In health care, big data is being used to predict epidemics, improve care, prevent unnecessary diseases and deaths, motivate patient fitness and lower costs. As assistant vice president of Translational Science and Clinical Research Innovation at Wayne State University and associate chair of Clinical Research for WSU’s Department of Emergency Medicine, Phillip Levy and his team develop, design and conduct studies on the determinants of health and diseases in the Detroit area based on massive sets of data.

Robert Sedler, Wayne State law professor and constitutional law expert, was a guest on the Craig Fahle Show discussing the state of the U.S. Supreme Court following the addition of Justice Kavanaugh. Sedler suggested that the public should ignore the media hype and the political statements from both sides. He said the Supreme Court acts as an institution and only about a third or less of its 70 or so cases each year are constitutional cases adding that the greater part of the Court's work is interpreting and applying federal laws and deciding questions involving the workings of the federal government. 

It's hard to look at a deal announced this week between the State of Michigan and Canadian oil giant Enbridge and not feel like Gov. Rick Snyder is really rolling the dice: Gambling that aging, damaged Line 5, an oil pipeline running through the Straits of Mackinac, won't have a significant breach or rupture in the 7 to 10 years. "This is a state and a department of environmental quality that have an absolutely horrendous record of everything from technical judgement to oversight, to, frankly, fundamentally protecting people’s water and people themselves. It’s like a bad deal between the two worst actors," says Noah Hall, a professor at Wayne State University Law School and founder of the Great Lakes Environmental Law Center.

Better than either spankings or time-outs is just patiently talking to children after their instances of bad behavior, said a veteran therapist and researcher in child behavior at Wayne State University. Douglas Barnett, a professor of psychology, said many parents "feel passionately" that spanking is effective. So just telling them not to do it is rarely successful, Barnett said. People often say, "If they hadn’t been spanked, they’d be in prison," he said. Yet, numerous academic studies — including some conducted by Barnett at WSU — have linked spanking to "negative outcomes for kids," he said.

Professor Peter J. Hammer, director of the Damon J. Keith Center for Civil Rights at Wayne State University Law School, has been named the Law School’s inaugural A. Alfred Taubman Endowed Chair. Hammer, who joined the Law School faculty in 2003, is a leading voice on economic and social issues impacting Detroit and the nation. He has spent more than 25 years engaging in matters of human rights law and development in Cambodia. Hammer is an expert on domestic health law and policy, as well as international public health and economic development. The $1.5 million endowed chair is part of a $3 million gift from the late A. Alfred Taubman in 2006 that led to the construction of the Damon J. Keith Center for Civil Rights building at Wayne Law.

Selfies have become a matter of life and death. New research identified 259 other deaths worldwide in the past six years related to selfies, of which more than a million are taken a day. In addition to dangerous selfie poses, experts also warn that posting selfies also may inadvertently expose people to other dangers: identity theft, cyber bullying and, for the selfies in bad taste, potential disqualification from school and work opportunities. Dr. David Rosenberg, the chair of the Wayne State University psychiatry and behavioral neurosciences, said this technology certainly can be "a good servant" by enhancing quality of life, but it also tends to be a "cruel and crippling master." Still, not all news about selfies is bad, and the new selfie study offered a potential solution.

At Wayne State University, Professor Amar Basu is creating a heart rate monitor in the form of an earring, scheduled for release in 2019. “There are certain types of diagnostics, like heart rate monitoring, that are appropriate to do continuously,” he says, “and the advantage of wearable sensors is that they allow you to do that.”

A recent analysis by two Wayne State University professors found that roughly one in three elementary school students changes schools every year — often in the middle of the school year. When the Wayne State professors, Sarah Winchell Lenhoff and Ben Pogodzinski, analyzed data from Detroit district and charter schools in the 2015-16 school year, they found that nearly 60 percent of students who live in Detroit — almost 50,000 children — were enrolled in two or more Detroit schools that year. Many had apparently boomeranged, returning eventually to the school where they started.

Gerrymandering is the political art of "stacking" one party's voters into as few districts as possible, and "cracking" another party's voters across as many districts as possible. Keeping all of one party's voters in few districts is a great way to ensure they don't win many districts, and, therefore, don't get to write the laws. That's "weaponizing" redistricting, says Wayne State University associate political science professor Kevin Deegan-Krause. He travels the state giving presentations on how gerrymandering works, and uses Lego blocks to provide a very useful visual aid.

