We want to emphasize that this is a study about health that is supported by the National Institutes of Health, and the goal is to be able to find ways to address the needs that this particular population might have when it comes to aging well.</p>]]></content:encoded> </item> <item> <title>TikTok: U-M experts available as the clock ticks on social media sale or ban</title> <link>https://news.umich.edu/tiktok-u-m-experts-available-as-the-clock-ticks-on-social-media-sale-or-ban/</link> <dc:creator><![CDATA[]]></dc:creator> <pubDate>Thu, 25 Apr 2024 14:39:52 +0000</pubDate> <category><![CDATA[Advisories]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Business & Economy]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Education & Society]]></category> <category><![CDATA[News Releases]]></category> <guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.umich.edu/?p=187676</guid> <description><![CDATA[Social media app TikTok's future in the United States is at risk after President Biden signed a bill that would force Chinese owner ByteDance to sell it. If that doesn't happen, the app could be banned. University of Michigan experts are available to discuss this.]]></description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><strong>EXPERT ADVISORY</strong></p> <p>Social media app TikTok’s future in the United States is at risk after President Biden signed a bill that would force Chinese owner ByteDance to sell it. If that doesn’t happen, the app could be banned. University of Michigan experts are available to discuss this.</p> <figure class="wp-block-image alignright size-thumbnail"><a href="https://news.umich.edu/wp-content/uploads/mc-image-cache/2024/04/UMSI_Sarita-Schoenebeck_10272023_54-Sarita-Schoenebeck.png"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="100" height="100" src="https://news.umich.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/UMSI_Sarita-Schoenebeck_10272023_54-Sarita-Schoenebeck-100x100.png" alt="" class="wp-image-187694" srcset="https://news.umich.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/UMSI_Sarita-Schoenebeck_10272023_54-Sarita-Schoenebeck-100x100.png 100w, https://news.umich.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/UMSI_Sarita-Schoenebeck_10272023_54-Sarita-Schoenebeck-300x300.png 300w" sizes="(max-width: 100px) 100vw, 100px" /></a><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Sarita Schoenebeck</figcaption></figure> <p><strong><a href="https://www.si.umich.edu/people/sarita-schoenebeck">Sarita Schoenebeck</a></strong>, associate professor of information, can discuss social computing, human-computer interactions and social media.</p> <p>“The rush to regulate TikTok is misguided,” she said. “Focusing on a single company on what are, so far, ill-defined threats, misses the mark, and it also sets a concerning precedent for what might be next. There should be deep, careful thought about whether there is justification to do this and what the downstream consequences might be, including under what conditions platform bans are consistent with democratic principles. It would be better to focus on developing clear and comprehensive privacy policies that are applied across the board, to TikTok, and to any other company.”</p> <p><strong>Contact:</strong> <a href="mailto:yardi@umich.edu">yardi@umich.edu</a></p> <hr class="wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity is-style-wide"/> <figure class="wp-block-image alignright size-thumbnail"><a href="https://news.umich.edu/wp-content/uploads/mc-image-cache/2024/04/tiktok-u-m-experts-available-as-the-clock-ticks-on-social-media-sale-or-ban-Haimson-new-Oliver-Haimson.jpeg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="100" height="100" src="https://news.umich.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/tiktok-u-m-experts-available-as-the-clock-ticks-on-social-media-sale-or-ban-Haimson-new-Oliver-Haimson-100x100.jpeg" alt="Oliver Haimson" class="wp-image-187679" srcset="https://news.umich.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/tiktok-u-m-experts-available-as-the-clock-ticks-on-social-media-sale-or-ban-Haimson-new-Oliver-Haimson-100x100.jpeg 100w, https://news.umich.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/tiktok-u-m-experts-available-as-the-clock-ticks-on-social-media-sale-or-ban-Haimson-new-Oliver-Haimson-300x300.jpeg 300w" sizes="(max-width: 100px) 100vw, 100px" /></a><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Oliver Haimson </figcaption></figure> <p><strong><a href="https://www.si.umich.edu/people/oliver-haimson">Oliver Haimson</a></strong>, assistant professor of information, can discuss social media content moderation and marginalized populations.</p> <p>“Banning TikTok could have troubling implications for the millions of Americans who rely on the app to build community, engage in social interactions, find and share information, participate in activism, and promote their small businesses,” he said. “While TikTok does have serious privacy concerns, legislation could instead focus more broadly on social media privacy and security improvements rather than banning it outright. It is also important to educate Americans about the risks of sharing sensitive information on TikTok, since privacy on the app is inherently limited due to TikTok’s and parent company ByteDance’s obligations to the Chinese government.”</p> <p><strong>Contact:</strong> <a href="mailto:haimson@umich.edu">haimson@umich.edu</a></p>]]></content:encoded> </item> <item> <title>Four U-M professors selected to American Academy of Arts and Sciences</title> <link>https://news.umich.edu/four-u-m-professors-selected-to-american-academy-of-arts-and-sciences/</link> <dc:creator><![CDATA[]]></dc:creator> <pubDate>Wed, 24 Apr 2024 16:51:38 +0000</pubDate> <category><![CDATA[Announcements]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Education & Society]]></category> <category><![CDATA[News Releases]]></category> <guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.umich.edu/?p=187652</guid> <description><![CDATA[Four University of Michigan faculty members have been selected to join the American Academy of Arts and Sciences for their significant contributions in scholarly and professional fields.]]></description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Four University of Michigan faculty members have been selected to join the American Academy of Arts and Sciences for their significant contributions in scholarly and professional fields.</p> <p>The <a href="https://www.amacad.org/">academy</a> has announced that James Joyce, Webb Keane, Alexandra Killewald and John Vandermeer—all affiliated with U-M’s College of Literature, Science, and the Arts—are among this year’s new members.</p> <p>“I am so honored to congratulate the distinguished members of our faculty on their election into this august institution,” said U-M President Santa J. Ono. “We’re so proud of their contributions to the University of Michigan and their fields of the academy, and we look forward to all they will do at the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.”</p> <div class="wp-block-columns is-layout-flex wp-container-core-columns-layout-1 wp-block-columns-is-layout-flex"><div class="wp-block-column is-layout-flow wp-block-column-is-layout-flow" style="flex-basis:20%"><figure class="wp-block-image alignright size-thumbnail"><a href="https://news.umich.edu/wp-content/uploads/mc-image-cache/2024/04/James-Joyce.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="100" height="100" src="https://news.umich.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/James-Joyce-100x100.jpg" alt="James Joyce" class="wp-image-187654" srcset="https://news.umich.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/James-Joyce-100x100.jpg 100w, https://news.umich.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/James-Joyce-300x300.jpg 300w" sizes="(max-width: 100px) 100vw, 100px" /></a><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">James Joyce</figcaption></figure></div> <div class="wp-block-column is-layout-flow wp-block-column-is-layout-flow" style="flex-basis:66.66%"><p><a href="https://lsa.umich.edu/philosophy/people/faculty/jjoyce.html"><strong>James Joyce</strong></a>, the C. H. Langford Collegiate Professor of Philosophy and professor of statistics, has research interests in rational choice theory, causal reasoning, Bayesian approaches to statistics and inductive inference, the use of “imprecise” probabilities to model belief states, and general philosophy of science.