Check out the new episode of the UVA Today Radio Show, a weekly five minute segment on WTJU radio. Look for new editions of the show every Wednesday at 11:55 a.m. on WTJU. Afterward, all of the segments will be posted oniTunesU.
Read more about the stories featured in this week’s program:
It’s been a little while since the Boston Globe’s influential Ideas column featured a U.Va. professor. This week, an article on “the surprising moral force of disgust” includes plenty of research and quotes from psychology professor Jonathan Haidt. He is portrayed as a leading voice in one camp of moral reasoning scholars who argue that moral reasoning is simply an after-the-fact story we create to explain our instinctive emotional reactions, such as a strongly held but arbitrary feeling of disgust:
“Moral reasoning is often like the press secretary for a secretive administration — constantly generating the most persuasive arguments it can muster for policies whose true origins and goals are unknown,” [Haidt] wrote in a 2007 paper in Science.
Check out the new episode of the UVA Today Radio Show, a weekly five minute segment on WTJU radio. Look for new editions of the show every Wednesday at 11:55 a.m. on WTJU. Afterward, all of the segments will be posted oniTunesU.
Read more about the stories featured in this week’s program:
Check out the new episode of the UVA Today Radio Show, a weekly five minute segment on WTJU radio. Look for new editions of the show every Wednesday at 11:55 a.m. on WTJU. Afterward, all of the segments will be posted oniTunesU.
Read more about the stories featured in this week’s program:
From a post Friday on the Washington Post’s College Inc. blog, researchers at the University of California, Davis and the Air Force Academy have found that professors that earn the highest marks from their students are not necessarily the same ones who prepare them best for advanced study in their fields.
The study looks at evaluations and grades from cadets at the Air Force Academy who are randomly assigned to introductory courses with several sections — all using identical syllabi — then take follow-up courses.
They found that the students in the highest-rated professors’ introductory courses fared worse later on. A much better predictor of future success is the introductory professor’s higher academic rank, and greater teaching and educational experience.
According to the Post report, the researchers conclude that students reward the professors who allow them to get good grades with less effort, and punish those who are more demanding of them.
Ownership of computers is at fully 100 percent of the first-year class
43 percent of first-years brought Macs with them, showing Apple’s continued staggering growth (rising steadily each year since a decade ago when just 3 percent had Macs)
In contrast, Windows usage continues to fall, now just 56 percent (a decade ago it was 95 percent)
Nearly 60 percent own a portable network device such as smartphone or PDA – just two years ago, only 5 percent did!
UVA Magazine has a quirky piece in its online issue this month on the Class of 2010’s “110 Things to Do Before You Graduate.” (You can read the whole list here.) There’s still time to work most of them in, but it’s too late to view the Lighting of the Lawn if you somehow missed it.
Brad Cox, a U.Va. professor of physics who has been involved with the planning and instrument design for the LHC since its inception in 1993, said his group “is very gratified and tremendously excited to see that the Large Hadron Collider has achieved proton-proton collisions at the world record energy of 7 TeV, thereby moving into the realm of new physics. I expect new discoveries in the next few years as we accumulate data at these huge energies. This is what we have been waiting for and working toward.”
If you’re an undergrad looking to research something having to do with the American presidency, U.Va.’s Miller Center of Public Affairs may be able to help.
The center offers a $5,000 undergraduate research award — $4,000 to the student and $1,000 to his/her faculty sponsor — for independent work related to the center’s work. Helpful hint: Student who choose advisers from among the center’s faculty will receive priority.
The application deadline has been extended to April 15. Applicants will be notified in May, and final reports are due in April 2011.
First-year graduate student Rachael Beaton was invited to write an entry for the Discovery Space’s “Next Generation” blog. Her post, describing the drudgery and majesty of her field, makes for a great read.
Large aperture telescopes (greater than 4 meters in diameter) are magnificent feats of engineering. I don’t think I’ve been introduced to one that hasn’t taken my breath away. They have the same majesty of Roman architecture, one feels dwarfed and yet is so taken by awe as to feel a part of the structure itself.
“They deserve all the credit for sponsoring a first-rate professional conference that I trust will serve as a milestone in the school’s history,” he said.
The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, a/k/a the federal stimulus package, contained nearly $22 billion in research funds, much of which has already been entrusted to public and private colleges and universities.
In the interests of transparency and accountability, those colleges and universities today joined together and announced a new Web site, “ScienceWorksForUS.org,” which hosts a vast database that details where those funds have gone.
Users can break down grants by state (here’s the page for Virginia), and then further by granting agency. There are also links to stories and press releases about the grants and some of the projects they fund. and you can sign up for e-mail updates.
It’s a good way for Americans to check up on their investments.
U.Va. astronomy professor Bob O’Connell, who chairs the oversight committee for the Wide Field Camera 3 at U.Va., was on hand Tuesday as NASA unveiled the first incredible images from the newly refurbished Hubble Space Telescope.
Here’s AP’s account of the unveiling, including a quote from O’Connell.
ITC’s 
The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, a/k/a the federal stimulus package, contained nearly $22 billion in research funds, much of which has already been entrusted to public and private colleges and universities.
The next edition of the University of Virginia Magazine is in the mail, but you can get 