In the News

Richard Posner, Senior Lecturer in the Law School and chief judge for the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago, has been headlining the news after being appointed to mediate a settlement in the government’s antitrust case against Microsoft. Stories have appeared in the Saturday, Nov. 20, and Sunday, Nov. 21 Chicago Sun-Times, the Saturday, Nov. 20, and Wednesday, Nov. 24 Chicago Tribune and the Saturday, Nov. 20 New York Times.

The New York Times published a feature about Martha Nussbaum, the Ernst Freund Distinguished Service Professor in Law & Ethics, in its Sunday, Nov. 21 magazine. The story described Nussbaum as the most prominent female philosopher in America and emphasized how she uses scholarly theories to argue against injustice.

A study completed by the National Opinion Research Center at the University about Americans’ attitudes about family has been reported nationally since its release Wednesday, Nov. 24. Stories about the study’s General Social Survey findings, which include Americans’ opinions over a period of nearly three decades, have appeared in the Associated Press, Chicago Sun-Times, MSNBC Internet News and USA Today. Tom Smith, Director of the General Social Survey and author of the study “The Emerging 21st-Century American Family,” found that the traditional family arrangement of a working father, stay-at-home mother and children is being replaced by new arrangements. These new arrangements have resulted from an increase in cohabitation, a decline in marriage rates and an increase in divorce rates.

Physicians and researchers at the University Hospitals have been quoted in stories that appeared in the Sunday, Nov. 21, and Tuesday, Nov. 23 issues of the Chicago Sun-Times about the Human Genome Project. David Ledbetter, the Marjorie I. and Bernard A. Mitchell Professor and Chairman of Human Genetics, and Nancy Cox, Associate Professor in Human Genetics, were interviewed for the stories that described how close scientists are to completing a rough draft of the human gene ‘map.’

The research of Kevin Murphy, the George Pratt Shultz Professor in Economics & Industrial Relations, and Robert Topel, the Isidore Brown & Gladys J. Brown Professor in Urban & Labor Economics, was described in a story published Nov. 22 by Fortune magazine. The story was about the difficulties economists have discovered as they attempt to measure output accurately as new product and service development has accelerated.

Who’s the smartest in the city? Students who are members of the University College Bowl team. The team won the title Sunday, Nov. 14, while competing against rivals from Northwestern University at the John Hancock Center. The Chicago Tribune published a preview of the games in its Friday, Nov. 12 issue, and the Chicago Sun-Times published a follow-up story Monday, Nov. 15, which quoted University students.

Astronaut John Grunsfeld (S.M., ’84, Ph.D., ’88), a Chicago native and University alumnus, was interviewed about his role in NASA’s upcoming Discovery shuttle mission that will send him and six other astronauts to repair the Hubble Space Telescope. Two stories published by the Chicago Sun-Times on Sunday, Nov. 21, profiled Grunsfeld, while a third story published on Wednesday, Nov. 24, covered NASA’s previous space missions and its future plans. University scientists, including Thanasis Economou, Senior Scientist at the Enrico Fermi Institute, and Robert Clayton, Director of the Enrico Fermi Institute, were quoted in this story.

Paul Sereno, Professor in Organismal Biology & Anatomy, made headlines with his latest discovery of Jobaria tiguidensis, a plant-eating sauropod that lived during the Cretaceous Period. The discovery was reported by the Chicago Tribune, Chicago Sun-Times, The Washington Post, USA Today, The Independent, London, as well as WLS-TV in Chicago.

The Associated Press and the Chicago Sun-Times interviewed Susan Levine, Professor in Psychology and lead author of a study about sex differences in spatial skills published in Developmental Psychology. The study showed boys have an advantage over girls in their understanding of spatial relationships by age 4 1/2.