</p></div></div> <div class="wp-block-columns is-layout-flex wp-container-core-columns-layout-2 wp-block-columns-is-layout-flex"><div class="wp-block-column is-layout-flow wp-block-column-is-layout-flow" style="flex-basis:20%"><figure class="wp-block-image alignright size-thumbnail"><a href="https://news.umich.edu/wp-content/uploads/mc-image-cache/2023/10/Webb-Keane.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="100" height="100" src="https://news.umich.edu/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/Webb-Keane-100x100.jpg" alt="Webb Keane" class="wp-image-178596" srcset="https://news.umich.edu/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/Webb-Keane-100x100.jpg 100w, https://news.umich.edu/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/Webb-Keane-300x300.jpg 300w" sizes="(max-width: 100px) 100vw, 100px" /></a><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Webb Keane</figcaption></figure></div> <div class="wp-block-column is-layout-flow wp-block-column-is-layout-flow" style="flex-basis:66.66%"><p><a href="https://lsa.umich.edu/anthro/people/faculty/socio-cultural-faculty/wkeane.html"><strong>Webb Keane</strong></a>, the George Herbert Mead Distinguished University Professor of Anthropology, has written about topics in social and cultural theory and the ethnography and history of Southeast Asia. His forthcoming book is about the ethical dilemmas posed by interactions with nonhumans and near-humans, including animals and artificial intelligence.</p></div></div> <div class="wp-block-columns is-layout-flex wp-container-core-columns-layout-3 wp-block-columns-is-layout-flex"><div class="wp-block-column is-layout-flow wp-block-column-is-layout-flow" style="flex-basis:20%"><figure class="wp-block-image alignright size-thumbnail is-resized"><a href="https://news.umich.edu/wp-content/uploads/mc-image-cache/2024/04/Alexandra-Sasha-Killewald.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="100" height="100" src="https://news.umich.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Alexandra-Sasha-Killewald-100x100.jpg" alt="Alexandra (Sasha) Killewald" class="wp-image-187661" style="width:100px" srcset="https://news.umich.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Alexandra-Sasha-Killewald-100x100.jpg 100w, https://news.umich.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Alexandra-Sasha-Killewald-300x300.jpg 300w" sizes="(max-width: 100px) 100vw, 100px" /></a><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Alexandra (Sasha) Killewald</figcaption></figure></div> <div class="wp-block-column is-layout-flow wp-block-column-is-layout-flow" style="flex-basis:66.66%"><p><a href="https://inequality.umich.edu/affiliate/alexandra-sasha-killewald/"><strong>Alexandra (Sasha) Killewald</strong></a> is the Robert F. Schoeni Research Professor at the Institute for Social Research, professor of sociology and director of the Stone Center for Inequality Dynamics. She uses quantitative methods to study inequality in the contemporary United States, with a focus on the relationships among work, family, and money.</p></div></div> <div class="wp-block-columns is-layout-flex wp-container-core-columns-layout-4 wp-block-columns-is-layout-flex"><div class="wp-block-column is-layout-flow wp-block-column-is-layout-flow" style="flex-basis:20%"><figure class="wp-block-image alignright size-thumbnail"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="150" height="150" src="https://news.umich.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/john_vandermeer_photo-150x150.jpg" alt="John Vandermeer" class="wp-image-49942"/><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">John Vandermeer</figcaption></figure></div> <div class="wp-block-column is-layout-flow wp-block-column-is-layout-flow" style="flex-basis:66.66%"><p><a href="https://lsa.umich.edu/eeb/people/faculty/jvander.html"><strong>John Vandermeer</strong></a>, the Asa Gray Distinguished University Professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology and an Arthur F. Thurnau Professor, studies the role of biodiversity in the functioning of agroecosystems, especially multispecies systems common in tropical areas. His areas of expertise include the spatial ecology of coffee agroecosystems, small-scale sustainable agriculture, biodiversity and food sovereignty.</p></div></div> <p>The academy, founded in 1780, is both an honorary society that recognizes and celebrates the excellence of its members and an independent research center convening leaders from across disciplines, professions and perspectives to address significant challenges.</p>]]></content:encoded> </item> <item> <title>Active shooter drills are meant to keep schools safe, but are they doing harm?</title> <link>https://news.umich.edu/active-shooter-drills-are-meant-to-keep-schools-safe-but-are-they-doing-harm/</link> <dc:creator><![CDATA[]]></dc:creator> <pubDate>Wed, 24 Apr 2024 15:19:09 +0000</pubDate> <category><![CDATA[Education & Society]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Health]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Law & Politics]]></category> <category><![CDATA[News Releases]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Firearm Injury Prevention]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Firearms]]></category> <category><![CDATA[mental health]]></category> <category><![CDATA[youth]]></category> <guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.umich.edu/?p=187575</guid> <description><![CDATA[A new national effort to understand how active shooter drills may affect the health and well-being of K-12 students and school staff begins this week with the first meeting of a committee operating under the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine.]]></description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><a href="https://news.umich.edu/wp-content/uploads/mc-image-cache/2024/04/active-shooter-drills-are-meant-to-keep-schools-safe-but-are-they-doing-harm.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1024" height="574" src="https://news.umich.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/active-shooter-drills-are-meant-to-keep-schools-safe-but-are-they-doing-harm-1024x574.jpg" alt="Concept photo of a group of somber school children. Image credit: Nicole Smith, made with Midjourney" class="wp-image-187636" srcset="https://news.umich.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/active-shooter-drills-are-meant-to-keep-schools-safe-but-are-they-doing-harm-1024x574.jpg 1024w, https://news.umich.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/active-shooter-drills-are-meant-to-keep-schools-safe-but-are-they-doing-harm-300x168.jpg 300w, https://news.umich.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/active-shooter-drills-are-meant-to-keep-schools-safe-but-are-they-doing-harm-768x430.jpg 768w, https://news.umich.edu/wp-content/uploads/mc-image-cache/2024/04/active-shooter-drills-are-meant-to-keep-schools-safe-but-are-they-doing-harm.jpg 1456w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></a></figure> <aside class="wp-block-michigan-news-callout alignright "> <p><a href="https://www.nationalacademies.org/event/42406_04-2024_meeting-1-the-impact-of-active-shooter-drills-on-student-health-and-wellbeing#sectionFACA">Live webcast</a></p> </aside> <p>A new national effort to understand how active shooter drills may affect the health and well-being of K-12 students and school staff begins this week with the first meeting of a <a href="https://www.nationalacademies.org/our-work/the-impact-of-active-shooter-drills-on-student-health-and-wellbeing#sectionWebFriendly">committee</a> operating under the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine.</p> <p><a href="https://sph.umich.edu/faculty-profiles/heinze-justin.html">Justin Heinze</a>, associate professor of health behavior and health education at the University of Michigan School of Public Health, holds a seat on the newly created, 14-member committee made up of experts in firearms, education, campus and public safety, medicine, mental health, law and terrorism—all working on a consensus study to understand how schools and public safety officials across the country conduct drills and which may be most effective and least harmful.</p> <p>Heinze, co-director of U-M’s <a href="http://www.nc2s.org">National Center for School Safety</a>, is eager to provide schools and the public a deeper understanding of the effects of a now-normal part of going to school in America.