Salt deposits left in Michigan by ancient seas feeds industry

“Michigan’s lower peninsula overlays a giant former sea bed,” said Erik Nordberg, the director of the Walter P. Reuther Library at Wayne State University. Actually, a half-dozen different sea beds. 

April 16, 2018

Mariah Carey says she has bipolar disorder; a psychiatrist explains what that is

As an assistant professor of psychiatry, I see her courage as an opportunity to explain bipolar disorder, a mood disorder that includes episodes of elevated mood, as well as episodes of depression.

April 13, 2018

The dark side of social media

Over the last two years, according to an analysis by the Free Press and BuzzFeed, at least 50 violent acts, two a month, have occurred on Facebook and Instagram live and Twitter's Periscope — the latest one here in Detroit. Criminologist Matthew Larson, an associate professor of criminology at Wayne State University, said given the millions of live-streams every day, "these acts of violence are especially rare and no doubt outliers." 

April 13, 2018

Meet Detroit’s Mortuary Science Museum

Where can you find a history of embalming fluid alongside burial records for some of Detroit’s most famous?

April 13, 2018

Michigan’s public universities are rated as veteran-friendly

Michigan’s public universities are doing their part to support student veterans and military connected students on campus. According to the Michigan Veteran Affairs Agency all 15 of Michigan’s public universities were rated as “Veteran Friendly” in its annual survey

April 10, 2018

Vision restored: The latest technologies to improve sight

Cell implants, gene therapy, even optogenetics are making headway in clinical trials to treat various forms of blindness.  

April 10, 2018

Spotlight on the News

On Sunday, April 8, Spotlight on the News will examine the theological, historical and political debate over the future of Jerusalem. Will there be a shared vision among Jews and Muslims?   We'll ask Wayne State University Professors Howard Lupovitch and Saeed Khan. who are conducting a series of public forums.  

April 6, 2018

Dark sky and robotic observatory in New Mexico

Wayne State University in Detroit today announced it has taken ownership of the Dan Zowada Memorial Observatory, located in the desert of southwest New Mexico. Russ Carroll, a retired entrepreneur and astronomer, gifted the observatory to the university’s Department of Physics and Astronomy

March 28, 2018

Fetal brain scans

Newly-developed scanning techniques allowed a team at Wayne State University to examine neural activity of 47 fetuses between 30 and 37 weeks gestation.

March 26, 2018

Trump-Hitler comparisons

Comparing politicians to Hitler is nothing new, of course. We live in an age where George W. Bush, Saddam Hussein, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Vladimir Putin, Donald Trump, Angela Merkel, Hillary Clinton (“Hitlery”) and Barack Obama have all seamlessly been compared to Hitler. That’s just a few of the more recent examples, but they clearly show just how little value such glib analogies have.

March 12, 2018

Mental illness and gun laws

When can a person be potentially dangerous to others? Not all mental illness may be a risk of harm to others. In the majority of cases when a patient is involuntarily admitted to a psychiatric inpatient unit, it is not because the person is a risk to others. Rather, it is more often the case that the person is at risk of harming himself, as in the case of a depressed, suicidal patient.

February 26, 2018

Career readiness tools

The Wayne State University Center for Health and Community Impact has been actively fighting to prepare Detroit high school students to gain those necessary skills. On Feb. 24, they will be commemorating those efforts with a public event.

February 21, 2018

It’s getting harder to prosecute politicians for corruption

The McDonnell case signals an erosion of federal corruption laws. I contend that this ruling effectively allows elected leaders to do favors for donors while raking in bountiful campaign contributions or gifts from them – with little fear that they might cross the line into illegality.

February 16, 2018

A Time for Arrogance

Jennifer M. Gómez, a postdoctoral fellow in the Wayne State University Postdoctoral to Faculty Transition Program at Merrill Palmer Skillman Institute, reflects on what she found to be a discriminatory job market -- and the resulting need for a greater allegiance to herself.

February 16, 2018

A Challenge Race Shakes Up the Running Routine

“People who are high achievers, once they’ve made this determination that they’ve mastered some sort of task, it’s no longer a challenge and it loses some of its motivational qualities,” said Jeffrey Martin, professor of kinesiology, health and sports studies at Wayne State University. 

February 15, 2018

Getting kids to class may be harder than some lawmakers think. A new study casts doubt on how big a role educators can play

Two Wayne State University researchers, Sarah Lenhoff and Ben Pogodzinski, said in a report published last week, that when it comes to whether a child will get to class, some schools have more influence over attendance than others.   

February 15, 2018

The 2 things North Korea's Kim Yo Jong and Ivanka Trump have in common

As the Winter Olympics kicked off in PyeongChang, South Korea, this weekend, the media turned their attention to one notable nonathlete attendee: Kim Yo Jong, the sister of North Korean Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un. Stine Eckert, chair of the feminist scholarship division of the International Communication Association and an assistant professor of communications at Wayne State University, notes that there is one particularly notable comparison that should be made between the two women in question. “They are both blueprints for whatever at the time their society and current administration needs in terms of a tool to advance their political agendas,” Eckert says.

February 12, 2018

1 in 5 college students have anxiety or depression. Here’s why

February 9, 2018

The science of anuptaphobia — the fear of being single

Dating anxiety is well-documented, but, being single also has moments of anxiety. In fact, the fear of being single is often based on social judgment that “there is something wrong with you” for not maintaining relationships, says Stephanie Spielmann, assistant professor of psychology at Wayne State University, who has studied the fear of being single. 

February 5, 2018

Column: Don’t attack legal immigration

“If you hate legal immigration, then Trump’s new plan is for you,” Jonathan T. Weinberg wrote. The plan, according to Weinberg, would give us a nearly 40 percent cut in what President Trump calls “chain migration,” and the rest of us call “family-based migration” – legal immigration to the United States to join a close family member who is a U.S. citizen or green card holder. “Trump’s plan is based on a fundamental misunderstanding of how U.S. immigration law works, and what immigration to this country has always looked like. This plan isn’t an attack on illegal immigration; it’s an attack on the legal immigration that has made this country strong,” Weinberg wrote.

February 1, 2018