Volunteers at Wayne State University had been braving the elements for hours on an October morning. The wind chapped cheeks and numbed fingers as volunteers wrangled giant blue tarps with the names, symbols, and atomic numbers of chemical elements painted on them. When gusts kicked up, the workers would joke that they were building the world’s largest kite. They were actually attempting to build the world’s largest periodic table. And they had competition. Four days earlier, on the opposite side of Michigan, at Grand Valley State University, another group of crafty science enthusiasts had assembled what it believed was the world’s largest periodic table. Michigan became the proud birthplace of two gigantic periodic tables within a week. The timing wasn’t an accident, either. It was National Chemistry Week during the International Year of the Periodic Table. Although the groups hatched their schemes independently of each other, they shared the same drive to do something huge to get lots of people—and not just chemists—talking about chemistry and the iconic table. By the end of the day, drones and news helicopters had circled the periodic table at Wayne State, which covered an area larger than three American football fields. CBS News shared a photo of the table on Twitter with its 7 million followers, as did ABC’s World News Tonight with its 1.4 million followers.

Michigan state Rep. Larry Inman is set to stand trial this week on federal corruption charges for doing what many incumbent lawmakers do: asking a special-interest group to donate for re-election. But federal prosecutors contend the Traverse City-area Republican broke the law with his June 2018 solicitations to union officials by offering to sell his vote on a controversial measure to oppose the state’s prevailing wage repeal law for construction workers. For jurors in the Grand Rapids trial on bribery and extortion charges, the case could come down to a question that’s become familiar in politics: Was there a quid pro quo? “That’s always the key in any bribery case,” said Peter Henning, a professor at Wayne State University Law School and a former federal prosecutor. Prosecutors don’t need to prove Inman followed through on his proposed scheme, only that he attempted to orchestrate one, Henning told Bridge Magazine. Inman ultimately voted for the prevailing wage initiative, bucking opponents from whom he had sought contributions. He later returned an earlier check from the carpenter’s union he had not cashed. “Saying ‘you’ve got to come up with more money’ is sending a message that you better pay up. So that can be enough for an attempted Hobbs Act violation,” Henning said. Inman has maintained his innocence and vowed to fight the charges, but he risks a longer sentence by refusing to consider a plea deal, said Henning. Inman has already likely missed the opportunity for a generous offer, Henning said.

Efforts to reduce choking deaths among young children seem to have paid off: A new report finds the number of kids dying from choking on household objects has plummeted 75 percent since 1968. Regulations, more education about choking hazards and guidelines from organizations such as the American Academy of Pediatrics have likely all played a role in the downward trend, said study author Dr. John Cramer. Cramer said that regulations may have played the most significant role in reducing child deaths from choking on small objects. "Some of the regulations from the last 50 years have forced people to do the right thing. When you buy toys or cribs now, products are designed so that they can't be choked on. If you're a parent and you go buy a crib, you don't have to think about buying a crib with small parts; it's already regulated," Cramer said. He's an assistant professor of otolaryngology -- head and neck surgery at Wayne State University. One example cited by the study authors is a 1979 law regarding products designed for young children. Products made for young children can no longer contain parts small enough to fit into a test cylinder that is approximately the size of the airway of a child younger than 3. Children under 3 are most at risk from choking, and they've also had the most significant drops in choking death rates over time, the study authors noted. "Choking hazard warnings for toys used in children under age 3 have probably had the biggest benefit over time. This is a developmental stage where kids are oral and exploratory, often putting things in their mouths," Cramer said.

Starting college doesn't always lead to a degree. An estimated 40 percent of students who started at a four-year university in 2011 didn't graduate in six years, according to federal statistics. The documentary "Unlikely" shows the obstacles students face that can lead to dropping out of college — often leaving people with debilitating debt but without a degree that can lead to higher earning potential and economic mobility. The film follows five students who manage school, jobs to pay for school, parenting, family tragedies and enormous debt on their mission to earn a degree — ultimately showing that dropping out doesn't have to spell the end of one's chances of pursuing higher education. The film's Detroit premiere takes place at 7 p.m. Wednesday, Dec. 11 at Cinema Detroit. The free screening is presented by the Kresge Education Program at the Kresge Foundation, WDET and Freep Film Festival. After the film, Director Jaye Fenderson will be part of a discussion that will also feature Dawn Medley, associate vice president for enrollment management at Wayne State University, and Johnathan Williams, a graduate of Wayne State University's Warrior Way Back Program. Stephen Henderson, host of WDET's "Detroit Today," will moderate the conversation. 