</p> <p>“A critical eye must be turned toward how these drills are conducted and how they prepare students and staff for potential emergencies without causing undue stress or trauma,” he said. “Over 90% of students in the U.S. will participate in some form of active shooter training this year, making them one of the most common forms of safety measures schools put in place.”</p> <p>With an alarming frequency of active shooter incidents in schools, active shooter and lockdown safety drills have become a necessary but sometimes controversial experience in schools, Heinze said.</p> <p>The committee’s role is to dissect various components of the drills: examine how they impact different age groups and populations, including students with disabilities, Black and Latino children, dual-language learners and children with special needs, determine how to minimize adverse health effects and recommend what expertise is needed from school support systems to implement and evaluate drill best practices.</p> <p>The intent of the committee is to conduct a study looking at the potential long- and short-term effects of active shooter drills and assess their implications for students and school staff and provide recommendations.</p> <p>Heinze has an extensive background in educational psychology and leadership in violence prevention research in school settings and communities.</p> <p>He leads two National Institute of Justice funded interventions on school safety and a Center for Disease Control-funded evaluation of threat identification systems such as <a href="https://sph.umich.edu/news/2024posts/anonymous-tip-line-flags-thousands-of-firearm-threats-in-schools.html">anonymous reporting systems</a> within school communities. He also is lead for the <a href="https://sph.umich.edu/ideas/preventing-firearm-injuries.html">Public Health IDEAS for Preventing Firearm Injuries</a> at the School of Public Health and the <a href="https://firearminjury.umich.edu/">Institute for Firearm Injury Prevention</a> Research Core.</p> <p>“The problem is that we don’t know enough about how well drills prepare school communities for an emergency or their psychological effect on students and staff, particularly on some of our most vulnerable student populations, such as very young children and students learning with disabilities,” Heinze said.</p> <p>“With no national standards and limited guidance, in general, for how drills should be conducted, this committee will consider existing research evidence, input from experts and lived experience of students to provide recommendations for policy and practice to promote safer schools while also limiting potential adverse effects that drills can have.”</p> <p>The initial goals of the National Academies’ effort is to understand:</p> <ul><li>The possible mental, emotional and behavioral health effects, long- or short-term, on students and school staff from involvement in active shooter/lockdown drills and related school security measures such as metal detectors and police presence.</li> <li>The potential effects on students with disabilities, Black and Latino children, dual-language learners and children with special needs as well as those belonging to different age groups.</li> <li>The components, criteria and/or features of active shooter/lockdown drills and best practices and procedures before and after drills that can promote resiliency and minimize adverse mental, emotional and behavioral health effects on children, youth and school staff.</li> <li>What supports, school programs and staff expertise are needed in order to implement, monitor and evaluate the best practices identified.</li></ul> <p>The committee will meet in closed session April 25 and 26 except for 11 a.m.-noon April 25, when the public can join a live webcast. Renee Bradley of the Office of Elementary and Secondary Education, U.S. Department of Education, and Ruth Ryder, deputy assistant secretary for the Office of Policy and Programs, U.S. Department of Education, will address the committee during the open session.</p>]]></content:encoded> </item> <item> <title>Vast DNA tree of life for flowering plants revealed by global science team</title> <link>https://news.umich.edu/vast-dna-tree-of-life-for-flowering-plants-revealed-by-global-science-team/</link> <dc:creator><![CDATA[Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew]]></dc:creator> <pubDate>Wed, 24 Apr 2024 15:00:00 +0000</pubDate> <category><![CDATA[Environment]]></category> <category><![CDATA[International]]></category> <category><![CDATA[News Releases]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Science & Technology]]></category> <category><![CDATA[conservation]]></category> <category><![CDATA[evolutionary biology]]></category> <category><![CDATA[plants]]></category> <guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.umich.edu/?p=187529</guid> <description><![CDATA[The most up-to-date understanding of the flowering plant tree of life is presented in a new study published today in the journal Nature by an international team of 279 scientists, including three University of Michigan biologists.]]></description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[<h3 class="wp-block-heading">Scientists use 1.8 billion letters of genetic code to build groundbreaking tree of life</h3> <figure class="wp-block-image size-full is-resized"><a href="https://news.umich.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/vast-dna-tree-of-life-for-flowering-plants-revealed-by-global-science-team-02.-Angiosperm-Tree-of-Life_RBG_Kew_72_ppi-973x1024.png"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="2000" height="2104" src="https://news.umich.edu/wp-content/uploads/mc-image-cache/2024/04/vast-dna-tree-of-life-for-flowering-plants-revealed-by-global-science-team-02.-Angiosperm-Tree-of-Life_RBG_Kew_72_ppi.png" alt="Angiosperm Tree of Life. Image credit: RBG Kew" class="wp-image-187545" style="width:750px;height:auto" srcset="https://news.umich.edu/wp-content/uploads/mc-image-cache/2024/04/vast-dna-tree-of-life-for-flowering-plants-revealed-by-global-science-team-02.-Angiosperm-Tree-of-Life_RBG_Kew_72_ppi.png 2000w, https://news.umich.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/vast-dna-tree-of-life-for-flowering-plants-revealed-by-global-science-team-02.-Angiosperm-Tree-of-Life_RBG_Kew_72_ppi-285x300.png 285w, https://news.umich.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/vast-dna-tree-of-life-for-flowering-plants-revealed-by-global-science-team-02.-Angiosperm-Tree-of-Life_RBG_Kew_72_ppi-973x1024.png 973w, https://news.umich.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/vast-dna-tree-of-life-for-flowering-plants-revealed-by-global-science-team-02.-Angiosperm-Tree-of-Life_RBG_Kew_72_ppi-768x808.png 768w, https://news.umich.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/vast-dna-tree-of-life-for-flowering-plants-revealed-by-global-science-team-02.-Angiosperm-Tree-of-Life_RBG_Kew_72_ppi-1460x1536.png 1460w, https://news.umich.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/vast-dna-tree-of-life-for-flowering-plants-revealed-by-global-science-team-02.-Angiosperm-Tree-of-Life_RBG_Kew_72_ppi-1947x2048.png 1947w" sizes="(max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px" /></a><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Angiosperm Tree of Life. Image credit: RBG Kew</figcaption></figure> <aside class="wp-block-michigan-news-callout alignright "> <p>Study: <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-024-07324-0">Phylogenomics and the rise of the Angiosperms</a> (DOI: 10.1038/s41586-024-07324-0)</p> </aside> <p>The most up-to-date understanding of the flowering plant tree of life is presented in a new study published today in the journal Nature by an international team of 279 scientists, including three University of Michigan biologists.</p> <p>Using 1.8 billion letters of genetic code from more than 9,500 species covering almost 8,000 known flowering plant genera (ca. 60%), this achievement sheds new light on the evolutionary history of flowering plants and their rise to ecological dominance on Earth.</p> <p>Led by scientists at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, the research team believes the data will aid future attempts to identify new species, refine plant classification, uncover new medicinal compounds, and conserve plants in the face of climate change and biodiversity loss.