Elizabeth Stoycheff, associate professor of communication, wrote an article for The Conversation about the tendency of website browser cookies to make people more cautious online. Cookies are online surveillance tools, and the commercial and government entities that use them would prefer people not read those notifications too closely, she writes, as people who do read the notifications carefully will find that they have the option to say no to some or all cookies. “The problem is, without careful attention those notifications become an annoyance and a subtle reminder that your online activity can be tracked,” Stoycheff writes. “As a researcher who studies online surveillance, I’ve found that failing to read the notifications thoroughly can lead to negative emotions and affect what people do online.” Styofcheff explains what cookies are, how they work, how they affect you, and potential solutions for users.  

Arash Javanbakht, a psychiatrist at Wayne State University, wrote an article for The Conversation outlining how fireworks can trigger PTSD. For some combat veterans, the Fourth of July is not a time to celebrate the independence of the country they love, he writes. Instead, the holiday is a terrifying ordeal because the noise of fireworks – loud, sudden, and reminiscent of war – rocks their nervous system. “This reaction is not unique to veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD. Also affected are millions of others, including civilians, refugees, and first responders,” Javanbakht writes. “As a psychiatrist who specialize in trauma and PTSD, I urge you not to overdo an act which causes so much suffering for so many of your fellow Americans.”

It’s no question that fishing is a revered summer pastime of many Michiganders, and this season has been no exception. The Detroit River is a favorite spot for many anglers, but the high level of pollutants in the water poses a big health concern for those who consume their catch. In response, a group called the Riverwalkers has established a strong presence on the Detroit River to help combat this issue and educate anglers on safe fishing practices. The program is a partnership between the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services and Wayne State University, with the main goal of educating anglers about the pollutants that exist in popularly caught fish in the Detroit Rivers. Along with the education initiative run by state and local health officials, Wayne State University students and faculty play a large role in testing fish that are caught in the Detroit River to determine the types of and levels of toxins that are present in different fish. Education efforts also include improvements to the signage along the river under the guidance of Donna Kashian, professor and director of environmental science at Wayne State.   

By Matthew Rozsa      The famous British writer Samuel Johnson once criticized a political opponent’s self-described patriotism by memorably pointing out that “patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel.” Although Johnson lived before the advent of psychology and modern brain science, his observation has been at least partially vindicated by experts in subsequent centuries. This does not mean there is anything wrong with celebrating the 4th of July with fireworks, good movies and learning about the founding fathers. Feeling good about one’s nation and your place in It is patriotism. But these days, many conflate patriotism with its more extreme cousin nationalism, which is predicated on superiority and competitiveness. You cannot be merely proud, but you must be proud of your nation’s dominance – which means that you think in terms of winners and losers, friends and enemies. Nationalism, because of its inherently tribal nature, can be dangerous if the sentiment is used improperly. To be clear, these sentiments do not only fuel nationalism. Arash Javanbakht, a psychiatrist from Wayne State University, further elaborated on the downsides of nationalism in a 2019 article from The Conversation. “Tribalism is the biological loophole that many politicians have banked on for a long time: tapping into our fears and tribal instincts,” Javanbakht wrote. “Some examples are Nazism, the Ku Klux Klan, religious wars and the Dark Ages. The typical pattern is to give the other humans a different label, and say they are going to harm us or our resources, and to turn the other group into a concept.”      

Teena Chopra, professor of medicine and co-director of Wayne State University’s Center for Emerging and Infectious Diseases, is piloting a program that will educate Detroit’s youth on the significance and history of vaccines. The two-year program will be funded by a Detroit Medical Center grant of $60,000. The program will be targeted toward educating high school students during the summer to become ambassadors who return to the school to promote vaccines and educate their peers about the history and benefits of vaccines, and how vaccinations are effective in protecting communities. “This is an incredible opportunity for Detroit youth who will be empowered to serve as Vaccine Ambassadors for the city. They will gain insight into the history of vaccines and will be trained on their communication skills,” said Chopra.  

