Feed of Latest U-M Research News
News From U-M
Recession may be over, but recovery will be gradual
With the severe national recession of the past two years finally behind us, the pace of economic recovery will be slow and unemployment will remain high for quite some time, say economists at the University of Michigan. "Based on the data currently available, the recession that began at the close of 2007 appears to have ended sometime this summer—the longest and steepest drop in output since the Great Depression," said U-M economist Joan Crary. "The federal government's series of unprecedented policy actions—both fiscal and monetary—deserve much of the credit for this dramatic shift from an economy that nearly went into free fall to one that is at least clawing its way back up. We have now shifted out of reverse and into first gear." [Read more...]
The Limits of Carbon Pricing: Can High Prices Alone Cut Emissions?
U-M Professor Andy Hoffman writes in his latest Perspectives blog posting that "we place too much faith in pricing as a singular mechanism for solving environmental problems in this country. The most vivid example is the call to create a price for carbon as the solution to the climate change problem. As the logic goes; if we set a price for carbon high enough, innovators will create new gadgets that emit fewer greenhouse gases, investors will invest in them, companies will adopt them and consumers will buy them. But, not so fast. We are not like some sort of mice chasing a piece of cheese whenever it is placed in front of us. Unlike mice, we are not so singular in focus. We actually care who is placing the cheese and we may even ignore the cheese if it is not placed in the right way." This first appeared on the Newsweek.com “Green Business” blog on November 18, 2009. [Read more...]
Chances of surviving a cardiac arrest at home or work unchanged in 30 years
The chance of surviving an out-of-hospital cardiac arrest has not improved since the 1950s, according to a report by the University of Michigan Health System. The analysis shows only 7.6 percent of victims survive an out-of-hospital cardiac arrest, a number that has not changed significantly in almost 30 years. It’s a dismal trend considering enormous spending on heart research, new emergency care protocols, and the advent of new drugs and devices such as defibrillators. [Read more...]
Coppola wins Carnegie/CASE U.S. Professor of the Year honor
Brian Coppola, the Arthur F. Thurnau Professor of Chemistry, has been selected as a 2009 U.S. Professor of the Year by the Carnegie Foundation for Advancement of Teaching and the Council for Advancement and Support of Education. Founded in 1981, the U.S. Professors of the Year Awards Program is the only national program specifically designed to acknowledge outstanding undergraduate teaching. Coppola was selected from more than 300 top professors in the United States. [Read more...]
Making the best of the year’s biggest shopping day
For most Americans, Thanksgiving Day means a flurry of food, family and football. But the real frenzy begins the day after, say researchers at the University of Michigan and Western Michigan University. "Just as turkey and pumpkin pie are associated with Thanksgiving, the day after has become synonymous with one thing—shopping," said David Wooten, associate professor of marketing at the U-M Ross School of Business. "Black Friday has become an annual consumption event with more than 60 million people braving the elements, snarled parking lots, hours waiting and early morning crowds to shop on a day that has come to signal the beginning of the Christmas shopping season." New ethnographic research by Wooten and colleague Robert Harrison of Western Michigan University explores the competitive aspects and game-like characteristics of Black Friday shopping, the motivations and behaviors of shoppers and the implications for retailers. [Read more...]
Cell phone adapted to give visually impaired an audio “tour”
A group of students in the School of Information has created Talking Points, which uses standard cell phones to access the Internet so visually-impaired people can get information about where they going and the businesses they're passing. The program was profiled on a segment of Out of the Blue, available on YouTube’s U-M Channel. [View report...]
U-M joins the launch of new web site: ScienceWorksForUs.org
The University of Michigan and other leading public and private research universities today announced the launch of ScienceWorksForUS, an initiative that will highlight the scientific research and related activities that have been made possible by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA), also known as the stimulus. The centerpiece of the initiative is a Web site that highlights Recovery Act-sponsored research in all 50 states, telling the stories of the research and the researchers contributing to America's recovery. The web site went live today at www.ScienceWorksForUS.org.
U-M part of national program to improve clinical trials in pediatric medicine
Studying drugs in pediatric populations is challenging because drugs often affect children differently than they do adults. The scarcity of pediatric studies limits the ability of doctors and scientists to predict drug dosing, safety and efficacy in children. To address this gap, the National Institutes of Health announced today 18 grants totalling $8.5M to help determine outcome measures and increase the likelihood of success of future trials of treatments for children. The U-M will lead a project studying Pediatric Cardiac Intensive Care to identify the most successful measures used to treat infants and older children with complex congenital and acquired heart disease. [Read more...]
U-M energy institute director tapped to help shape state’s wind future
Dennis Assanis, director of the Michigan Memorial Phoenix Energy Institute at the University of Michigan, has been selected by Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm to help shape the state’s strategy to harness offshore wind energy. He will serve on the Great Lakes Wind Council, an advisory body within the Michigan Dept. of Energy, Labor, and Economic Growth that provides citizens with a public forum to begin to identify where, in the Great Lakes, wind energy systems may be prudently sited. [Read more...]