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UNL in the national news: May 2014
National media outlets featured and cited UNL sources on a number of occasions throughout the month of May:
The month launched with Wheeler Winston Dixon, film studies, declaring in a May 1 Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel article that “Godzilla,” this summer’s monster movie, would restore the franchise after 28 sequels and remakes. Later, Dixon chatted with the BBC’s “Reel World” for a May 14 story about the 20th anniversary of “Pulp Fiction,” and on May 25, he discussed the 30th anniversary of “Ghostbusters” in the Arizona Republic. A May 21 article on Film International turned the critical tables on Dixon, with the author analyzing the professor’s own film works.
Alan Baquet, director of the PGA golf management program, was among golf experts featured on a May 1 Wallet Hub article discussing financial literacy, golf and the “First Tee” youth development program.
Matthew Bokovoy, a senior editor at the University of Nebraska Press and author of a 2005 book on San Diego’s World’s Fairs, was among the scholars cited May 3 by the San Diego Union-Tribune about the city’s “awakening” with a major exposition in 1915. The exposition, a $3 million event marking the opening of the Panama Canal, had a profound effect on how the world came to view Southern California and the Southwest, said Bokovoy, who is a San Diego native.
Extension educator Sarah J. Browning was among the gardening experts cited in a May 14 Associated Press article for high-yield gardening in small or dry areas. The article was carried by numerous outlets across the country over several weeks including Yahoo! News and the Macon Telegraph.
People’s Daily Online published a story May 29 about the Chinese language classes provided Nebraska school children through the UNL’s Confucius Institute.
After the U.S.D.A. predicted a record 13.9 billion-bushel corn crop this year, Dennis Conley, agricultural economics, warned that much could change before harvest in a May 9 Associated Press article published by ABC News, the Richmond Times-Dispatch, Farm Forum and other outlets.
Numerous outlets across the country carried an Associated Press report that UNL scientists had received more than $1.1 million in grants to research corn rootworms.
The Takeaway, a national NPR news talk program interviewed Kwame Dawes, poet and Prairie Schooner editor, after Maya Angelou’s death on May 28.
An May 24 article jointly produced by TIME and 24/7Wall Street used data from UNL’s National Drought Mitigation Center to identify the seven most drought-stricken states in the nation. The article appeared in USA TODAY May 25.
Joseph S. Francisco’s appointment as the new dean of the College of Arts and Sciences was reported by The Chronicle of Higher Education on May 5.
James Garza, history, was quoted in a May 9 Chicago Tribune article about a spat between history museums in Illinois and Texas over Mexican General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna’s wooden leg, captured by Illinois soldiers during the Mexican-American War in 1847.
A new approach to an HIV vaccine being developed by Jiantao Guo, chemistry, Qingsheng Li, biological sciences, and Wei Niu, chemistry, was reported on Medical Xpress and Science Codex May 29.
Arkansas Online reported May 13 about an upcoming speech by John Hibbing, political science, at the Clinton School for Public Administration in Little Rock, Ark.
Justin “Gus” Hurwitz, law, participated in a panel discussion about the FCC’s proposed “open internet rules,” broadcast on C-Span May 16.
The Boston Globe cited Kenneth Kiewra, educational psychology, in a May 25 article on whether it’s more effective for students to take notes with pen and paper or with their laptops.
Ari Kohen, political science, was among experts quoted by The Dish in a May 20 blog post whether college faculty should required to issue “trigger warnings” before teaching potentially sensitive subjects, such as sexual violence, genocide and torture. Kohen later was interviewed by NPR’s “The Takeaway” radio talk show, in a May 22 program on the same topic.
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An engineering strategy to combat obesity, under development by Jung Yul Lim, mechanical and materials engineering, was featured in the May 20 “Today’s Video” on Science 360, the National Science Foundation news service.
The Associated Press reported May 24 on the UNL microgravity team traveling to NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston to test its design for a zero-gravity biosensor, a device that could be swallowed to monitor a person’s vital signs in space.
Richard Moberly, law, and his “Law of Secrecy” blog were featured in the Wall Street Journal’s Risk & Compliance Journal blog May 30, discussing a Nebraska federal judge’s decision on the Dodd-Frank Act’s provisions regarding whistleblowers and the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Edwardsiella andrillae, the ice-burrowing sea anemone species discovered in Antarctica by a team led by Frank Rack, ANDRILL director, was named one of the top recently discovered species in a May 22 TIME magazine article.
A study examining the scarcity of young women in the rural Great Plains, conducted by Robert Shepard, geography graduate student, received national coverage May 15 by WHAS-AM in Louisville, Ky.; May 16 by TIME; May 19 by Politix and the Rural Blog and May 23 by LiveScience and Yahoo! News.
A May 1 item on the Huffington Post featured a dental research project involving UNL psychology graduate student Grant Shulman. The research, published in the Journal of the American Dental Association, found that people with strong gag reflexes tend to be more afraid of dental care.
In a May 13 piece published in the Christian Science Monitor, Kevin Smith, political science, discussed the influence of outside money in Nebraska’s primary election.
Newly published research by Jeffrey Stevens, psychology, about primate species’ ability to be patient was the subject of May 14-15 articles by Science 2.0, Phys.org, Environmental News Network and Science World Report.
A May 20 article on TheStreet.com highlighted the UNL Student Money Management Center’s list of consumer items best avoided by frugal students because of high mark-ups.
In the May 13 Insurance Journal, Mark Svoboda, National Drought Mitigation Center, discussed “once-in-a-generation” drought conditions in California, Texas and Oklahoma that intensified the risks of wildfire.
WAVE News (NBC) in Louisville, Ky., was among many outlets across the nation that reported UNL’s status as a top ranking provider of online programs for veterans, as rated by U.S. News & World Report. Other coverage came in San Diego; Minneapolis-St. Paul; Yahoo.com; Columbus, Ga.; Traverse City, Mich.; and Erie, Pa.; among other markets.
Matthew Waite, journalism, was quoted numerous times about the growing use of drones for commercial purposes, including newsgathering. Waite, director of UNL’s drone journalism laboratory, discussed the recent purchase of drones by La Prensa Grafica newspaper in El Salvador in an article that appeared on MinnPost May 5 and NBC News May 8. He was interviewed May 5 on NPR’s “All Things Considered. He also was quoted in the San Diego Daily Transcript and The Christian Science Monitor on May 8, Fox News Latino May 9, Wall Street Journal, May 11, KPIX/KCBS (San Francisco), May 13, the Columbus Dispatch on May 14, New Scientist on May 15.
Efforts by Harkamal Walia, agronomy and horticulture, to develop more salt-tolerant rice varieties, were featured in the May 2 video of the day on Science 360, the National Science Foundation’s news service.
Sandra Zellmer, law, was interviewed May 8 for a Harvest Public Media story about landowners suing the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers over the 2011 Missouri River floods. In the interview, which aired on public radio affiliates including WOI-FM in Iowa and WBEZ in Chicago, Zellmer said the landowners were unlikely to prevail.