A little over 93% of Wayne State University Law School 2021 graduates were placed in long-term, full time bar passage required or J.D. advantage positions. The Wayne Law class of 2021 had a 7.7% increase in employment rate compared to the Wayne Law class of 2020, which had an employment rate of 85.9%. For 2021 graduates, Wayne Law was in the top 20 of all U.S. law schools in employment outcomes. Wayne Law faculty and staff are proud of the graduates’ work and accomplishments. “It is wonderful to see Wayne Law shine nationally for the outstanding employment of its graduates,” said assistant dean of career and professional development Lisa Fadler. “These exceptional employment results reflect the legal community’s recognition of the quality of Wayne Law’s graduates and academic program.” 

Wayne State University has received a $584,114 contract to develop a collaborative research project with the Great Lakes Water Authority (GLWA) to create a workforce and laboratory center of the future. The three-year long project will focus on developing the existing Waterworks Park Pilot Plant facility to perform applied research, testing and evaluation, and workforce development for new and emerging technologies. Carol J. Miller, professor of civil and environmental engineering and director of Healthy Urban Waters at Wayne State will lead the project, along with co-lead Yongli Wager, associate professor of civil and environmental engineering at Wayne State. They and the full support team will provide important knowledge that will help GLWA proactively respond to different water treatment scenarios and emerging water quality concerns. The educational and workforce development programs that also comprise this project will help to address the critical shortage of technicians and engineers for water utilities nationwide. “Our work with GLWA will initiate with a strategic plan to optimize benefits to the GLWA user community, treatment plant operators, the utility industry and the water ecosystem,” said Miller. “In addition, we are working to maximize economic benefits to the community, as well as include workforce training and job opportunities. On the research side, there are several focus areas including verification of scale-up processes, in-plant learning tools and process optimization considering treatment variables including coagulant and disinfectant materials. This training is critical for evaluating water treatment processes and developing scenario-based proactive responses to different water treatment and emerging water quality concerns.”  

Michigan’s first monkeypox case has been confirmed. The state health department says the patient is in isolation and poses no threat to the public. Wayne State University infectious disease professor Dr. Teena Chopra explained that the virus is transmitted in the form of close bodily contact. More than 5,000 cases have been confirmed in countries across the globe. The CDC reports that there are more than 350 confirmed cases in 27 states. “It has been around for some time, but in the U.S. we haven’t seen an outbreak of this magnitude in a very long time and we are seeing this because of travel and escape of the virus through somebody who traveled from West Africa,” Chopra said. Dr. Chopra says vaccines are available.  

By Lily Bohlke  A new study found an association between what researchers are calling the biological age of sperm and reproductive success. While age is a major factor for women thinking of becoming pregnant, it is not often considered in male reproductive health, because men continually produce sperm throughout their lives. Dr. Rick Pilsner, professor of obstetrics and gynecology at Wayne State University School of Medicine who led the study, said chronological aging – or the normal passage of time – does not always capture the aging process of the sperm. “Chronological age does not take into account the intrinsic [makeup of] your genes and how they function,” Pilsner explained. “As well as external factors such as environmental exposures, smoking, diet.” Pilsner reported initial findings showed a new measure, referred to as a “sperm epigenetic clock,” could be a way to predict biological fitness of a person’s sperm, and thus could be useful in predicting reproductive success. 

By Hannah Seo   Water doesn’t have to come in eight 8-ounce glasses daily. Fresh fruits and vegetables, and various beverages, are viable sources of hydration. With a summer of record-breaking heat upon us, hydration is more important than ever. Taking in liquids is crucial, but hydration can go beyond simply drinking water. There are plenty of things besides plain water that will keep you hydrated, experts say, including food and drinks that appeal to you. “We think that we need to drink a lot of water all the time because we hear that all the time,” said Tamara Hew-Butler, a sports medicine scientist at Wayne State University who specializes in fluid balance. “You gotta drink your eight glasses – hydrate, hydrate, hydrate.” But any food or drink that has fluid content will be hydrating, she said: “Your body doesn’t care where hydration comes from, it just needs fluid.”   

