Metro Detroit has become one of the nation’s COVID-19 hotspots. And experts predict the situation will get even more dire in the next several weeks. The city of Detroit is a hotspot within the hotspot. As of Thursday, the city reported 888 COVID-19 cases, with 19 deaths so far. Why is that? Jonathan Stillo, a medical anthropologist and assistant professor at Wayne State University, said some of the explanation for Detroit’s numbers in particular comes down to simple geography—densely-populated urban centers foster the spread of communicable diseases, and Detroit may just be a bit ahead of the curve compared to some other places. “But we’re still nowhere near where we need to be in terms of seeing the whole picture,” Stillo said. “Right now, we’re only seeing little snapshots, and those are totally dependent on how much testing is happening. “It makes the job of researchers, and folks who are trying to figure out what’s going on and make policy to address it, really hard. We’re flying blind, I think, in a lot of ways.” Stillo said data on racial demographics would be helpful. So would data about whether groups of people who are disproportionately sick and dying have certain underlying conditions. Although it’s difficult to tell whether specific racial groups such as African Americans might be at higher risk from COVID-19, Stillo said some basic public health and social science data tell us that’s probably the case. “African American folks in Detroit have higher rates of asthma, they have higher rates of diabetes, they have higher rates of some of these conditions that we think may make outcomes worse,” Stillo said. “You’re sort of layering biological problems on top of already-existing social problems.

Some local groceries have been picked thin in the wake of thousands of Metro Detroiters stocking up in preparation for quarantine. But instead of frozen and canned foods, one Wayne State nutritionist says creating your own soups and grain-based dishes is a healthier way to feed yourself and your family during this crisis. “You don’t want to be throwing anything away right now. You want to maximize what you have,” said Wayne State University nutritionist Diane Cress. Cress says, before you go shopping again, pay attention to what can still be used at home. “Get your nutrients from food and then you get the right doses. If you get them from supplements, things are imbalanced. Food is cheaper and tastes better.”

Kirsten Carlson, associate professor of law and adjunct associate professor of political science, wrote an article for The Conversation about the oversight relationship between the branches of government.

Since it was first defined more than 2,000 years ago, mathematicians have tried to find pi’s exact value. Pi has many fans, who celebrate National Pi Day on March 14 (3/14). The U.S. House of Representatives passed a non-binding resolution recognizing Pi Day in 2009. In recent years, Raskind says Wayne State has ramped up its efforts to spread awareness and appreciation of pi. “We have a STEM day,” Raskind says. “I did a session on everything you always wanted to know about pi. I had about 35 students or so, and they loved it.” Raskind says he hopes promoting pi day will help people appreciate math more, and break stereotypes about those who are interested in mathematics.

Kirsten Carlson, associate professor of law and adjunct associate professor of political science, wrote an article for The Conversation about the 2020 Census and the challenge of counting Native Americans living on reservations and in traditional villages, the most undercounted people in the 2010 U.S. Census. The Census Bureau estimates that it undercounted American Indians living on reservations and Alaska Natives in villages by approximately 4.9% in 2010. “This year, tribal leaders throughout the U.S. are urging American Indians and Alaska Natives to be seen and counted in the 2020 U.S. Census,” Carlson wrote. “Native leaders across the U.S. have been working to educate Native people about the importance of being counted in the 2020 U.S. Census. The National Congress of the American Indian, the oldest, largest and most representative American Indian and Alaska Native organization, has undertaken a public education campaign and designed a toolkit to help tribes and native people participate in the Census. Tribes have devoted considerable energy and resources to preventing another undercount. Beginning in 2015, they have consulted with the Census Bureau on how to build collaborative relationships to overcome the barriers to counting people in Indian Country. Tribal leaders are using their expertise in reaching their own communities by developing outreach plans to encourage tribal participation and hiring tribal citizens to collect Census data. For tribes, an accurate count will enhance their ability to exercise sovereignty over their lands and people.

