National media outlets featured and cited UNL sources on a number of occasions through the month of November. Among the appearances:
Al-Jazeera America’s Nov. 3 TechKnow program featured concussion research by Dennis Molfese, psychology, at UNL’s Center for Brain, Biology and Behavior. http://go.unl.edu/r3p2
In a Nov. 26 New York Times special section on the changing American family, Dawn Braithwaite, communication studies, offered her observations on a growing phenomenon, of biologically unrelated individuals who self-identify as family. She and her colleagues term such families as “voluntary kin.” http://go.unl.edu/xhq6
Slate and other outlets turned Nov. 6 to UNL’s Susan Swearer, educational psychology, for her insight into reports that Miami Dolphins lineman Richie Incognito had bullied a fellow player. Swearer’s research on bullying is nationally recognized. http://go.unl.edu/ye0r
UNL climate scientists’ resistance against a politically slanted climate study commissioned by the Nebraska Legislature was reported Nov. 7 by
LiveScience.Com, The Huffington Post and Yahoo! News, among other outlets.
http://go.unl.edu/i43x
News that UNL researchers have developed a way to generate synchrotron X-rays using a compact but powerful laser was reported by Phys.Org on Nov. 24, Photonics.com and Zee News on Nov. 25, and Nature World News and BioOptics World on Nov. 26. Donald Umstadter, physics and astronomy, said the development could make research-quality X-rays more readily available to science, medicine and homeland security, in much the same way that handheld smart phones have made computer technology more widely available. Umstadter is director of the Diocles Extreme Light Laboratory at UNL. http://go.unl.edu/ez8h http://go.unl.edu/42q9
UNL Chancellor Harvey Perlman was quoted Nov. 11 by Sports Illustrated/CNN about an imminent overhaul of the NCAA to better address issues involving high-revenue college football programs. http://go.unl.edu/jyu4
After a Nov. 12 blog post in The Monkey Cage, a Washington Post political science blog, questioned the value of new studies of the genetic bases of political behavior, UNL’s John Hibbing, political science, defended his field in a Nov. 27 blog post on why biology belongs in political science. Hibbing also was interviewed in a Nov. 13 report by The Hill about national conservative groups duking it out in the Nebraska Republican primary for the U.S. Senate. http://go.unl.edu/d8fh http://go.unl.edu/xi98 http://go.unl.edu/dsyr
Adam Liska, biological systems engineering, was among experts interviewed in an Associated Press investigation of U.S. ethanol policy’s environmental costs. The report was published nationwide Nov. 12. http://go.unl.edu/y6jc
Wheeler Winston Dixon, film studies and English, discussed the trends that have resulted in a dwindling number of drive-in movie theaters across the country in a Nov. 1 Capital News Service feature story about the last remaining drive-in theater in Maryland. The piece was published by several Washington D.C.-area news organizations. Dixon also was quoted in a Nov. 15 BBC story about the shortage of “bankable” leading men in Hollywood these days. http://go.unl.edu/533w http://go.unl.edu/5ciy
In a Nov. 5 report, LiveScience talked to UNL’s Ross Secord, earth and atmospheric sciences, about new research showing that mammals – in particular, the ancestors of modern-day horses – shrank in size as global temperatures rose more than 50 million years ago. Secord said the new findings from the University of New Hampshire were consistent with his research, published last year, that found mammals decreased in size by about 30 percent during an earlier warming period. http://go.unl.edu/d568
The Associated Press reported Nov. 26 that the estate of Mary Riepma Ross had provided $7.7 million to establish a permanent endowment to support UNL’s media arts center. Ross was a New York City attorney who died in 2013. http://go.unl.edu/6izu
Faculty, administration, student and staff appearances in the national media are logged at http://newsroom.unl.edu/inthenews/. If you have additions to this list or suggestions for national news stories, contact Leslie Reed at lreed5@unl.edu or 402-472-2059.