Emergency managers appointed to heal the Detroit district’s finances did little more than apply Band-Aids to a major wound, according to a recent report. Robert Bobb, one of those emergency managers, says Band-Aids were all he had. Like others appointed to run Detroit Public Schools amid a financial crisis, Bobb took out loans to cover the district’s short-term costs, an approach that led to ballooning debt and interest payments. “We couldn’t make payroll. The district could not even pay its utility bills,” he recalled. “Either we close the doors, or we go to short-term borrowing that will have a negative impact in the long term.” The report, which was commissioned by the school board, found “startling mismanagement” by the state officials who largely ran the district between 1999 and 2015. “The whole idea of emergency management is that the school district’s problems are due to poor management and the failure or local democratic governance,” said Mike Addonizio, a professor of education at Wayne State University. “By 2016 it became apparent to policymakers in Lansing that there was no way to manage DPS out of its budget deficit.” Addonizio agrees that a major cash infusion was the only way to solve the problem. He believes it didn’t come sooner because of a political consensus in the Republican-controlled statehouse that the structural issues would be solved by school choice measures. “They were convinced that more choice could resolve problems of educational deficiencies and management problems. I guess maybe they thought that failing schools would close and that children would then enroll in schools that were succeeding. But when students leave schools and districts, the schools don’t close. The children remaining in the district just suffer.”

Andrea Schroeder's voice wavers ever so slightly. Somehow, she remains calm, considering the news she'd just gotten. The mother of three was in the midst of an aggressive political campaign for a hotly contested seat for state representative in the 43rd District, an area of Oakland County that includes her hometown of Independence Township. As she drove home from her hairdresser's in Birmingham on the afternoon of Aug. 16, 2018, she got dreadful news. "I have cancer," she said in a voice recording, almost like an audio diary, made just 20 minutes after her doctor called to tell her the results of a test done earlier that week. "I have a very rare form of stomach cancer, and it's gonna kill me." Since symptoms of stomach cancer often do not appear until the disease is advanced, only about 1 in 5 stomach cancers in the United States is found at an early stage, before it has spread to other areas of the body, according to the American Cancer Society. Her prospects were grim. Few people survive stomach cancer because it's rarely caught before it's in its most advanced, and less-treatable stages. The five-year survival rate is 31%, according to the American Cancer Society. "In the United States, there isn't a general screening protocol for it," said Dr. Philip A. Philip, who leads gastrointestinal and neuroendocrine oncology at the Barbara Ann Karmanos Cancer Institute. "The majority of the patients we diagnose in this country really do not fulfill the criteria for being very early. And for that reason, the outcome of the disease, is, in general less than what we see, for example, in a country that has screening and early diagnosis." Dr. Steve Kim, chief of surgical oncology at Karmanos and associate professor of the Wayne State University School of Medicine, performed successful surgery on Schroeder removing her entire stomach and attaching her esophagus directly to her small intestine. "The long and the short of it is, it works just like normal," Schroeder said. "I can eat anything, drink whatever I want. I try to be careful about sugars. Really high sugar-content things are hard to digest.

How bad is Detroit’s student chronic absenteeism problem? Wayne State University researchers have identified eight conditions — such as poverty, unemployment, and even cold temperatures — that are strongly correlated to chronic absence, and the city leads all other large metropolitan areas in having the worst outcomes for almost all of those conditions. The findings come with a key takeaway the researchers hope will prompt action: Schools alone can’t solve the problem of getting students to school every day, said Sarah Winchell Lenhoff, an assistant professor in the college of education at Wayne State University. And, the findings come during a critical time as the Detroit school district invests heavily in a number of efforts designed to get students in school. Citywide, across district and charter schools, about half of the students are chronically absent — meaning they’re missing 18 or more days during the school year. Lenhoff said what’s needed is a more coordinated effort that brings together policymakers, school district officials, charter school officials, community organizations, and community members. Without it, the work being done by schools is “unlikely to make the huge difference we need to make,” Lenhoff said.

Researchers at Wayne State University believe they may have found a way to stop invasive species of mussels from spreading throughout the Great Lakes by using algae. The find, a toxin released by dying algae called Microcystin LR, which when placed in direct contact with juvenile mussels can be fatal. Algal blooms which commonly flourish in the Great Lakes every summer are filled with toxins. Microcystin LR is the most common and also the most toxic, however some researchers don’t believe the application is practical. Scientists remain optimistic over the find as the invaders had been largely left unchecked since their introduction to the Great Lakes through ballast water in the 1980’s.

