Taking the Temperature0

Global warming has researchers at U.Va. worried—and working—on numerous fronts

Summer 2007

A Freeze-Thaw Cycle? Global warming may have picked up steam with the dawn of the Industrial Age 200 years ago, but humans began altering the global climate thousands of years earlier. So argues William F. Ruddiman, professor emeritus of environmental sciences, in his book, Plows, Plagues and Petroleum: How Humans Took Control of the Climate, citing evidence gleaned from three-kilometer-thick Antarctic ice cores. The book won the Phi Beta Kappa Society’s 2006 Science Award. Ruddiman’s hypothesis—which he calls “provocative and controversial”—asserts that the Earth’s wobbly orbit causes predictable ice-age cycles. As the Earth cools toward an ice...

Crime-Fighters0

E-School’s Web tool helps police catch crooks

Spring 2007

The history of interaction between police officers and college students has had its fair share of friction. Today, though, Virginia cops might tip their hats to students from U.Va.’s Department of Systems and Information Engineering and their faculty mentors. The students, overseen by research scientist Jamie Conklin, program director of the Engineering School’s Predictive Technology Laboratory, are the force behind the Web-based Crime Analysis Toolkit, or WebCAT. Its purpose: analyze crime data and allow law enforcement agencies to share it, even across jurisdictional boundaries. The project was initiated by Don Brown, who chairs the systems and information...

Growing Bones0

The potential for bone transplants

Spring 2007

It sounds so futuristic—growing bones outside the body, then implanting them when needed to replace those that have become soft or brittle or riddled with osteoporotic fractures. But a diverse team of U.Va. professors is among many nationwide who are working on tissue engineering. The professors—cell biologist Roy Ogle, chemist Milton Brown, biomedical engineer Edward Botchwey and mechanical engineer Joseph Humphrey—are collaborating on an effort to alleviate the suffering that comes with failing bones. Their approach: create a three-dimensional frame, or scaffold, seeded with bone cells, and place it in a “bioreactor” that provides it with...

Learning Curve0

Study indicates Montessori might provide the best start

Spring 2007

A Montessori education may give children better social and academic skills than those who attend traditional schools. By the end of kindergarten, Montessori children outperformed their peers at public and private schools on standardized math and reading tests, according to a study recently published in the journal Science by Angeline Lillard, a U.Va. professor of psychology, and Nicole Else-Quest, a former U.Va. research assistant now at the University of Wisconsin. At the end of elementary school, 12-year-old Montessori children wrote more creative and complex essays than their peers at other schools did. The study was conducted at a...

R&D in Brief0

Spring 2007

Hank Shugart Brian Duling, a prominent cardiovascular researcher, and Herman “Hank” Shugart Jr., a leading systems ecologist, are the inaugural winners of the University of Virginia Distinguished Scientist Award. Duling is currently focused on research that has important implications for the overall understanding of the cardiovascular system and associated problems such as hypertension. Shugart’s research employs computer modeling of forests and entire ecosystems to predict the effects of a variety of factors, including climate change. Road Sick That hotel guest with the nasty cold will probably leave behind an infectious gift for the next guest—from the phone to...

Almost All Air0

The remarkable properties of aerogels

Winter 2006

R&D In Brief0

Winter 2006

U.Va. pathologists have found a way to reverse muscular dystrophy in mice, a promising step in the search to eradicate this muscle-wasting disease in humans. A research team led by Mani Mahadevan has shown for the first time that getting rid of poisonous ribonucleic acid in the muscle cells of mice can reverse myotonic dystrophy, the most common type of muscular dystrophy in adults, afflicting about 40,000 people in the U.S. Researchers duplicated the disease in mice but saw them return to normal—with fully restored heart and skeletal muscle function—when the toxic molecule was taken away. Mahadevan...

Naming Evil0

Winter 2006

At a time when the term “evil” gets bandied about by politicians as a convenient rhetorical device, one U.Va. researcher is taking a harder look at the concept of evil and how people use the word. “I’m interested in how people talk about evil, either those who have committed it or suffered it,” says Jennifer Geddes, an associate professor of religious studies and co-program director for the Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture. She’s currently studying Holocaust testimonies and memoirs at the Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D...