By Britany Affolter-Caine  Britany Affolter-Caine, executive director of Michigan’s University Research Corridor, writes that business leaders from across the state are increasingly urging state officials to expand investment in Michigan’s universities – especially the state’s top research universities – so highly educated college graduates are available to keep up with Michigan companies’ growing demand for workers. She notes that the University Research Corridor, which includes Michigan State University, the University of Michigan, and Wayne State University, each year grant nearly 12,000 degrees in high-tech areas, as well as nearly 13,000 degrees in high-demand areas such as business, computer science and engineering, and nearly 2,500 medical degrees. “The three URC institutions already enroll more than 139,000 students, and they have the capacity to enroll and graduate even more so business leaders have the employees they need. But they cannot do so on their own,” Affolter-Caine writes. “To meet this challenge, the state must invest more in higher education and students. The URC supports the substantial increases in higher education funding for the fiscal year 2022-23 proposed by Governor Gretchen Whitmer and the Senate. It also supports a much-expanded financial aid program that would put students first by providing up to $6,000 a year towards a four-year degree and $3,000 towards a two-year degree at Michigan institutions…” She notes that neither step would reverse the past two decades of disinvestment in higher education that has been the trend in Michigan, but “they would help a lot.”  

By Krista Mahr  The Biden administration rolled out a strategy to expand vaccination against the monkeypox virus to a greater number of at-risk individuals, as cases of the rare disease continue to climb and outbreaks in major cities across the country worsen. City public health departments reported that demand for the vaccine is still outstripping supply, raising concerns that the administration will struggle to keep up. To date, the CDC has confirmed 306 cases of monkeypox in 28 states and other jurisdictions. California, New York, Florida and Illinois have the highest concentration of cases. The disease, which is largely circulating now among men who have sex with men, causes flu-like symptoms and skin lesions, but patients can receive antivirals, and all of them have recovered so far. Many epidemiologists and public health advocates say the current case count is understated, driven by difficulties in getting tests to labs and clinicians’ lack of familiarity with a disease that is relatively rare in the U.S. In order to confirm a monkeypox case, clinicians must submit a sample to a laboratory in the CDC’s Laboratory Response Network, which can become complicated in big states, rural areas or where medical staff lacks training. “We haven’t had any cases yet in Michigan, but we are all – including the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services – aware that we are vastly undertesting,” said Gretchen Snoeyenbos Newman, an assistant professor of infectious disease at Wayne State University. “The process for testing has been somewhat unclear and a bit cumbersome,” she said, adding that the state health department is actively working on improving that. “Information needs to go out both to providers and to the community.”  

By Lauren Leffer    Facebook and its parent company, Meta, don’t exactly have a great track record when it comes to combatting online disinformation. At the start of the pandemic, Meta came out publicly against advertisements pedaling questionable health information and things like vaccine misinformation, yet they persist. Advertisements for unproven, debunked, and even harmful cancer treatments continue to appear on Facebook and Instagram, according to a report from MIT Technology Review. The ads still show up on Meta’s social networks in spite of the company policy prohibiting ads that contain misleading health information. A center in Mexico called CHIPSA Hospital, for instance, has several ads in the Meta library referencing “cutting edge” or “breakthrough” treatments, offered exclusively at their facility. Cancer experts told Tech Review that there’s clear reasons these supposed treatments aren’t widely available elsewhere. The treatment is “all nonsense,” according to Dr. David Gorski, a surgical oncologist at Wayne State University.  

By Jonathan Oosting and Yue Stella Yu  At least two county prosecutors would consider criminal charges against abortion providers despite a temporary injunction against enforcement of a 1931 ban, their attorney says, underscoring uncertainty over the legal status of abortion in Michigan. Enforcement of the old law, which makes performing an abortion a felony by up to four years in prison, was suspended following a May injunction by a lower-court judge. David Kallman, a lawyer representing Republican prosecutors in Kent and Jackson counties says the injunction only applies to the state, not county prosecutors. The opinion contradicts assurances from Attorney General Dana Nessel and others that abortion remains legal in Michigan for now, despite Friday’s ruling by the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade. Robert Sedler, a law professor at Wayne State University and special assistant attorney general to Nessel, told Bridge he believes the injunction against the 1931 abortion ban – which declared the ban unconstitutional – applies to all public officials, even though county prosecutors are not named parties in the court case. “Once you have a declaration of unconstitutionality, it’s going to bind all government officials in the state of Michigan,” he said. “Should they try to prosecute anybody, there would be an injunction against them and they could possibly be held in contempt.”  