Annmarie Caño, associate provost for faculty development and faculty success, and Provost Keith Whitfield assert that leadership skills are critical in higher education, especially among faculty and academic staff members, who have the power to be change agents.

The theory of chronic cerebrospinal venous insufficiency, or CCSVI, was developed by Italian vascular surgeon Paolo Zamboni, who suggested that MS patients have abnormal veins that fail to properly drain blood from the brain and spinal cord. Opening those vessels, he reasoned, could restore blood flow and relieve symptoms -- a procedure widely known as "liberation therapy." The theory became one of the most bitterly contested in recent medical history, embraced by desperate patients and scorned by doctors. Yet every year on the anniversary of the program, MS patients write emails to say the experimental therapy changed their lives for the better. Mark Haacke, a scientist from Wayne State University who studies better ways to see inside the brain, helped found the Institute for Neurovascular Diseases (ISNVD) the year after Zamboni’s work first went public. Haacke, too remains undeterred by the firestorm over the theory. As imperfect as it may have been initially, he says, it opened the door to expanding the learning and understanding of the brain’s venous system. "The more data I see here ... the more I know he's right. There is some form of chronic hypertension (linked to certain brain diseases) ... but we don't know where it comes from," said Haacke. The physicist and his team have developed some increasingly detailed and striking images showing blood flow in and blood flow out and hopes to use the new way of visualizing blood flow to learn more about what’s going on upstream in the brain. The question really is "if there are flow obstructions, where are they taking place?"

The General Motors lawsuit accusing Fiat Chrysler Automobiles and its predecessor entities of corrupting labor negotiations as far back as 2009 is a bombshell, but several labor experts say its impact on current bargaining between the UAW and FCA could be limited. That's not to say the allegations in the 95-page complaint filed Wednesday in federal court, naming FCA, Alphons Iacobelli, its onetime lead labor negotiator and a convicted felon, among others, won't make the task of ratification harder. But it's not clear the issues raised, many already suggested by the ongoing federal corruption probe, will be a deciding factor. Marick Masters, a business professor at Wayne State University, said that if nothing else, the lawsuit puts an even bigger spotlight on negotiations. "I think they have to be extraordinarily careful that what they're doing is being watched microscopically by many parties," he said. "I think they will be extremely careful to avoid the appearance of any background deal (and be) as transparent as possible." Any impact on talks or how workers view a deal is not fully clear, but  deviation from the pattern could generate skepticism. The pattern deal, which includes gains for temporary and in-progression workers, would be costly for FCA because of its heavier reliance on them. "If the agreement between Chrysler and the UAW were to deviate in any way (from the pattern at GM and Ford) to the disadvantage of workers, people would say, 'We told you so, you'd better look in to this,'" Masters said.

A statewide task force charged with identifying ways to reduce Michigan’s jail population and expand alternatives to incarceration began to publicly shape its initial policy proposals on Tuesday. Ideas floated during a meeting in Lansing included reducing some low-level misdemeanor offenses to civil infractions, and ending the practice of suspending a person's driver's license unless the suspension is related to unsafe driving. The group includes prosecutors, law enforcement, attorneys, legislators, formerly incarcerated people and advocates. Discussions have been guided by research presented by the Pew Charitable Trusts, as well as testimony from residents across the state. Advocates laid out ways to better support victims, including the relatives of murder victims. Those families are "often left out and left in the cold" to navigate the court system when victim advocates become overloaded with cases, said Sheryl Kubiak, dean of social work at Wayne State University, who sits on the task force. 