Democrats in Michigan have been mobilizing for months for a fierce general election fight against President Trump, determined not to lose this Midwest battleground as they did in 2016. Even before they know who their nominee will be, Democratic groups are pouring millions of dollars into anti-Trump ads here, portraying the Republican president as an unstable leader who threatens Americans’ healthcare and the nation’s security. A network of progressive groups across Michigan has already identified voters susceptible to voting against Trump and started reaching out to them on issues they care about most. Michigan’s presidential primary — the biggest of six Democratic contests Tuesday — will test the appeal of former Vice President Joe Biden and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders in a state likely to play an outsize role in deciding whether Trump wins a second term. Ken Jackson, an English professor at Wayne State University, grew up in Macomb County. He sees Trump’s swagger as a big part of his appeal to white working-class voters here, including many whose families fled Detroit for the suburbs in the “white flight” that began amid the racial tensions and riots of the 1960s. “A lot of that aggressive banter is very deeply connected to the cultural habits and speech patterns of these folks,” Jackson said. “That’s something they’re quite comfortable with. They associate that with authenticity and truth-telling.”

We’re entering a new era of space exploration in the United States. Private firms are pushing the boundaries of what is possible with technology and innovation. And the Trump Administration wants to get us back to the moon for the first time since 1972 as part of a longer strategy to put a human on Mars. Wayne State University has its own robotic dark sky observatory in New Mexico that can be operated remotely. “The Dan Zowada Memorial Observatory is a state-of-the-art 20-inch robotically-controlled remote observatory in the high desert of Rodeo, New Mexico, at an altitude of 4,128 feet,” according to the observatory’s page on WSU’s website. “This location has some of the darkest skies in the nation!” Edward Cackett is a Wayne State University astrophysicist. His research looks at trying to understand how material falls into black holes — a process called ‘accretion’ — as well as trying to understand the structure of extremely dense stars called neutron stars. “If we learn about how the black hole grows, how things fall into the black hole, it helps us understand better how galaxies form, how galaxies evolve, and that, of course, tells us eventually about how we come about — how we form solar systems and how everything evolves.”

Elizabeth Stoycheff, associate professor of communication, wrote an article for The Conversation. “You might have fallen for someone’s attempt to disinform you about current events. But it’s not your fault. Even the most well-intentioned news consumers can find today’s avalanche of political information difficult to navigate. With so much news available, many people consume media in an automatic, unconscious state – similar to knowing you drove home but not being able to recall the trip. And that makes you more susceptible to accepting false claims. But, as the 2020 elections near, you can develop habits to exert more conscious control over your news intake. Teach these strategies to students in a course on media literacy, helping people become more savvy news consumers in four simple steps.”

Learn the secrets of some of the most mysterious phenomena in space this Thursday, February 27, at Hopcat in Detroit. Wayne State Astrophysicist Ed Cackett will help you explore the university’s latest research on the physics of black holes and neutron stars, both some of the most compact objects in the universe. Neutron stars, for example, says Cackett, are some of the densest. “The material inside [a neutron star] is denser than an atomic nucleus. The equivalent is crushing down the entirety of humanity into the size of a sugar cube.” Cackett also studies black holes, one of the most misunderstood physical phenomena in popular culture. He says, with Wayne State’s Dan Zowada Memorial Observatory in New Mexico, he and other researchers can look at how objects fall into black holes, specifically, by measuring the light that’s emitted as they fall past the event horizon.

Does the thought of eating bugs make you cringe? You’re not alone, especially in further north areas like Michigan. “We have these harsh winters, [so] insects aren’t available,” says Julie Lesnik, an anthropology professor at Wayne State University who specializes in the evolution of the human diet and using insects as a food source. “It’s not a part of a lot of traditional diets in higher latitudes. “This isn’t just something that primitive people eat, this is a food resource that has been smartly used for millions of years and in a lot of ways we are silly for ignoring it.” But Lesnik makes the argument that eating — and farming — insects may make sense for a growing population where our food system leads to growing inequity, hunger and obesity. Bugs are also an environmentally-friendly food source and rich in nutrients, and a culture built around it with recipes and even a business in metro Detroit. WDET’s Anna Sysling spoke to Lesnik on the colonialist history of our bug aversion, the case for an insect-based farming system and how you can start dabbling in this diet.