</p> <figure class="wp-block-image alignright size-thumbnail-large"><a href="https://news.umich.edu/wp-content/uploads/mc-image-cache/2024/04/vast-dna-tree-of-life-for-flowering-plants-revealed-by-global-science-team-3.-Hesperelaea-palmeri-CREDIT-©-RBG-Kew.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="300" height="300" src="https://news.umich.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/vast-dna-tree-of-life-for-flowering-plants-revealed-by-global-science-team-3.-Hesperelaea-palmeri-CREDIT-©-RBG-Kew-300x300.jpg" alt="Hesperelaea palmeri. Image credit: RBG Kew" class="wp-image-187559" srcset="https://news.umich.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/vast-dna-tree-of-life-for-flowering-plants-revealed-by-global-science-team-3.-Hesperelaea-palmeri-CREDIT-©-RBG-Kew-300x300.jpg 300w, https://news.umich.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/vast-dna-tree-of-life-for-flowering-plants-revealed-by-global-science-team-3.-Hesperelaea-palmeri-CREDIT-©-RBG-Kew-100x100.jpg 100w" sizes="(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" /></a><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Hesperelaea palmeri. Image credit: RBG Kew</figcaption></figure> <p>The major milestone for plant science, involving 138 organizations internationally, was built on 15 times more data than any comparable studies of the flowering plant tree of life. Among the species sequenced for this study, more than 800 have never had their DNA sequenced before.</p> <p>The sheer amount of data unlocked by this research, which would take a single computer 18 years to process, is a huge stride toward building a tree of life for all 330,000 known species of flowering plants—a massive undertaking by <a href="https://www.kew.org/science/our-science/projects/plant-and-fungal-trees-of-life">Kew’s Tree of Life Initiative</a>.</p> <p>“Analyzing this unprecedented amount of data to decode the information hidden in millions of DNA sequences was a huge challenge. But it also offered the unique opportunity to reevaluate and extend our knowledge of the plant tree of life, opening a new window to explore the complexity of plant evolution,” said Alexandre Zuntini, a research fellow at Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew.</p> <p>Tom Carruthers, postdoctoral researcher in the lab of U-M evolutionary biologist Stephen Smith, is co-lead author of the study with Zuntini, who he previously worked with at Kew. U-M plant systematist Richard Rabeler is a co-author.</p> <p>“Flowering plants feed, clothe and greet us whenever we walk into the woods. The construction of a flowering plant tree of life has been a significant challenge and goal for the field of evolutionary biology for more than a century,” said Smith, co-author of the study and professor in the U-M Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology. “This project moves us closer to that goal by providing a massive dataset for most of the genera of flowering plants and offering one strategy to complete this goal.”</p> <figure class="wp-block-image alignright size-thumbnail-large"><a href="https://news.umich.edu/wp-content/uploads/mc-image-cache/2024/04/vast-dna-tree-of-life-for-flowering-plants-revealed-by-global-science-team-4.-Medusanthera-laxiflora-1-CREDIT-Timothy-Utteridge-©-RBG-Kew--scaled.jpeg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="300" height="300" src="https://news.umich.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/vast-dna-tree-of-life-for-flowering-plants-revealed-by-global-science-team-4.-Medusanthera-laxiflora-1-CREDIT-Timothy-Utteridge-©-RBG-Kew--300x300.jpeg" alt="Medusanthera laxiflora. Image credit: Timothy Utteridge, RBG Kew" class="wp-image-187566" srcset="https://news.umich.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/vast-dna-tree-of-life-for-flowering-plants-revealed-by-global-science-team-4.-Medusanthera-laxiflora-1-CREDIT-Timothy-Utteridge-©-RBG-Kew--300x300.jpeg 300w, https://news.umich.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/vast-dna-tree-of-life-for-flowering-plants-revealed-by-global-science-team-4.-Medusanthera-laxiflora-1-CREDIT-Timothy-Utteridge-©-RBG-Kew--100x100.jpeg 100w" sizes="(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" /></a><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Medusanthera laxiflora. Image credit: Timothy Utteridge, RBG Kew</figcaption></figure> <p>Smith had two roles on the project. First, members of his lab—including former U-M graduate student Drew Larson—traveled to Kew to help sequence members of a large and diverse plant group called Ericales, which includes blueberries, tea, ebony, azaleas, rhododendrons and Brazil nuts.</p> <p>Second, Smith supervised the analyses and construction of the project dataset along with William Baker and Felix Forest of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, and Wolf Eisenhardt of Aarhus University.</p> <p>“One of the biggest challenges faced by the team was the unexpected complexity underlying many of the gene regions, where different genes tell different evolutionary histories. Procedures had to be developed to examine these patterns on a scale that hadn’t been done before,” said Smith, who is also director of the Program in Biology and an associate curator in biodiversity informatics at the U-M Herbarium.</p> <p>As co-leader of the study, Carruthers’ main responsibilities included scaling the evolutionary tree to time using 200 fossils, analyzing the different evolutionary histories of the genes underlying the overall evolutionary tree, and estimating rates of diversification in different flowering plant lineages at different times.</p> <p>“Constructing such a large tree of life for flowering plants, based on so many genes, sheds light on the evolutionary history of this special group, helping us to understand how they came to be such an integral and dominant part of the world,” Carruthers said. “The evolutionary relationships that are presented—and the data underlying them—will provide an important foundation for a lot of future studies.”</p> <figure class="wp-block-image alignright size-thumbnail-large"><a href="https://news.umich.edu/wp-content/uploads/mc-image-cache/2024/04/vast-dna-tree-of-life-for-flowering-plants-revealed-by-global-science-team-2.-Euchorium-cubense-CREDIT-©-RBG-Kew-.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="300" height="300" src="https://news.umich.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/vast-dna-tree-of-life-for-flowering-plants-revealed-by-global-science-team-2.-Euchorium-cubense-CREDIT-©-RBG-Kew--300x300.jpg" alt="Euchorium cubense. Image credit: RBG Kew" class="wp-image-187552" srcset="https://news.umich.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/vast-dna-tree-of-life-for-flowering-plants-revealed-by-global-science-team-2.-Euchorium-cubense-CREDIT-©-RBG-Kew--300x300.jpg 300w, https://news.umich.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/vast-dna-tree-of-life-for-flowering-plants-revealed-by-global-science-team-2.-Euchorium-cubense-CREDIT-©-RBG-Kew--100x100.jpg 100w" sizes="(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" /></a><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Euchorium cubense. Image credit: RBG Kew</figcaption></figure> <p>The flowering plant tree of life, much like our own family tree, enables us to understand how different species are related to each other. The tree of life is uncovered by comparing DNA sequences between different species to identify changes (mutations) that accumulate over time like a molecular fossil record.</p> <p>Our understanding of the tree of life is improving rapidly in tandem with advances in DNA sequencing technology. For this study, new genomic techniques were developed to magnetically capture hundreds of genes and hundreds of thousands of letters of genetic code from every sample, orders of magnitude more than earlier methods.</p> <p>A key advantage of the team’s approach is that it enables a wide diversity of plant material, old and new, to be sequenced, even when the DNA is badly damaged. The vast treasure troves of dried plant material in the world’s herbarium collections, which comprise nearly 400 million scientific specimens of plants, can now be studied genetically.</p> <p>“In many ways this novel approach has allowed us to collaborate with the botanists of the past by tapping into the wealth of data locked up in historic herbarium specimens, some of which were collected as far back as the early 19th century,” said Baker, senior research leader for Kew’s Tree of Life Initiative.