November is Pancreatic Cancer Awareness Month, and Thursday, Nov. 21, is World Pancreatic Cancer Awareness Day. This disease is the third leading cause of cancer-related death in America – more than breast cancer. Dr. Asfar Azmi, assistant professor of oncology at Wayne State University School of Medicine, has been working on the front lines of finding new treatments. “We have a drug that can lock the good proteins at the right place. And when we see that locking, these are tumor suppressors. They can prevent a tumor from growing, and we see the pancreatic cancer cells die,” said Azmi. They are also researching how to catch pancreatic cancer sooner. “If we are able to bring a new biomarker – what we call – which can detect this disease early, that would change the game,” Azmi explained. The work is encouraging, but Dr. Philip Philip -- a gastrointestinal oncologist at Karmanos and professor of hematology-oncology at Wayne State University, says the research is lagging behind that being done into other major cancers. “[Pancreatic cancer] is difficult to fight for a number of reasons. One of them is because we often get the patients diagnosed at a late stage in their disease -- late as in it’s gone beyond the pancreas and spread to other parts of the body,” explained Philip. He says you need to know the signs and symptoms. “Patients often times ignore these symptoms thinking that it could be for ‘something I ate’ or ‘something I’m doing’… and they ignore those symptoms for a long time,” Philip explained.  “The key message here is that if you have symptoms that are persistent for a few days/weeks, you have to see your doctor,” said Philip.

Kirsten Carlson, Wayne State University associate professor of law and adjunct associate professor of political science, and Chris Edelson, assistant professor of government, American University School of Public Affairs, wrote an article on the impeachment proceedings. Wednesday was the first day of public hearings in the House impeachment inquiry. Two career diplomats – William B. Taylor Jr., acting ambassador to Ukraine, and George Kent, deputy assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs – gave testimony to the House Intelligence Committee. Two scholars listened, and each picked one quote to analyze. “What we will witness today is a televised theatrical performance staged by the Democrats”. - Rep. Devin Nunes, Republican of California. “In this highly partisan era, Rep. Nunes’ words come as no surprise,” Carlson wrote. “Nunes was attempting to discredit the impeachment inquiry as a partisan attack on President Donald Trump. But his emphasis on partisanship obscures a vital function of Congress in protecting the public and preserving democratic government: oversight. Oversight is part of the U.S. Constitution’s carefully orchestrated balance of power among the three branches of government. The Constitution authorizes, if not obligates, Congress to exercise oversight over the executive branch.”

Senior Sadia Johnson scored 19 points, including 6-for-6 from the free-throw line, as Wayne State beat Central State, 78-70, to give coach Carrie Lohr her 300th collegiate victory. Lohr previously coached at St. Clair County Community College. Sophomore Sam Cherney (North Farmington) recorded her first career double-double with 19 points and 11 rebounds. Sophomore Grace George had 16 points. Wayne State (2-1) shot 51 percent from the floor, to 38 percent for Central State (1-2). Wayne State visits Findlay on Tuesday.

Why is it difficult for some people to eat vegetables? Researchers at the University of Kentucky believe a certain gene makes compounds in some vegetables taste particularly bitter to some people, so they avoid nutritious, heart-healthy vegetables like broccoli, Brussels sprouts, and cabbage. Humans are born with two copies of a taste gene called TAS2R38. Those who inherit two copies of the variant called AVI are not sensitive to the bitterness of these chemicals. But those who inherit one copy of AVI and one copy of PAV are especially sensitive and find these foods particularly bitter. For this study, researchers investigated the possibility that this association existed in people with two or more cardiovascular disease risk factors. Tonia Reinhard, a senior lecturer at Wayne State University and course director for clinical nutrition at the university’s school of medicine, said it’s intriguing that the University of Kentucky researchers identified genetic regions that relate to taste that can influence one’s food choices and potentially influence development of certain chronic diseases. “Since fruits and vegetables contain numerous phytonutrients and essential nutrients that can reduce inflammation and oxidative damage — two key damaging processes linked to cardiovascular disease, cancer, diabetes, and other chronic diseases — anything that affects dietary intake of these foods can possibly influence disease development,” said Reinhard, a fellow of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics and past president of the Michigan Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics. She added that people should remember that human taste perception is a complex process that is affected by numerous variables. “It is useful for individuals to try to understand their own preferences and when unhealthful, use their cognitive function to override some of those,” she said.

“The most powerful people in the criminal justice system are the prosecutors,” said Marvin Zalman, a criminal justice professor at Wayne State University who has written extensively about wrongful convictions. When DNA analysis started leading to exonerations in the early 2000s, prosecutors resisted any sort of systemic review of their cases, Zalman said. Now, with dozens of review units, “it’s a remarkable change. They have more of the ability to generate exonerations than the innocence organizations. They have the capacity to cut through the years of federal review, habeas review, the complexity of these cases. The ability of prosecutors is great.”

