Tags: Human Nature


The Onus of Responsibility

Interim dean Hugh Ruppersburg addressed the UGA chapter of Phi Beta Kappa in December, 2011 on the thread of responsibility running through Arthur Miller's All My Sons, the scandal at Penn State and the future of these UGA graduates: Arthur Miller’s play is about men who fail to do what is right, about a man whose desire to protect his name and his business causes the death of his own son and of other American young men fighting in the Second…


Stonehenge at LDSOA

In Tess of the d'Urbervilles, Thomas Hardy described the solitude of Stonehenge:  ‘What can it be? … A very Temple of the Winds’ … ‘It seems as though there were no folk in the world but we two’ … they … listened a long time to the wind among the pillars … Presently the wind died out, and the quivering little pools in the cup-like hollows of the stones lay still." A prehistoric icon that is also an enduring puzzle, recent excavations and…


Tree of Life

Evolutionary biology is the 10-meter spring board for some of the greatest questions in science and epidemiology. How do species arise? How do genes diversify and acquire new functions? How do pathogens evolve and how does that information lead to new and better understanding of diseases? The study of evolutionary relationships is called Phylogeny, and one of the world's foremost experts in phylogeny is David Hillis, who will visit the…


On grammatical precision

To think clearly is to write clearly is to speak clearly. When it comes to the faltering standards of English language usage and practice, the evidence abounds and can seem overwhelming. All who engage as teachers, and at any level, really have their work cut out for them. All writers and speakers everywhere take their places on the front lines of this struggle simultaneously as well, providing examples for better and often worse. The importance…


The Role of Sports

As the NCAA meets in Indianapolis this week to discuss some of the most pressing issues facing collegiate athletics, it's a good time to contemplate the role of sports of in society. Not suprisingly, it's a question that goes back to Plato: Sports are many things, and one of those things is an imitation of heroic culture. They mimic the martial world; they fabricate the condition of war. (Boxing doesn't fabricate war; it is war, and,…


Targeting Cellular Invaders

My colleague Sam Fahmy brings us this story today, from UGA researchers harnessing bacterial immune systems to fight infection and disease: “Scientists study bacteria and other microorganisms to understand essential life processes as well as to improve their use in the safe production of foods, biofuels and pharmaceuticals, and to fight those that cause disease,” said Michael Terns, a professor in the departments of biochemistry and molecular…


Happy Holidays

Happy Holidays and all the best in 2012 from the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences.


UGA scientists move closer to breast cancer vaccine

Work by researchers from Franklin College and the Mayo Clinic in Arizona is being widely reported: Researchers from the University of Georgia and the Mayo Clinic in Arizona have developed a vaccine that dramatically reduces tumors in a mouse model that mimics 90 percent of human breast and pancreatic cancer cases—including those resistant to common treatments. The vaccine, described this week in the early edition of the journal Proceedings…


New study shows surprise in Hormone levels in babies, toddlers

"Surprisingly, the CAR hasn't been widely studied in infants or young children," said psychology doctoral student Melissa Bright, who led the study. "There is consensus that the adult pattern of cortisol response isn't present at birth, but much less is known about when in the first year of life it is established." The research team, from the department of psychology, the UGA Infant Rresearch Lab and the Johns Hopkins School of Nursing,…


Franklin physicists invent near infrared-emitting material

UGA news service reports on newly published work by physics and astronomy faculty member, Zhengwei Pan: Materials that emit visible light after being exposed to sunlight are commonplace and can be found in everything from emergency signage to glow-in-the-dark stickers. But until now, scientists have had little success creating materials that emit light in the near-infrared range, a portion of the spectrum that only can be seen with the aid of…
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