</p> <p>“Our illustrious predecessors, such as Charles Darwin or Joseph Hooker, could not have anticipated how important these specimens would be in genomic research today. DNA was not even discovered in their lifetimes. Our work shows just how important these incredible botanical museums are to groundbreaking studies of life on Earth. Who knows what other undiscovered science opportunities lie within them?”</p> <figure class="wp-block-image alignright size-medium"><a href="https://news.umich.edu/wp-content/uploads/mc-image-cache/2024/04/vast-dna-tree-of-life-for-flowering-plants-revealed-by-global-science-team-1.-Arenaria-globilfora-CREDIT-©-RBG-Kew.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="197" height="300" src="https://news.umich.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/vast-dna-tree-of-life-for-flowering-plants-revealed-by-global-science-team-1.-Arenaria-globilfora-CREDIT-©-RBG-Kew-197x300.jpg" alt="An Arenaria globilfora specimen from Kew's Herbarium. Image credit: RBG Kew" class="wp-image-187531" srcset="https://news.umich.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/vast-dna-tree-of-life-for-flowering-plants-revealed-by-global-science-team-1.-Arenaria-globilfora-CREDIT-©-RBG-Kew-197x300.jpg 197w, https://news.umich.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/vast-dna-tree-of-life-for-flowering-plants-revealed-by-global-science-team-1.-Arenaria-globilfora-CREDIT-©-RBG-Kew-673x1024.jpg 673w, https://news.umich.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/vast-dna-tree-of-life-for-flowering-plants-revealed-by-global-science-team-1.-Arenaria-globilfora-CREDIT-©-RBG-Kew-768x1169.jpg 768w, https://news.umich.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/vast-dna-tree-of-life-for-flowering-plants-revealed-by-global-science-team-1.-Arenaria-globilfora-CREDIT-©-RBG-Kew-1009x1536.jpg 1009w, https://news.umich.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/vast-dna-tree-of-life-for-flowering-plants-revealed-by-global-science-team-1.-Arenaria-globilfora-CREDIT-©-RBG-Kew-1346x2048.jpg 1346w, https://news.umich.edu/wp-content/uploads/mc-image-cache/2024/04/vast-dna-tree-of-life-for-flowering-plants-revealed-by-global-science-team-1.-Arenaria-globilfora-CREDIT-©-RBG-Kew.jpg 1577w" sizes="(max-width: 197px) 100vw, 197px" /></a><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">An Arenaria globilfora specimen from Kew’s Herbarium. Image credit: RBG Kew</figcaption></figure> <p>Across all 9,506 species sequenced, more than 3,400 came from material sourced from 163 herbaria in 48 countries.</p> <p>“Sampling herbarium specimens for the study of plant relationships makes broad sampling from diverse areas of the world much more feasible than if one had to travel to get fresh material from the field,” said U-M’s Rabeler, a research scientist emeritus and former collection manager at the U-M Herbarium.</p> <p>For the tree of life project, Rabeler helped verify the identity of herbarium specimens selected for sampling and analyzed the resulting data.</p> <p>Flowering plants alone account for about 90% of all known plant life on land and are found virtually everywhere on the planet—from the steamiest tropics to the rocky outcrops of the Antarctic Peninsula. And yet, our understanding of how these plants came to dominate the scene soon after their origin has baffled scientists for generations, including Darwin.</p> <p>Flowering plants originated more than 140 million years ago after which they rapidly overtook other vascular plants including their closest living relatives—the gymnosperms (nonflowering plants that have naked seeds, such as cycads, conifers and ginkgo).</p> <figure class="wp-block-image alignleft size-medium"><a href="https://news.umich.edu/wp-content/uploads/mc-image-cache/2024/04/vast-dna-tree-of-life-for-flowering-plants-revealed-by-global-science-team-01.-Charles-Darwin-CREDIT-©-RBG-Kew.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="239" height="300" src="https://news.umich.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/vast-dna-tree-of-life-for-flowering-plants-revealed-by-global-science-team-01.-Charles-Darwin-CREDIT-©-RBG-Kew-239x300.jpg" alt="Charles Darwin" class="wp-image-187538" srcset="https://news.umich.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/vast-dna-tree-of-life-for-flowering-plants-revealed-by-global-science-team-01.-Charles-Darwin-CREDIT-©-RBG-Kew-239x300.jpg 239w, https://news.umich.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/vast-dna-tree-of-life-for-flowering-plants-revealed-by-global-science-team-01.-Charles-Darwin-CREDIT-©-RBG-Kew-816x1024.jpg 816w, https://news.umich.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/vast-dna-tree-of-life-for-flowering-plants-revealed-by-global-science-team-01.-Charles-Darwin-CREDIT-©-RBG-Kew-768x964.jpg 768w, https://news.umich.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/vast-dna-tree-of-life-for-flowering-plants-revealed-by-global-science-team-01.-Charles-Darwin-CREDIT-©-RBG-Kew-1224x1536.jpg 1224w, https://news.umich.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/vast-dna-tree-of-life-for-flowering-plants-revealed-by-global-science-team-01.-Charles-Darwin-CREDIT-©-RBG-Kew-1632x2048.jpg 1632w, https://news.umich.edu/wp-content/uploads/mc-image-cache/2024/04/vast-dna-tree-of-life-for-flowering-plants-revealed-by-global-science-team-01.-Charles-Darwin-CREDIT-©-RBG-Kew.jpg 1913w" sizes="(max-width: 239px) 100vw, 239px" /></a><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Charles Darwin. Image credit: RBG Kew</figcaption></figure> <p>Darwin was mystified by the seemingly sudden appearance of such diversity in the fossil record. In an 1879 letter to Hooker, his close confidant and director of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, he wrote: “The rapid development as far as we can judge of all the higher plants within recent geological times is an abominable mystery.”</p> <p>Using 200 fossils, the authors scaled their tree of life to time, revealing how flowering plants evolved across geological time. They found that early flowering plants did indeed explode in diversity, giving rise to more than 80% of the major lineages that exist today shortly after their origin.</p> <p>However, this trend then declined to a steadier rate for the next 100 million years until another surge in diversification about 40 million years ago, coinciding with a global decline in temperatures. These new insights would have fascinated Darwin and will surely help today’s scientists grappling with the challenges of understanding how and why species diversify.</p> <p>Assembling a tree of life this extensive would have been impossible without Kew’s scientists collaborating with many partners across the globe. In total, 279 authors were involved in the research, representing many different nationalities from 138 organizations in 27 countries.</p> <p>“The plant community has a long history of collaborating and coordinating molecular sequencing to generate a more comprehensive and robust plant tree of life. The effort that led to this paper continues in that tradition but scales up quite significantly,” said U-M’s Smith.</p> <p>The flowering plant tree of life has enormous potential in biodiversity research. This is because, just as one can predict the properties of an element based on its position in the periodic table, the location of a species in the tree of life allows us to predict its properties. The new data will thus be invaluable for enhancing many areas of science and beyond.</p> <p>To enable this, the tree and all of the data that underpin it have been made openly and freely accessible to both the public and scientific community, including through the <a href="https://treeoflife.kew.org/">Kew Tree of Life Explorer</a>.</p> <p>Open access will help scientists to make the best use of the data, such as combining it with artificial intelligence to predict which plant species may include molecules with medicinal potential.</p> <p>Similarly, the tree of life can be used to better understand and predict how pests and diseases are going to affect plants in the future. Ultimately, the authors note, the applications of this data will be driven by the ingenuity of the scientists accessing it.