For those of you who haven’t seen our magazine, Research|Penn State, and those who receive the print magazine but would like to read an e-version, our Spring 2016 issue is now available online in flipbook and downloadable PDF formats. Here’s a sampling of what you’ll find.
Continue reading New issue of Research|Penn State is now online
By Nancy Tuana
There is increasing agreement that human activities are resulting in significant changes in the global climate. The NASA website on climate change provides a snapshot of these changes.
Global temperatures have gone up an average of 1.4 degrees Fahrenheit since 1880. The 10 warmest years on record have all occurred since 1998, with last year, 2015, ranked as the warmest on record. These temperatures have contributed to rising sea levels due both to increasing ocean temperatures and the accelerated melting of glaciers and ice sheets. These changes are fueling altered weather patterns such as precipitation changes resulting in droughts in some regions and flooding in others, as well as increasing the intensity of extreme weather events such as hurricanes.
If greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise unchecked, the effects could result in serious disruptions to agriculture, flooding of the world’s coastal cities, changes in species migrations, and even extinction of some plants and animals. Continue reading Focus on research: Does climate change affect genders differently?
By Boaz Dvir
As a documentary filmmaker, I change my mind about societal issues related to my projects much like kids experience growth — I only notice it months, sometimes years, later.
Directing and producing “Jessie’s Dad,” which captures the transformation of an uneducated truck driver into an effective child-protection activist following the loss of his daughter to a repeat sex offender, altered my point of view on mandatory sentencing. Making “Discovering Gloria,” which paints the portrait of an average teacher who became an innovative trailblazer after her inner-city school failed its No Child Left Behind exam, made me feel quite differently about standardized testing.
Isn’t that what Holocaust Remembrance Day is all about? To make sure it never, ever happens again?
Gearing up for the May 4 Baltimore screening of my latest documentary, “A Wing and a Prayer,” I’ve noticed that it’s happened again: My thinking has shifted on a key topic, and my brain has only now bothered to notify me.
This time, it’s the Holocaust.
Continue reading Focus on research: Rethinking the notion of a second Holocaust
By Mark Major
Presidential power, especially their unilateral authority, has been a fierce point of contention in the Obama era. Recently, 43 senators, all Republican, filed a friend-of-the-court brief challenging President Barack Obama’s, as they put it, “extra-constitutional assertion of a unilateral executive power” over immigration policy. The public, and many in the press, assume that the controversy centers on an executive order. This is incorrect.
In the case of Obama’s immigration reform, it deals with “prosecutorial discretion.” Regardless of the term, unilateral executive powers are a compelling, and long overdue, topic for national discussion. Despite this high level of attention to Obama’s unilateral actions on immigration, health care, and gun reform, we have little understanding of this unique presidential power. Continue reading Focus on research: Unilateral presidential power in an age of polarized politics
Within the past few years, author and media mogul Arianna Huffington has made sleep health her pet project. In her 2010 TED talk, Huffington encouraged her audience to make sleep a priority: “The way to a more productive, more inspired, more joyful life is to get enough sleep,” she said. “We are going to sleep our way to the top — literally!”
Earlier this month, she published her latest book, The Sleep Revolution: Transforming Your Life, One Night at a Time. To promote the book, and raise awareness about healthy sleep, Huffington has started the Sleep Revolution College Tour. Recently, Schreyer Honors scholar Alayna Kennedy worked with the Schreyer Honors College and alum Lou D’Ambrosio to bring the tour to Penn State, where students learned about healthy sleep habits and received sleep kits.
I touched base with Orfeu Buxton, a Penn State associate professor of biobehavioral health and a sleep health expert who specializes in sleep, health, and society, and asked him a few questions about the particular issue of sleep and college students. Continue reading You say you want a (sleep) revolution
