Tags: Human Nature


New psychology research explores boundary extension

How do we change or mis-remember what we see with our own eyes? New research from the department of psychology seeks to unpack this intriguing process: In just a few short seconds, the human brain helps most people extend the scene beyond what is actually seen. Scientists at the University of Delaware discovered this concept in 1989 when they showed study participants real photographs of 20 scenes for 15 seconds and then had participants draw a…


Kudos, September 2013

Great news this month about our faculty, students and alumni. A few of the highlight of accomplishments and awards in the Franklin College:   University Professor Lynn Billard of the department of statistics was selected to receive the 2013 Florence Nightingale David award by the Committee of Presidents of the Statistical Societies. The award recognizes a female statistician who exemplifies David’s contributions to education, science and…


Faculty in the News, September '13

Here's a sampling of Franklin College faculty writing and quoted in the media this month:   “The secret bromance of Nixon and Brezhnev” – Posting by associate professor of history Stephen Mihm in Bloomberg News, picked up by the History News Network. A second posting by Mihm is in the same outlets on the topic, “How computers took over trading.” Spalding professor of history James C. Cobb reflects on commencement in Flagpole magazine. “This…


Georgia Virtual History Project

One of the new Faculty Research Clusters recently launched by the Willson Center for Humanities and Arts is the Digital Humanities Lab co-directed by Franklin faculty in the departments of English (Bill Kretzschmar) and history (Stephen Berry and Claudio Saunt). This initiative combines digital humanities courses and the strengthening of the university’s digital humanities research core through projects such as the Linguistic Atlas Project and…


$10m NIH grant to Center for Biomedical Glycomics

Glycobiology is very complex science - the study the structures, biosynthesis and biology of the sugar chains, or glycans, that are essential components in all living things. Glycans have been the focus of much attention by UGA researchers recently, and now glycobiology is at the center of big new NIH grant to another team of Franklin College researchers: Researchers at the University of Georgia have received a five-year, $10.4 million grant…


Engaging Students and Communities in Music Research

The Willson Center for Humanities and Arts and the Hugh Hodgson School of Music present a lecture by a noted expert on bringing research into communities and vice-versa. Carol Muller, a South African-born Ethnomusicologist at the University of Pennsylvannia, will speak at the Hodgson Schoo, at 4 p.m. Thursday Sept. 5 in room 408.  Muller has published widely on South African music at home and abroad. Her books include Rituals of Fertility…


Faculty Research Clusters in the Humanities

In continuing with our Humanities Week theme, today the Jane and Harry Willson Center for Humanities and Arts at UGA launches its new Faculty Research Clusters initiative with a reception at 4 p.m. in the Russell Building Special Collections Libraries: The program supports groups of University of Georgia faculty who are organized to address large-scale humanities and arts questions in partnership with colleagues from allied departments, colleges…


Genetically Speaking

  Genetics lectures series begins today By Jessica Luton jluton@uga.edu If the development of species over time is of interest to you, the department of genetics has just the thing for you—a weekly lecture series meant to shine light on genetics research on campus and at other universities.  Featuring visiting scholars and campus experts alike, this series of lectures happens each Wednesday at 4 p.m. at the Paul D. Coverdell Center…


CTL, biology faculty, team up to reduce textbook costs

Great news for students in our introductory biology courses: The University of Georgia Center for Teaching and Learning is looking at ways to save students money by offering free e-textbooks for introductory biology courses at UGA through a $25,000 University System of Georgia Incubator grant awarded this summer. UGA students who take the entry-level biology courses pay around $97 for a new biology textbook. This grant will collectively save…


Biesecker wins Francine Merritt Award

The Francine Merritt Award or Outstanding Contributions to the Lives of Women in Communication, presented by the National Communication Association's (NCA) Women's Caucus, honors the memory of Francine Merritt, who taught at Louisiana State University between 1947 and 1984. Congratulations to the 2013 Francine Merritt Award winner, professor and head of the department of communication studies, Barbara Biesecker: Dr. Biesecker's commitment to the…


Student and Faculty features

Well, in a way, I live a double life. In the spring semesters, I teach Organic Chemistry II. This is one of the more challenging courses for pre-professional students in their curriculum, and the class size averages approximately 350 students. This class is high intensity, and I really enjoy lecturing to this class size. On one hand, I get to interact with some of the best students in the university. On the other, many students struggle…


Graduate Student Research Conference

  Franklin students share scientific research at symposium         By Jessica Luton jluton@uga.edu Scientific research, and plenty of it, was on display this week at an interdisciplinary conference on UGA’s Coverdell Center for Biomedical and Health Sciences. The 5th Annual Scientific Research Day, as it is known, is put together each year by the Graduate Students and Postdocs in Science (GSPS), a…