</p>]]></content:encoded> </item> <item> <title>Squirrels benefit late in life from a food boom negating early-life adversity</title> <link>https://news.umich.edu/squirrels-benefit-late-in-life-from-a-food-boom-negating-early-life-adversity/</link> <dc:creator><![CDATA[]]></dc:creator> <pubDate>Tue, 23 Apr 2024 23:01:00 +0000</pubDate> <category><![CDATA[Health]]></category> <category><![CDATA[News Releases]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Aging]]></category> <category><![CDATA[mental health]]></category> <category><![CDATA[trauma]]></category> <guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.umich.edu/?p=187520</guid> <description><![CDATA[If a person has a high-quality, late-life environment, it can mitigate the negative impact caused by early-life stressors, a new study shows.]]></description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><a href="https://news.umich.edu/wp-content/uploads/mc-image-cache/2021/10/study-suggests-ground-dwelling-mammals-survived-mass-extinction-66-million-years-ago-28117340052_221d39a44a_o-scaled.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1024" height="683" src="https://news.umich.edu/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/study-suggests-ground-dwelling-mammals-survived-mass-extinction-66-million-years-ago-28117340052_221d39a44a_o-1024x683.jpg" alt="An American red squirrel (Tamiasciurus hudsonicus) in Calgary, Alberta. Most of today's tree-dwelling mammals, such as red squirrels, originated after the asteroid impact 66 million years ago, which devastated forests worldwide. A new study suggests that ground-dwelling and semi-arboreal mammals were better able to survive the event. Image credit: Daniel J. Field" class="wp-image-75123" srcset="https://news.umich.edu/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/study-suggests-ground-dwelling-mammals-survived-mass-extinction-66-million-years-ago-28117340052_221d39a44a_o-1024x683.jpg 1024w, https://news.umich.edu/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/study-suggests-ground-dwelling-mammals-survived-mass-extinction-66-million-years-ago-28117340052_221d39a44a_o-300x200.jpg 300w, https://news.umich.edu/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/study-suggests-ground-dwelling-mammals-survived-mass-extinction-66-million-years-ago-28117340052_221d39a44a_o-768x512.jpg 768w, https://news.umich.edu/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/study-suggests-ground-dwelling-mammals-survived-mass-extinction-66-million-years-ago-28117340052_221d39a44a_o-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://news.umich.edu/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/study-suggests-ground-dwelling-mammals-survived-mass-extinction-66-million-years-ago-28117340052_221d39a44a_o-2048x1365.jpg 2048w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></a><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">An American red squirrel (Tamiasciurus hudsonicus) in Calgary, Alberta. Most of today’s tree-dwelling mammals, such as red squirrels, originated after the asteroid impact 66 million years ago, which devastated forests worldwide. A new study suggests that ground-dwelling and semi-arboreal mammals were better able to survive the event. Image credit: Daniel J. Field</figcaption></figure> <aside class="wp-block-michigan-news-callout alignright "> <p>Study: <a href="https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rspb.2023.2681">A future food boom rescues the negative effects of early-life adversity on adult lifespan in a small mammal</a> (DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2023.2681)</p> </aside> <p>If a person has a high-quality, late-life environment, it can mitigate the negative impact caused by early-life stressors, a new study shows.</p> <p>Researchers determined this human outcome after analyzing data from more than 1,000 wild red squirrels in Canada. The research, which appears in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B, suggests that the costs of early-life adversities for the rodents’ lifespan are abolished by later-life food availability.</p> <p><a href="https://lsa.umich.edu/psych/people/faculty/dantzer.html">Ben Dantzer</a>, associate professor of psychology and of ecology and evolutionary biology at the University of Michigan, said in humans, early life adversity—such as victim abuse and divorce—seems to correlate with adult physical/mental health and longevity.</p> <figure class="wp-block-image alignright size-thumbnail"><a href="https://news.umich.edu/wp-content/uploads/mc-image-cache/2019/02/ben-dantzer.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="150" height="150" src="https://news.umich.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/ben-dantzer-150x150.jpg" alt="Ben Dantzer" class="wp-image-123927"/></a><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Ben Dantzer</figcaption></figure> <p>“There are similar findings in animals, and therefore a suggestion that there is a generalized response to exposure to early life stressors,” he said.</p> <p>Researchers identified six adversities among the squirrels that reduce juvenile survival in the first year of life, though only one—birth date—had continued independent effects on adult lifespan. The experts, who tracked the squirrels using tags from birth to death from 1989 to 2022, created an index that integrates the sum of adversities and their effect size.</p> <p>Some squirrels received extra food for eight months during the analysis. According to the study, a greater index predicts shorter adult lifespans in both male and female squirrels, but a naturally occurring food boom in the second year of life offset this effect.</p> <p>So how do the findings connect to humans? Dantzer said one could extend the thinking about how the negative effects of early life adversity in humans may be reduced by providing access to resources.</p> <p>The study’s co-authors were Lauren Petrullo, University of Arizona; David Delaney, University of Colorado; Stan Boutin, University of Alberta; Jeffrey Lane, University of Saskatchewan; and Andrew McAdam, Iowa State University.</p>]]></content:encoded> </item> <item> <title>Chemical tool illuminates pathways used by dopamine, opioids and other neuronal signals</title> <link>https://news.umich.edu/chemical-tool-illuminates-pathways-used-by-dopamine-opioids-and-other-neuronal-signals/</link> <dc:creator><![CDATA[Emily Kagey, U-M Life Sciences Institute]]></dc:creator> <pubDate>Tue, 23 Apr 2024 19:03:11 +0000</pubDate> <category><![CDATA[Health]]></category> <category><![CDATA[News Releases]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Science & Technology]]></category> <category><![CDATA[molecular biology]]></category> <category><![CDATA[neuroscience]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Opioids]]></category> <guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.umich.edu/?p=187510</guid> <description><![CDATA[University of Michigan researchers have developed a new tool to better understand how chemicals like dopamine and epinephrine interact with neurons.]]></description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><a href="https://news.umich.edu/wp-content/uploads/mc-image-cache/2024/04/chemical-tool-illuminates-pathways-used-by-dopamine-opioids-and-other-neuronal-signals.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1024" height="576" src="https://news.umich.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/chemical-tool-illuminates-pathways-used-by-dopamine-opioids-and-other-neuronal-signals-1024x576.jpg" alt="A slice of the mouse brainstem demonstrates the detection of morphine (green) and the expression of the SPOTIT sensor (magenta). Image credit: Noam Gannot and Peng Li, U-M Sciences Institute" class="wp-image-187512" srcset="https://news.umich.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/chemical-tool-illuminates-pathways-used-by-dopamine-opioids-and-other-neuronal-signals-1024x576.jpg 1024w, https://news.umich.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/chemical-tool-illuminates-pathways-used-by-dopamine-opioids-and-other-neuronal-signals-300x169.jpg 300w, https://news.umich.