UB in the News

An article in The Washington Times reports on research conducted by a doctoral student in the Graduate School of Education that showed that heroin addicts trying to kick the habit often profoundly grieve their lost "relationship" with the needles they use to inject the drug.

Elayne Rapping, professor of American studies, is quoted in an Associated Press article on celebrities and virginity. She says that celibacy "has become a new way to sell sex when sex has become commonplace and fairly uninteresting."

J. Gayle Beck, professor of psychology, is quoted in an Associated Press article on post-traumatic stress disorder and its impact on people other than soldiers. It is a condition that, she says, has been culturally over-diagnosed.

An article in the Christian Science Monitor on Hillary Clinton and the chances she will run for president in 2008 quotes James E. Campbell, professor of political science, who says he doubts she will be able to win over red America.

An article on CBS Marketwatch on when is the right time to buy your child a laptop quotes Douglas Clements, professor of learning and instruction, who says there is no research that shows using a laptop will increase academic achievement beyond adequate desktop access at school and at home.

An article in the Stamford Advocate on the increase in the number of small local banks that are opening to give customers an alternative to the mega-banks that have been swallowing up smaller independents over the past decade quotes Lewis Mandell, professor of finance and managerial economics, who said community banks are popping up all over the nation, and they tend to turn profitable after a few years.

An article in Newsday on the amount of business and research that NASA supports throughout the nation reports that in the past fiscal year, NASA spread $13.5 billion around the country, including $63.5 million in New York State, and that UB and Cornell appear on NASA's list of the top 100 educational beneficiaries of the agency's money.

An article in the Chicago Tribune on the spacewalk to repair gap fillers sticking out between heat-resistant tiles on the underside of the shuttle Discovery quotes Michael Holden, an aerodynamics engineer in the Calspan UB Research Center (CUBRC), which was involved in NASA's return-to-flight preparations following the destruction of the shuttle Columbia. Holden says there's little real chance that the gap filler problem could result in loss of the shuttle and its crew, but NASA is being "ultra-careful." The article was picked up by about 20 outlets, including the Philadelphia Daily News, St. Paul Pioneer Press and Kansas City Star.

An article in the Aug. 8 issue of Business Week on the growth of the surveillance technology industry looks at work being conducted by Frank V. Bright, professor of chemistry, to create super-sensors that pick up the myriad molecules released at low concentrations that constitute human scents.

An article on Yahoo! Business on efforts by the federal government to enact tort reforms reports that Lucinda Finley, vice provost for academic affairs, has conducted research that shows that noneconomic damage caps discriminate against the most vulnerable members of society. An additional article on Yahoo! Business on class action reform legislation passed in February that will send all suits with collective claims of more than $5 million to federal court, rather that state court, quotes Finley.