In March 2017, Neeraj Jindal had a problem. He ran a Richland Hills staffing agency that provided home health care agencies with therapists to do house calls. One of those agencies had just informed him that it was reducing the amount it would be paying for each house call. Jindal knew if he passed this pay cut down to the therapists, they would find another staffing agency to work with, threatening his business. So Jindal did what squeezed contractors often do: He decided to screw his workers. Jindal directed one of his physical therapists to send a text message to Sheri Yarbray, the owner of a competing staffing agency. The message disclosed the new, lower rate that Jindal planned to pay his therapists. Yarbray responded: “Yes I agree[.] I’ll do it with u.” Jindal then contacted four other DFW therapist staffing agencies requesting that they lower their rates the same amount. Laura Padin, a senior staff attorney at the National Employment Law Project, called this a “blatant example” of wage fixing, which particularly threatens gig workers — independent contractors, like many of these therapists — who are vulnerable to collusion by the large firms that typically employ them. The Federal Trade Commission investigated, and confirmed that Jindal and Yarbray had indeed broken the law. But, in a move that seemed to rile nearly everyone, from legal scholars and unions to one of the agency's own commissioners, the agency declined to levy any punishment. Sanjukta Paul, a law professor at Wayne State University,.said that monetary penalties are necessary in a case like this to change the “decision calculus for these middlemen businesses” and make wage fixing less attractive. Generally, such schemes are difficult to identify, making this a rare opportunity to penalize perpetrators. But she’s encouraged by the public statements being made by the FTC’s Democratic commissioners, which she said could mark a change in the agency’s antitrust enforcement strategy. “There's kind of been this bipartisan consensus that overall antitrust law doesn’t do much,” she said. “I think that antitrust law can be leveraged to make this a slightly less terrible place for American workers,” Paul added.

Andrew Port didn’t anticipate a seat he took on a train while studying abroad in Europe in 1987 would change his life forever. But that train ride ended up being Port's ticket to witnessing history — the fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989. Port — then a junior in college and now a Wayne State University professor — sparked a conversation with a young German man sitting in the seat next to him. That man took a liking to Port, inviting him to a New Year's Eve party in West Berlin. Port attended the party, where he met a Berliner with whom he fell in love. After finishing his study abroad and graduating from Yale in the spring of 1989, he moved to West Berlin in October 1989 to be with his girlfriend. He couldn't have foreseen that he would be involved in one of the most consequential moments in modern history the following month. As an American living in Berlin for only about a month, the scene was especially surreal, Port said. Port went on to study history. He conducted research from Germany as a Harvard graduate student from 1994 to 1996. He has published several books on post-war Germany, some of which garnered significant media attention in Germany, and now teaches German history courses at Wayne State. 

Roughly 10 percent of children worldwide — an estimated 15 million babies — are born prematurely, or before 37 weeks gestation, each year. In developed countries, surviving an early birth has become more likely, thanks to the availability of intensive medical care. More than 98 percent of U.S. preemies survive infancy, according to a study published in the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology in 2016, though as many as 44 percent of the youngest preemies don’t make it. Survival is least likely in nations with the fewest resources. Worldwide, complications associated with preterm birth are the leading cause of death in children younger than 5 years old. Some of the signs of inflammation linked to preterm birth differ from those found during full-term birth, says Nardhy Gomez-Lopez, a reproductive immunologist at Wayne State University. For example, in 2017, she and colleagues reported in the American Journal of Reproductive Immunology that some proteins involved in inflammation, called cytokines, were present at higher than normal levels in amniotic fluid from a subset of women who delivered preterm. The earlier the women delivered their babies, the higher the cytokine levels. Infections, which are present in at least a quarter of preterm births, could be the cause, but inflammation and cytokine levels were also elevated when no infection was found. Part of the problem with developing a predictive test is that preterm labor isn’t just one condition. Thirty years ago, preterm labor was viewed simply as regular labor that happened early, says perinatologist Roberto Romero at Wayne State, who directs the perinatology research branch of the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. Although scientists now recognize that the biology of preterm labor is distinct, they still have to grapple with the reality that it varies depending on the underlying cause. Wayne State and NICHD recently released gene activity data from the whole blood of 150 Detroit women, 71 of whom delivered preterm, and encouraged researchers to use the data to find predictors of preterm labor, as part of a crowdsourcing collaboration called the DREAM challenge. The challenge is expected to be completed in January 2020. “We are at the beginning of an exciting period,” says Romero at Wayne State. The field is now equipped to start studying preterm birth as a collection of several different syndromes and seek out treatments to address each one, he says.