Anne P. DePrince, professor of psychology at the University of Denver, and Jennifer M. Gómez, Wayne State University assistant professor, wrote a Conversation piece about the trial of media mogul Harvey Weinstein and the painful effects on women and minorities. “For months, he (Weinstein) has presented his pain to us, granting a hospital-room interview to catalog his suffering and using a walker on his way in and out of the courthouse. His defense team has argued he deserves your sympathy. They asked the judge to let Weinstein’s surgeon testify to confirm their client is “hurt and enfeebled. These requests for your compassion are reminders that sympathy is not automatic. Not everyone gets our sympathy when they show us their pain. Whose pain, then, are we most likely to see, believe and ultimately award our sympathy? And what do those tendencies mean for health outcomes and courtroom justice? As trauma psychologists, we have spent a great deal of time researching the impact of violence and how survivors are treated when they disclose. In studying trauma and intimate violence, we have learned much about whose pain is believed or disbelieved. Studies suggest there is bias against women and ethnic minorities in both the health care and criminal justice systems. Pain bias in the health care system.”

A team from Wayne State University, led by Miriam Greenberg, Ph.D., professor of biological sciences in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, recently received a grant from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute of the National Institutes of Health to work on potential new targets for treating Barth syndrome (BTHS). The four-year, nearly $1.5 million award, aims to identify specific metabolites as candidates for new treatments for Barth syndrome and other cardiomyopathies. Barth syndrome is a rare and life-threatening, X-linked genetic disorder that primarily affects males and is passed from mother to son; women who are carriers do not show symptoms of the disorder. Fifty percent of children born to a mother who is a carrier will inherit the defective gene, and all daughters born to an affected man will be carriers. BTHS is caused by a mutation in the tafazzin gene that results in decreased production of cardiolipin, an essential lipid for energy metabolism. According to Greenberg, BTHS causes numerous pathologies, including cardiomyopathy, a disorder of the heart muscle; neutropenia, a reduction in the number of white blood cells; hypotonia, reduced muscle tone; undeveloped skeletal muscles and muscle weakness; delayed growth; decreased stamina; physical disability; and methylglutaconic aciduria, an increase in an organic acid that is characteristic of abnormal mitochondrial function.

President Donald Trump has been acquitted of two impeachment charges. The hearings have been endowed with an air of inevitability. But the predictable partisan conclusion of this process was upset by Sen. Mitt Romney’s (R-Utah) surprising break from party lines. Romney made history with his vote to remove the president from office on the charge of abuse of power, making him the first senator to vote in favor of impeaching a president from his own party. “There are areas of agreement between Democrats and Republicans. It’s hard to imagine that happening during a presidential election year,” says Marc Kruman, founding director of the Center for the Study of Citizenship and professor of history. Ultimately the Utah senator’s vote didn’t impact President Trump’s swift acquittal, but it did raise questions regarding the state of American politics and the role of congress moving forward. He says this impeachment process has, not surprisingly, been viewed through the lens of partisan politics. The unwillingness of elected officials to see beyond party has left American democracy in a fragile state, says Kruman. In order to restore some type of order he says there has to be a move toward compromise and consensus. “There are, in fact, areas of agreement between Democrats and Republicans that they should work on. It’s hard to imagine that happening during a presidential election year.”

Frederic S. Pearson, professor of political science and director of the Center for Peace and Conflict Studies, wrote an op-ed tracing the U.S.-Iran relations. “The up-and-down U.S.-Iranian relationship, at times teetering on the brink of war, is highly complicated and fraught with historical memories; it cannot be characterized simply as black and white/good and evil. Recent developments indicate that with the crackdown on Iran and its militias, as well as Washington’s blow to Kurdish forces in Syria with the green light to Turkish occupation of their zones, the U.S. has essentially weakened the two most effective anti-ISIS forces, while stirring up massive anti-American popular responses in Iran, Iraq and Yemen.”

By 2050 there will be an estimated 10 billion humans living on this planet. That's not just a lot of mouths to feed, those folks will be, on average, wealthier than today's population with a taste for the foods found in regions like the U.S. and Western Europe. We simply don't have the capability, the land or production resources to ensure that many people can eat a cheeseburger whenever the mood strikes. Luckily, researchers from around the globe are working on alternative protein sources to supplement our existing beef, pork and chicken. Julie Lesnik, a biological anthropologist at Wayne State University, advocates that we look to get our meat from smaller, more resource-efficient animals than cattle -- specifically, crickets. She points out that, per kilogram, crickets offer roughly the same amount of protein as beef as well as significantly more micronutrients since you're consuming the exoskeleton as well. She also notes that given their diminutive stature and affinity for cramped dark places, crickets require far less arable land than cattle do, citing a 2013 report by the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization. "When we're thinking about why we don't eat insects, it's really a story of Europe, and that Europe being in high latitudes, insects aren't available year-round," Lesnick continued. "Eating insects in the summer can give a reprieve from hunting, but it's nutritionally redundant, so it's not an important resource."