Re-programming immune cells with nanoparticles

Researchers from the department of chemistry, in the early online edition of ACS Nano, report progress on an innovative new use for nanoparticles: The human body operates under a constant state of martial law. Chief among the enforcers charged with maintaining order is the immune system, a complex network that seeks out and destroys the hordes of invading bacteria and viruses that threaten the organic society as it goes about its work. The…

Boons in the lab
Researchers publish new method for glycan synthesis

Researchers at the Complex Carbohydrate Research Center announced a new methodology with broad implications for human health. A research team led by Geert-Jan Boons, Franklin Professor in the department of chemistry, recently published on the first method for synthesizing asymmetrical N-glycans: According to the study, published in the journal Science on July 25, the approach could lead to a better understanding of how viruses and bacteria enter…


Faculty in the News, Summer 2013

(Many) classes were out, but the media kept the phone calls and emails coming to our faculty this summer. Here's a sampling:   Michael Terns, professor of biochemistry and molecular biology, is quoted in an MIT news article about genome editing.  The work of Mark Abbe, professor of ancient art in the Lamar Dodd School of Art, is featured in Archeology magazine “Brown ocean” can fuel inland tropical cyclones – Several reports on a newly…


You're already a double-major

In that, beyond whatever disciplinary road you choose, you are already an adherent of your native language and will continue to study its literature. Nice meditation on reading that actually applies to everyone from the other Chronicle, The Ideal English Major: Real reading is reincarnation. There is no other way to put it. It is being born again into a higher form of consciousness than we ourselves possess. When we walk the streets of Manhattan…


Moving in Day, Finding Your Way

It is the beginning of a massive influx of students into Athens and the University. By one count I heard this morning, there are 7,500 new people moving into dorms and apartments and houses around town this week. That's a lot of new energy to contemplate entering a large university in a very small town, and there are all kinds of local news stories about the experience, as well there should be. Young people beginning a new part of their lives -…


MOOC bill shelved in California

This is an issue that everyone in higher is following (and if you're not, you should be).  Legislation in California aimed at getting state institutions to award credit for massive open online courses from non-university system providers has been shelved for a year: The bill, SB 520, caused a stir when it was introduced, in March, by State Sen. Darrell Steinberg, a powerful Democrat in the California Legislature. Faculty unions strongly…

teacher and student with computer
Young Dawgs research program

The pipeline that connects university research to the public, from new drug treatments to insights about our own history, is one of the very important functions of higher education. The pipeline that connects young students to one day become those very researchers is just as important: Run by UGA Human Resources, Young Dawgs is doing more than capturing the imaginations of high school students and preparing them for future careers. It's also…


Ruppersburg named interim Vice Provost

It is with a heavy heart but great pride that we share reports that senior associate dean Hugh Ruppersburg has been named interim vice provost of UGA: Ruppersburg served as interim dean of the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences from 2011 to 2012 and has served as its senior associate dean since 2005. Earlier this year, he was named University Professor, an honor bestowed selectively on UGA faculty who have had a significant impact on the…


Departmental newsletters

The Franklin College is home to 30 departments and nearly 30 more centers, institutes and programs. That's a lot of news to keep up with. But our units do a great job of sharing their specific news, notes, headlines and quotes with the wider world. And what were formerly printed materials that units mailed out are now nice elctronic documents and websites that allow us to share more information than ever with a growing roster of friends, alumni…


First Honor Graduates

At commencement ceremonies on May 10, UGA recognized 13 students with the distinction of First Honor Graduate. Ranked in the top 1 percent of the 4,000-plus member class, these students have earned an outstanding achievement of maintaining perfect 4.0 cumulative grade point average throughout their undergraduate studies. Seven of the 13 are Franklin College students (now alums). Full list of names with images and hometown at the link.…


Scientists unravel complex machinery of cell function

Intriguing new work on the behavior of sugar molecules in the body, known as glycans, just published by UGA researchers. The research, startling in its breadth, is focused on the causes of a debilitating brain disease: These complex carbohydrate chains perform a host of vital functions, providing the necessary machinery for cells to communicate, replicate and survive. It stands to reason, then, that when something goes wrong with a person's…


Storm-chasing and its effects on Meteorology

Geography professor and 2013 Russell Teaching Award recipient John Knox weighs in with some much needed context (and some much-needed chiding) on the deleterious effects of storm-chasing on the field of meteorology in a USA Today op-ed: Before the Twister effect, meteorology was a pretty sedate and obscure pursuit, a small department or program at only a few dozen universities. But the total market penetration of Twister changed everything. Some…


Land-grabbing in the 21st century

Resource exploitation was the very basis for colonialism, as well as the cause for much of the development of the modern world as we know it, for better and worse. The thirst for land and resources continues around the world, especially in Africa, and people must constantly adjust to, assess and hopefully learn from its repercussions: Sub-Saharan Africa has foreign investors flocking to buy its fertile land. Sometimes referred to as "land…
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