UB in the News

An article in USA Today reports that a research team in the Center for Single Molecule Biophysics in UB's School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences has isolated a substance in tarantula venom that shows promise as a therapy for conditions including muscular dystrophy, cardiac arrhythmias and urinary incontinence. Go to article

She's chatted on national television with Leno and Oprah, but 10-year-old Elizabeth Mule of Atlanta says in an article in USA Today that her favorite public appearance was participating in a recent event at the University at Buffalo where she was interviewed by the Buffalo news media. Go to article

An article in Wired magazine reports the team behind Wikipedia is attempting to apply its collaborative information-gathering model to the news field, and quotes Alex Halavais, assistant professor of communication, who says "Wikinews" has a lot in common with other efforts at citizen journalism, but because of its collaborative editing process, should have a more neutral tone in the content of its stories.

An article in today's issue of The Wall Street Journal on entrepreneurs who lean heavily on credit cards when starting up their businesses quotes Lewis Mandell, professor of finance and managerial economics, who says the only situation in which an entrepreneur might consider racking up a lot of debt on a corporate cards is "if you have an almost-sure thing and just need to finance a couple months of credit in order to do production and finance receivables."

An Associated Press article that looks at the work of snowflake photographer Wilson Bentley appears in today's issue of USA Today, as well as several other outlets throughout the Northeast, and reports that UB students created a digital library of a collection of Bentley's work in the Buffalo Museum of Science.

An article in the Chronicle of Higher Education looks at the architecture and history of Buffalo's grain elevators and interviews Robert Shibley, professor and chair of architecture, and Lynda Schneekloth, professor of architecture, who share a vision of preserving this part of Buffalo's industrial past and making it a destination for some of the tourists who visit Niagara Falls each year.

An article in Time magazine reports on UB research that showed that the younger a person is when they have their first drink, the more likely they are to abuse alcohol as adults.

An article in The Wall Street Journal on Thanksgiving holiday travel reports on a UB study that showed that back-seat passengers who aren't wearing seatbelts are three times more likely to die in a head-on crash than belted passengers, and drivers are twice as likely to be killed if the passengers behind them aren't belted in.

Alan Lockwood, professor of neurology, was a guest last week on NPR's Science Friday for a show on the controversy over a new EPA study on pesticide exposures in young children.

An article by the Associated Press reports on UB research that found that people who live near border crossings have an increased risk of developing asthma. The article quotes Jamson Lwebuga-Mukasa, director of the Center for Asthma and Environmental Exposure.