By Kim Kozlowski  Wayne State University students will pay 4.5% more in tuition and about 4% more in room and board during the next academic year, following approval 7-1 Friday by the Board of Governors. The tuition hike means that full-time resident undergraduate students will pay $14,674 in tuition and fees, up from $14,043 in 2021-22. Governor Dana Thompson cast the sole vote against increasing tuition and housing. “It is not a sustainable trajectory to increase tuition on our students,” she said, adding that increased costs diminish WSU as a place of social mobility. Governor Mark Gaffney, chair of the board, said it’s never easy to increase tuition. But the university is working to balance its budget and also try to make sure that “students can still afford to come here.” Gaffney added that more than half of Wayne State students will not see a tuition increase because they are receiving Pell Grants and university financial aid. Tuition increases in previous years were modest and there was no increase in 2020. “We never like to make these kinds of tough decision,” Gaffney said. “We are pleased we have a scholarship program to help.”  

By Collette Reitz  Emojis brighten up a message and make endless lines of text more readable, but they also reveal something about the person who sent them. “People who are rated higher in agreeableness use more emojis in general,” said Lara Jones, associate professor of psychology at Wayne State University. Jones researches the psychological aspect of emojis, looking at differences in how individuals and groups use them, how they’re positively or negatively perceived, and the interpretation of an emoji’s intended meaning. She says people process emojis similarly to facial expressions, so starting an interaction with an objectively positive emoji, like a smiley face, primes the receiver of the message for a positive interaction. “They want to make sure the positivity of the message comes through, and depending on the emojis used, they want to show their creativity and playfulness,” Jones said of frequent emoji users.  

June is a time when many people enjoy a host of summer celebrations. It’s also National Cancer Survivor Month, a call for celebrating. People who have fought and won their battles with cancer observe this month as a way to spread the word about the disease and advocate for screenings and preemptive care. Dr. Susie Lawrence is the residency director for Wayne State University’s department of obstetrics and gynecology. Lawrence was diagnosed with lung cancer in 2019. She quit smoking roughly 10 years before her diagnosis. Before her diagnosis, she had an intimate connection with the disease through her late father, who passed away in 1995. More than 20 years after her father’s battle with lung cancer, Lawrence found herself in the same shoes. She says getting screened by a nurse practitioner was the first step in saving her life. “The fact that I was in the screening program, I was totally asymptomatic,” she said. “People with lung cancer often are until it’s quite advanced. The screening and the timing of it happening really are what I would attribute my survival.” 

By Layla McMurtie  The Baroudeur, Wayne State University’s annual cycling event, will be held on July 23 with rides of 20, 37, 62 and 100 miles that begin and end on the Midtown campus. The fun, noncompetitive event gives riders of all abilities an opportunity to explore the Motor City and surrounding area on two wheels while helping economically disadvantaged students pursue higher education. This year, Batch Brewing is the event’s beer partner and has canned a beer just for the event. It is going to be a Radler, which is a popular beer among cyclists in Europe, and means cycling in German. “Stephen [Roginson, founder and co-owner of Batch Brewing] and Batch Brewing do so much for the community and I’ve just been really impressed with seeing how they help out at the restaurants and people in need,” said Matt Lockwood, associate vice president of university communications at Wayne State and Barouduer ride director. Batch will be serving the 800-plus riders and 200 volunteers cans of Radler and other beer varieties by keg at the post-ride party.  

By Jonathan Szczepaniak  While the story of Wayne State University’s baseball season has concluded, the journey will be remembered for years to come. The University of Illinois-Springfield eliminated Wayne State 6-3 in the Midwest Regionals at Harwell Field in Detroit to close out the Warriors’ season, but Wayne State was able to make history before it was all said and done. Wayne State claimed its history-making 37th win of the season in 15-11 slugfest over Walsh University on May 21. The all-time single season win record previously stood at 36, set by the 2014 team. It was a feat Wayne State coach Ryan Kelley said he knew was in reach this year. “I was confident in our roster and in our depth; I could tell this roster was special,” Kelley said. “It was evident.” “We always knew from the start that we had a special group of guys,” Wayne State second baseman Noah Miller said. “We have fifth-year guys and sixth-year guys; we’ve had this core group throughout my whole entire four years.”

Ford Motor Co. in Dearborn is making a century of its archival material available to the public through a new online database called the Ford Heritage Vault. Ford created the Heritage Vault for fans, journalists, and car enthusiasts. The searchable artifacts are downloadable for personal use, free of charge, for the first time. Ford worked with graduate students from Wayne State University’s library and information science program in Detroit, as well as Ford employees and retirees, to pilot the Heritage Vault.