Sarna Sutradhar, a 15-year-old Cass Technical High School student, has a dream to practice medicine some day. But seeing the long road from high school sophomore to doctor is not easy. Fortunately, a program she participated in last summer, the Community Health Career Pipeline (CHP), supported her goal to become a doctor by exposing her to the Detroit food system and the steps she needs to take to prepare for college. Through CHP, she participated in learning workshops and a work-study apprenticeship at the Wayne State University Farmers' Market, which provided her the opportunity to practice nutrition education, public speaking, and promotions. "Our goal is to provide a five-pillar streamlined and connected career development and community health program to support Detroit high school youth to enter college, obtain well-paying jobs, and change the health, economic, and social trajectories of their communities," says Noel Kulik, project director of CHP, a research fellow in the Center for Health and Community Impact, and faculty in the Division of Kinesiology, Health and Sport Studies Division within the Wayne State University College of Education.  

A research team at Wayne State University recently received a four-year, $1.57 million grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) for its project, “Water and Health Infrastructure Resilience and Learning.” The award is part of a multi-institutional $2 million collaborative project funded under NSF’s Critical Resilient Interdependent Infrastructure Systems and Processes program.

A research team led by Arun Iyer, Ph.D., assistant professor of pharmaceutical sciences in the Eugene Applebaum College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences at Wayne State University, has developed a nanoplatform technology that works in combination with existing chemotherapeutic drugs that may reverse drug-resistance in renal cell carcinoma.

Mildred Gaddis sits down with Darrell Dawsey, Director of Community Communications for Wayne State University, Kenya Swanson, Coordinator of the Warrior Vision & Impact Program and Michelle Hunt Bruner, Director of the Academic Success Center at Wayne State. The four discuss the Warrior Vision & Impact Program, which is designed to help first-year students through a series of early support workshops that address some of the typical challenges students face during their transition to college.

If you have trouble falling asleep at night, you may be one of the 30 percent of adults who suffers from insomnia. According to James A. Rowley, a professor of internal medicine at Wayne State University, causes include stress at home and/or work, or a stressful life event such as the death of a loved one, an upcoming exam, or a big move. Other common reasons include an irregular sleep/wake pattern, excessive alcohol use, and drinking caffeinated beverages or smoking before bed.

Wayne State University’s graduate global supply chain management program is among the nation’s top 25, according to Gartner, a leading industry research company that releases rankings every other year. Ranked No. 17, WSU is a new entrant alongside the University of Minnesota, the University of Southern California and the University of Washington. Offered through the Mike Ilitch School of Business, Wayne State’s global supply chain management program prepares students with in-depth knowledge about global challenges and the critical links in the value chain of goods.

The Association of Public and Land-grant Universities (APLU) and Coalition of Urban Serving Universities (USU) have announced grants to eight public universities, including Wayne State University, supporting the piloting and scaling of university-community partnerships focused on advancing student success. 

Distinguished Professor of Law Robert A. Sedler wrote a piece for The Conversation about the definition of treason, as set forth in the U.S. Constitution. Sedler wrote: “In the furor over the anonymous New York Times op-ed by a Trump administration “senior official,” the word “treason” has been used by a variety of people. President Trump tweeted “TREASON?” in an apparent reference to the op-ed’s author.

Jeffrey Horner, senior lecturer of Urban Studies, wrote an article for The Conversation about the history of segregation in Detroit. He wrote: “Police routinely used violent force against blacks in the U.S. before the 1940s, primarily as a means of preserving segregation in cities. It became a last line of defense for segregationists after the U.S. Supreme Court in 1948 weakened the ability of property owners to refuse to sell to people of color. 

Noah Hall, an environmental lawyer from Wayne State University, said the changes wrought by climate alterations could require amendments to water compacts. “The Great Lakes Compact states made a rare move to address a problem before it became a problem," Hall said. "While some of these reforms can happen at the state level," Hall wrote, "or through operational changes in compact administration, more fundamental changes will require revision of existing compacts." Such changes will not come easy, he added, and “will require leadership and political will." 

The net economic output by the University Research Corridor — consisting of Michigan State University, the University of Michigan and Wayne State University — equates to more than 20 times the $890 million that the state Legislature appropriated for the three schools, according to an annual economic impact study conducted by East Lansing-based Anderson Economic Group LLC.