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/chemical-tool-illuminates-pathways-used-by-dopamine-opioids-and-other-neuronal-signals-768x432.jpg 768w, https://news.umich.edu/wp-content/uploads/mc-image-cache/2024/04/chemical-tool-illuminates-pathways-used-by-dopamine-opioids-and-other-neuronal-signals.jpg 1500w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></a><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">A slice of the mouse brainstem demonstrates the detection of morphine (green) and the expression of the SPOTIT sensor (magenta). Image credit: Noam Gannot and Peng Li, U-M Sciences Institute</figcaption></figure> <aside class="wp-block-michigan-news-callout alignright "> <p>Study: <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/38648487/">Single-chain fluorescent integrators for mapping G-protein-coupled receptor agonists</a> (DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2307090121)</p> </aside> <p>University of Michigan researchers have developed a new tool to better understand how chemicals like dopamine and epinephrine interact with neurons.</p> <p>These chemicals are among a wide variety of signals that get processed in the brain through G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs), proteins that sit on the surface of neurons to receive messages—in the forms of proteins, sugars, fats, even light—that inform cellular behavior.</p> <p>GPCRs are involved in an enormous number of biological functions, making them a prime target for treating diseases; more than one-third of FDA-approved drugs target GPCRs. But to fully understand how various molecules interact with GPCRs, researchers need to be able to detect those molecules across the whole brain with high spatial resolution.</p> <p>“The challenge in our field has been achieving the right balance between a detailed view and the whole picture across the brain,” said <a href="https://www.lsi.umich.edu/science/our-labs/wang-lab/wenjing-wang-phd">Wenjing Wang</a>, a neuroscientist at the U-M Life Sciences Institute.</p> <p>LSI faculty member <a href="https://www.lsi.umich.edu/science/our-labs/li-lab">Peng Li</a> said most existing tools can detect a neural modulator either in a small part of the brain with high spatial resolution or in the whole brain with very low resolution.</p> <p>“But we need to identify the cells that respond to the neuromodulators across various brain regions, in high resolution,” he said.</p> <p>In a study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Wang, Li and colleagues unveiled a new chemical tool that achieves both goals for three chemicals that all target GPCRs.</p> <p>Wang’s lab at LSI uses protein engineering to develop technologies that can detect how signaling molecules travel within the brain to reach and interact with specific neurons. They previously created a <a href="https://www.lsi.umich.edu/news/2021-03/research-highlight-new-tool-can-spot-presence-opioids-individual-cells-offering">tool to reveal the presence of opioids</a>, another GPCR binding partner, at a cellular level.</p> <p>When the molecule is detected, the tool creates a permanent fluorescent mark in the cells. Thus, researchers can see the specific cells that are highlighted, as well as the whole picture of cells across the brain.</p> <p>This latest work broadens the utility of that sensor to detect multiple types of GPCR activators, beyond just opioids. So far, the team has tested the tool with opioids and epinephrine in cultured neurons and in mouse models. The team also expanded the tool to use both green and red fluorescence, enabling the tracking of multiple molecules at once.</p> <p>“Coming from detecting just opioids, we now have a tool that we can begin to easily modulate for various signals that interact with GPCRs,” said Wang, who also is an assistant professor of chemistry at the U-M College of Literature, Science, and the Arts. “The goal is eventually to even study the interplays of different signaling pathways simultaneously.”</p> <p>The team cautions that while the tool provides important visualizations of how signals travel across neurons for analysis postmortem, it cannot be used to track chemicals in real time, as it takes several hours for the fluorescence to appear. But it does offer a new path forward for improving understanding of neuronal signaling and the role of GPCRs as drug targets.</p> <p>“Ideally, we aim to be able to create a brain map for multiple neuromodulators concurrently, offering a comprehensive understanding of the sites of neuromodulation,” said Li, who also is an assistant professor at the U-M School of Dentistry.</p>]]></content:encoded> </item> <item> <title>With AV Challenge, engineers can put their decision-making algorithms to the test</title> <link>https://news.umich.edu/with-av-challenge-engineers-can-put-their-decision-making-algorithms-to-the-test/</link> <dc:creator><![CDATA[Jim Lynch, U-M College of Engineering]]></dc:creator> <pubDate>Tue, 23 Apr 2024 14:56:16 +0000</pubDate> <category><![CDATA[Education & Society]]></category> <category><![CDATA[News Releases]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Science & Technology]]></category> <category><![CDATA[autonomous vehicle]]></category> <category><![CDATA[mcity]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Transportation Technology]]></category> <guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.umich.edu/?p=187430</guid> <description><![CDATA[The University of Michigan has issued a challenge to the developers of autonomous vehicle technologies: show us what you've got. The Mcity AV Challenge will pit researchers in academia and industry against each other, measuring the performance of their decision-making modules in a world-leading, realistic simulated environment.]]></description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[<h3 class="wp-block-heading">U-M’s Mcity will provide first-of-its-kind, city-scale virtual proving ground for competitors from industry, academia</h3> <figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><a href="https://news.umich.edu/wp-content/uploads/mc-image-cache/2024/04/with-av-challenge-engineers-can-put-their-decision-making-algorithms-to-the-test.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1024" height="657" src="https://news.umich.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/with-av-challenge-engineers-can-put-their-decision-making-algorithms-to-the-test-1024x657.jpg" alt="On the left side of the image, what looks like a T-junction in a roadway is mapped in black on a green background. Two cars, red and blue, arrive from the west. Two green cars depart to the north. The roadway to the south is empty. On the right side of the image, the roadway is outlined in white on a black background, and the viewer takes the perspective of a car arriving from the west. A teal line suggests an anticipated right turn, and red text warns of a light wait." class="wp-image-187474" srcset="https://news.umich.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/with-av-challenge-engineers-can-put-their-decision-making-algorithms-to-the-test-1024x657.jpg 1024w, https://news.umich.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/with-av-challenge-engineers-can-put-their-decision-making-algorithms-to-the-test-300x193.jpg 300w, https://news.umich.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/with-av-challenge-engineers-can-put-their-decision-making-algorithms-to-the-test-768x493.jpg 768w, https://news.umich.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/with-av-challenge-engineers-can-put-their-decision-making-algorithms-to-the-test-1536x986.jpg 1536w, https://news.umich.edu/wp-content/uploads/mc-image-cache/2024/04/with-av-challenge-engineers-can-put-their-decision-making-algorithms-to-the-test.jpg 1800w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></a><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">A screenshot of a simulated driving environment developed at Mcity. Image credit: Mcity, University of Michigan</figcaption></figure> <p>The University of Michigan has issued a challenge to the developers of autonomous vehicle technologies: show us what you’ve got.</p> <p>The <a href="https://myumi.ch/23r4n">Mcity AV Challenge</a> will pit researchers in academia and industry against each other, measuring the performance of their decision-making modules in a world-leading, realistic simulated environment.</p> <p>“What’s unique about the Mcity AV Challenge is that, unlike traditional scenario-based AV testing, we will provide a city-scale traffic environment that introduces a series of challenges and obstacles over time to better replicate real driving conditions,” said <a href="https://cee.engin.umich.edu/people/liu-henry/">Henry Liu</a>, U-M professor of civil and environmental engineering and director of both <a href="https://mcity.umich.edu/">Mcity</a> and the <a href="https://ccat.umtri.umich.edu">Center for Connected and Automated Transportation</a>.