Jorge L. Chinea, professor of history and director of the Center for Latino/a and Latin American Studies, wrote a piece for The Conversation examining the indigenous heritage of Puerto Rico and the major challenges facing the island. “Tremors and aftershocks are still rocking Puerto Rico, weeks after a magnitude 6.4 earthquake toppled buildings, killed at least one person and injured another eight on Jan. 7. Families have begun leaving the island because it won’t stop shaking. For many on the island, the devastation is a reminder of September 2017 when Hurricane Maria killed 3,000 people and as many as 200,000 Puerto Ricans were forced to hastily relocate to the mainland United States. These major disasters have ravaged the island’s cultural heritage, too. Numerous historic landmarks – including a 2,000-year-old archaeological site containing priceless evidence of the island’s earliest dwellers, the Taíno people – have been destroyed. As a historian of colonial Latin America born in Puerto Rico, I recognize that between the 15th-century Spanish colonization and the 1898 U.S. annexation of the island, the Taíno’s story has been all but erased from the historic record.”

Heather E. Mooney, Ph.D. Candidate in Sociology at Wayne State University, wrote an article for The Conversation regarding the effectiveness of private programs designed for troubled teens. “The troubled teen industry is a mostly unregulated collection of for-profit programs that claim to rehabilitate out-of-control youth. Between 50,000 and 100,000 adolescents currently spend at least part of the year in these facilities. Their enrollment – or confinement, depending on the arrangement or their perspective – can prevent these relatively privileged kids from joining the 48,000 youth caught in the U.S. juvenile justice system. With little academic research about these private programs serving troubled teens, the conversation around them strikes me as either overly positive or negative. I’m skeptical about the positive research because most of it has been conducted and funded by the schools themselves or the organizations representing them. These studies also tend to look at limited time frames, such as two years or less after participants have left a “troubled teens” program.”

Susan P. Fino, professor of political science, wrote a piece for The Conversation about the senators’ impeachment oath. “The 100 United States senators who are jurors in the impeachment trial of President Donald Trump have taken a special oath in order to take part in that proceeding. As they enter the active phase of the trial on Tuesday, this oath is supposed to govern their behavior. It’s not the first oath that the lawmakers have taken in their Senate careers. Members of Congress, as well as federal judicial officers and members of state legislatures, must swear to “support the Constitution.” But the Constitution does not specify the form of the oath. So the very first Congress crafted an oath of office and – with minor modifications – that is the oath each member of Congress swears when he or she takes her seat in the House or the Senate. There is a second oath that members of the Senate must take when conducting an impeachment trial. The specific text for this oath was developed in 1868 for the impeachment trial of President Andrew Johnson.

Martin Luther King, Jr. Day is a day to reflect not only on the man, but the movement that he came to represent. That reflection has some people thinking about all of the civil rights icons we’ve lost recently. Judge Damon Keith, Rep. John Conyers, Rep. Elijah Cummings, Aretha Franklin, Toni Morrison, Harris Wofford, and many more. As we move further into this decade we’ll lose more. What does the loss of the Civil Rights generation mean for the fight for equal rights moving forward? “They wanted to change laws, they wanted to improve legislation, they wanted to improve America,” says Ollie Johnson, chair and professor of the Department of African American Studies at Wayne State University. “I think we have unfinished business. And it really pains me to talk about it,” 

The fish populations of the Great Lakes have changed dramatically in the years since invasive species first arrived. Bloodsucking sea lampreys have decimated native lake trout, and tiny alewives have feasted on the eggs and young of trout and other native species. But there’s good news too, as researchers roll out solutions to help manage invasive fish populations and maintain the diversity of species. Donna Kashian, SciFri Book Club reader and biology professor at Wayne State University said, “I have so many wonderful memories of the Great Lakes, both as a child whose parents had a cabin near Lake Michigan and as an adult doing research on the lakes. But one in particular stands out. I was doing research on Lake Huron, I don’t even remember what we were looking at on that particular day. It was late in the season, maybe August. We were in the middle of the lake—flat water, clear blue skies—and monarch butterflies were just flying everywhere. We’re in the middle of their migration south. It was so surreal and beautiful. I knew birds use the lake as a flyway in their migration, but I never knew monarchs did.