Social Sciences

The next time you're about to pop a chunk of moldy Gorgonzola, lamb's lung, aged beef or urine-scented kidney into your mouth, consider its meaning. "Part of the experience of this sort of meal," says Carolyn Korsmeyer, professor of philosophy at the University at Buffalo, "involves an awareness, however underground, of the presence of death amid the continuance of one's own life."

On the corner of Niagara and Jersey streets in Buffalo is a community garden, with bright red hibiscus blooming in the summer, and evergreens decorated for the holiday season. The once-vacant lot is testament to how communities throughout Buffalo are reclaiming blighted, abandoned property and turning it into welcoming green space and a source of fresh food. The gardens also may be a way in which members of urban neighborhoods can reclaim political visibility and empowerment, says a graduate student in the Department of Geography at the University at Buffalo.

Women tend to adapt to their husband's drinking behavior during the first year of marriage, with his drinking behavior influencing who they choose as friends and the role of drinking in their social life, according to research conducted at the University at Buffalo's Research Institute on Addictions.

Although the ancient Inca are renowned for their highly organized society and extraordinary skill in working with gold, stone and pottery, few are familiar with the khipu -- an elaborate system of colored, knotted strings that many researchers believe to be primarily mnemonic in nature, like a rosary -- that was used by the ancient conquerors to record information. Because the Inca didn't employ a recognizable system of writing, researchers like UB's Galen Brokaw have focused on the khipu as a way to further illuminate Inca history and culture.

The National Science Foundation has selected the University at Buffalo's National Center for Geographic Information and Analysis to receive a highly competitive, five-year, $3.8 million grant to fund a multidisciplinary, graduate-level training program in geographic information science.

A series of studies led by a University at Buffalo psychologist involving a group of Rhesus monkeys and a bottlenose dolphin suggest that some animals have functional features of, or parallels to, human conscious metacognition.

A study led by a University at Buffalo researcher has shown that combining medication and family treatment leads to improved outcomes in male heroin abusers.

Hundreds of artists in all corners of the world -- a number of them at the University at Buffalo -- use emerging technologies as a tool for material and cultural analysis. One of them is conceptual artist Marc Bohlen, UB assistant professor of media study. His medium is not oil or bronze, but robotics and site-specific data, and his practice combines the structured approach of scientific investigation with artistic intuition, spiced with a deliberate and effective dash of good or bad taste.

The University at Buffalo has established the Center for Unified Biometrics and Sensors, a new, cross-disciplinary center that takes a unique approach to developing technologies in biometrics, the science of identifying individuals based on their physical, chemical or behavioral characteristics.

The relationship between war and the media as seen from a variety of perspectives will be the focus of an international conference to be held at the University at Buffalo on Nov. 17 and 18.