Faculty in the Media, January 2014

The end of the year and early 2014 has been a very active time for Franklin College faculty work and expertise. Their contributions to the public discussions on a range of subjects remains an important aspect of our work. Here are a few recent instances:

As we noted, Georgia Athletic Association Professor J. Marshall Shepherd of the department of geography was part of panel on the Polar Vortex convened by the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. We the Geeks was widely covered in the media. After the event the White House issued a summary which quoted Shepherd in the headline on the ways to think about the difference between weather and climate: "Weather is your mood and climate is your personality."

"Scientists really don't know what causes CDH, so finding new clues like this is very important," said Lianchun Wang, associate professor of biochemistry and molecular biology, in a story in HealthCanal.com on his laboratory's discovery of a specific gene that may play a role in the development of a life-threatening birth defect called congenital diaphragmatic hernia, or CDH.

"Bitcoin is a high-tech dinosaur soon to be extinct," said UGA associate professor of history Stephen Mihm in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and his regular column for Bloomberg.com

Mihm also wrote in the Charlotte Observer that New Jersey governor Chris Christie is only an amatuer bully and "doesn’t even make his top five list of “mean-spirited and vengeful politicians.”  

Mihm's regular Bloomberg.com columns addressed Pot's Sobering Lessons from Prohibition.

Christopher Lawton, Watson-Brown Postdoctoral Fellow in Southern Studies in the department of history and executive director of the Georgia Virtual history Project, is quoted in The Eatonton Messenger on the capacity for technlogy and stydent work to bring visitors to rural cities and towns.

Articles in Scientific American and on PsychCentral.com on the connections between an impulsive personality and food addictions referencs research by James MacKillop, associate professor in the department of psychology.

Team of scientists at UGA’s Complex Carbohydrate Research Center, including professor of biochemistry and molecular biology Russ Carlson, mentioned in a Phys.org story on the number one bacterial cause of stomach ailments Americans experience annually. 

Is “affluenza” a defense for a teen’s drunk driving? A Fox News report cites a 2010 UGA study and quotes assistant professor of psychology Michelle vanDellen that the level of self-control demonstrated by those around you influences one’s own level of self-control.   

Cellular biology professor Mark Farmer wrote on how 'anecdotal evidence can’t trump weight of scientific data' in his regular ABH column.

A book by Distinguished Research Professor in the department of history Peter C. Hoffer, "Clio Among the Muses" was reviewed in Inside Higher Ed.