News Archive - 2015

Whatever the curent state of the art on presenting/denying/affirming the realities and consequences of a changing global climate, UGA and Franklin College scholars have long been a trustworthy source of expertise on the subject. And it is a complex subject, which is why it calls for scholarship from such a wide range of fields from marine sciences to geography and atmospheric sciences to microbiology, forestry, ecology and the biological…

An interesting new study highlighted on the CHE blog, Wired Campus, expands on the expanding reality of the impacts of social media on informed discussions within and beyond the classroom: In a paper released on Monday, Christine Greenhow, an assistant professor of education at Michigan State University, argues that using informal social-media settings to carry on debates about science can help students refine their argumentative skills,…

Our California-based alums, and we have a lot of them, are in the spotlight this week as the university holds alumni events in Los Angeles and San Francisco. Today, it's LA: Alumni, friends and parents are invited to join President Morehead and others including faculty and staff from Franklin at a reception at the Four Seasons in Beverly Hills, details at the link. Should be fun. And the S.F. on Thursday. The Arch stretches across the country,…

Analogies can be highly effective expressions of a point that seems to go missing and/or is very difficult to understand - take the point, for example, that the Earth's resources are indeed exhaustible and need to be conserved, protected, enhanced and replenished: "You can think of the Earth like a battery that has been charged very slowly over billions of years," said the study's lead author, John Schramski, an associate professor in UGA's…

Very big news out of cellular biology and the Striepen lab in the fight against a parasite known as a major cause of suffering throughout the developing world: Researchers at the University of Georgia have developed new tools to study and genetically manipulate cryptosporidium, a microscopic parasite that causes the diarrheal disease cryptosporidiosis. Their discoveries, published in the journal Nature, will ultimately help researchers in…

Great demonstration at the geography building yesterday, and our colleague Jessica Luton shares the story: The UGA Geography building lawn looked more like a setup for a child’s birthday party or a carnival than a research project Thursday afternoon as students gathered around a red and yellow bounce house. The students, who are both undergraduate and graduate students studying atmospheric science, are taking a summer geography class meant to…

Yes, move-in day is only a few short weeks away, and our friends at University Housing are looking for volunteers to streamline the move-in process for students and their families. University Housing will welcome all new and returning students to Athens on Tuesday, August 11, and Wednesday, August 12, during Hunker Down with Housing. Volunteers from the community, students and all university staff are invited to help welcome approximately 8,000…

You can read about the Information Age on almost any page, on practically any day. More data has been created in the last fifteen years than in all previous human history. What does this mean for science? For research? For scholarship? Quite a byte(!), it turns out. Managing, storing and making this data accessible is a Herculean task that is growing by the day. It is arguably one of the greatest next-challenges of civilization, not to mention…

The work of Lamar Dodd School of Art assistant professor of drawing and painting Benjamin Britton was reviewed in Art in America earlier this year: Like many other artists whose works “hover between abstraction and representation”—pick your cliché—Britton employs elements from both ends of that spectrum. At first, the paintings, all oil on canvas over panel, appear overwhelmingly abstract. Yet landscapes, maps, decorative objects, figures and…

Later this month, a symposium will highlight the research of 10 undergraduate students from across the country who have been participating in a 10-week Research Experiences for Undergraduates program funded by the National Science Foundation. Boasting from programs as prestigious as MIT and University of California, Berkeley, the students will present their research in nanotechnology and biomedicine Friday, July 31 beginning at 8 a.m. at the…