</p> <p>“The series of challenges will be based on crash and near-miss events data collected from the real world. Our goal is to encourage innovation, and to help accelerate the development and deployment of safe, reliable AV technology.”</p> <p>Teams will develop their AV driving agent, called a module, within specified parameters provided by U-M and test it on a virtual proving ground with simulated traffic. <a href="https://news.engin.umich.edu/2023/03/simulated-terrible-drivers-cut-the-time-and-cost-of-av-testing-by-a-factor-of-one-thousand/">Technology</a> underpinning that environment was featured on the cover of <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-05732-2">Nature</a> last year, as it offers a high-frequency exposure to real, rare, safety-critical traffic incidents. It is estimated to reduce the time and cost of module testing by a factor of 1,000.</p> <p>Once the competition begins, contestant modules will be tested each week against a new virtual course with new traffic scenarios. They will be graded in five areas—safety, rule compliance, efficiency, comfort and feasibility of vehicle dynamics—and ranked on a public leaderboard. Entrants can take each week’s performance evaluation and use it to improve their AV module for the following week’s test. The challenge will run from May 15 through Aug. 1.</p> <p>The team whose module earns the highest performance rating will be named the challenge winner Aug.15. They will be invited to test their algorithms in Mcity’s mixed reality testing environment—16 acres of roads and traffic infrastructure that mimic urban and suburban infrastructure as well as simulated traffic. Those virtual vehicles introduce scenarios that occur rarely in on-the-road testing, but are crucial to training AV decision-making modules.</p> <p>“We’ve created an immersive and high-fidelity simulation environment within Mcity for assessing the driving intelligence of AVs,” said Shengyin Shen, a research engineer at U-M’s <a href="https://www.umtri.umich.edu">Transportation Research Institute</a>. “We streamline integration and simplify the submission process. Moreover, we harness cloud computing and services to automate test execution, update leaderboards and provide feedback to numerous participants.”</p> <p><a href="https://mcity.umich.edu/av-challenge/registration/">Registration</a> is underway and will remain open until July 1. Teams that register early and begin testing in May have additional weeks to hone their module’s performance.</p> <p>In recent years, Mcity has worked to make its testing facilities and capabilities available beyond Ann Arbor. In 2023, a $5.1 million grant from the National Science Foundation helped U-M upgrade its virtual reality software—creating <a href="https://mcity.umich.edu/what-we-do/mcity-test-facility/mcity-2/">Mcity 2.0</a>—allowing researchers from around the U.S. to test their AV software at Mcity remotely. This challenge is supported by the Mcity 2.0 project.</p>]]></content:encoded> </item> <item> <title>U-M expert notes ‘creative’ road to long-stalled US aid for Ukraine, threats to leadership of divided GOP</title> <link>https://news.umich.edu/u-m-expert-notes-creative-road-to-long-stalled-us-aid-for-ukraine-threats-to-leadership-of-divided-gop/</link> <dc:creator><![CDATA[]]></dc:creator> <pubDate>Tue, 23 Apr 2024 13:25:00 +0000</pubDate> <category><![CDATA[Expert Q&A]]></category> <category><![CDATA[International]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Law & Politics]]></category> <category><![CDATA[News Releases]]></category> <category><![CDATA[democracy]]></category> <category><![CDATA[federal finance]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Ukraine]]></category> <guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.umich.edu/?p=187416</guid> <description><![CDATA[Susan D. Page, director of the University of Michigan's Weiser Diplomacy Center and professor of practice in international diplomacy, shares insights on the long-stalled U.S. aid package for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan, and other priorities.]]></description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><a href="https://news.umich.edu/wp-content/uploads/mc-image-cache/2024/04/u-m-expert-notes-creative-road-to-long-stalled-us-aid-for-ukraine-threats-to-leadership-of-divided-gop.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1024" height="574" src="https://news.umich.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/u-m-expert-notes-creative-road-to-long-stalled-us-aid-for-ukraine-threats-to-leadership-of-divided-gop-1024x574.jpg" alt="Concept illustration of military aid. Image credit: Nicole Smith, made with Midjourney" class="wp-image-187420" srcset="https://news.umich.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/u-m-expert-notes-creative-road-to-long-stalled-us-aid-for-ukraine-threats-to-leadership-of-divided-gop-1024x574.jpg 1024w, https://news.umich.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/u-m-expert-notes-creative-road-to-long-stalled-us-aid-for-ukraine-threats-to-leadership-of-divided-gop-300x168.jpg 300w, https://news.umich.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/u-m-expert-notes-creative-road-to-long-stalled-us-aid-for-ukraine-threats-to-leadership-of-divided-gop-768x430.jpg 768w, https://news.umich.edu/wp-content/uploads/mc-image-cache/2024/04/u-m-expert-notes-creative-road-to-long-stalled-us-aid-for-ukraine-threats-to-leadership-of-divided-gop.jpg 1456w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></a></figure> <p><strong>EXPERT ANALYSIS</strong></p> <p><a href="https://fordschool.umich.edu/faculty/susan-page">Susan D. Page</a>, director of the University of Michigan’s Weiser Diplomacy Center and professor of practice in international diplomacy, shares insights on the long-stalled U.S. aid package for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan, and other priorities.</p> <p>The House of Representatives passed the legislation with bipartisan support this weekend and it’s expected to be approved by the Senate and signed by President Joe Biden in the coming days.</p> <p>Her comments come as U-M’s Ford School prepares to welcome U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Bridget Brink on Tuesday for the sixth annual <a href="https://fordschool.umich.edu/event/2024/6th-annual-vandenberg-lecture">Arthur Vandenberg Lecture</a> and conversation with Page, who served as the first U.S. ambassador to South Sudan.</p> <figure class="wp-block-image alignright size-thumbnail"><a href="https://news.umich.edu/wp-content/uploads/mc-image-cache/2023/04/Susan-D-Page.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="100" height="100" src="https://news.umich.edu/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/Susan-D-Page-100x100.jpg" alt="Susan D. Page" class="wp-image-140480" srcset="https://news.umich.edu/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/Susan-D-Page-100x100.jpg 100w, https://news.umich.edu/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/Susan-D-Page-300x300.jpg 300w" sizes="(max-width: 100px) 100vw, 100px" /></a><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Susan D. Page</figcaption></figure> <p>“In a creative plan laid out in a rule that passed on Friday, House Speaker Mike Johnson and his allies put together separate pieces of the package in order to prevent any one piece of the separate aid deals from blocking the entire package deal,” Page said. “In fact, a majority of Republicans voted against Ukraine aid on Saturday, continuing their opposition to criticism of Russia’s full scale invasion of Ukraine, while most voted yes on Israel aid.</p> <p>“While Johnson appears to have won this initial foreign aid battle through creative packaging and the inclusion of issues that most Republicans could support, it remains to be seen what these latest measures will mean for his leadership of a deeply divided Republican House caucus.</p> <p>“We look forward to hearing from Ambassador Brink about the current state of the war in Ukraine, security and military support from the U.S. and Europe, what the future might portend for the people of Ukraine, and U.S.-Ukraine relations in a deeply divided body politic.”</p>]]></content:encoded> </item> </channel></rss> If you would like to create a banner that links to this page (i.e. this validation result), do the following:
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