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"We tend to choose a response [to stress] based on what we know, based on habit. We will be looking for things that calm us down, but they may not be the best thing for us."
-- Rajita Sinha, associate professor of psychiatry, "Only Half of Worried Americans Try To Manage Their Stress," USA Today, Feb. 23, 2006.
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"Top dollar for a slave in the prime of life was $1,000 to $1,200, which today is $40,000 or more. So if a dozen people got up and ran away, the masters would stop at nothing to recapture them."
-- Thomas Thurston, education director at the Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance and Abolition, "Escape From Slavery; Glen Ellyn Woman Preserves 'Granny's' Stories for Black History," Chicago Daily Herald, Feb. 23, 2006.
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"There is a huge difference to American patients between the costs of medical care to the government and the costs of the medical care to them. What the government is proposing is restricting the cost to the government and shifting the burden of the cost to them."
-- Ted Marmor, professor of public policy and management and of political science, on the White House's proposal to cut funding to federal insurance plans in favor of private healthcare savings accounts, "Bush Faces Hurdles in Health Care Reform," "Morning Edition," National Public Radio, Feb. 15, 2006.
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"Toads are slow. They don't jump, they just kind of crawl. The idea that they are long-distance athletes is amusing and surprising."
-- David Skelly, professor of ecology and evolutionary biology, on a study showing that Cane toads are moving across Australia at a rate of up to 1.8 kilometers (1.12 miles) each night, "Cane Toads Leg It Across Australia; Pests are Evolving Longer Legs To Speed Their Invasion," News@Nature.com, Feb. 15, 2006.
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"There are a number of things that are potentially gained [by legalizing the sale of kidneys]. First, larger number of transplants. But most importantly, this black market of kidney transplants and paid donors exists around the world, and those donations are currently taking place in an unregulated manner with little follow-up for the donors, and no reported outcomes that are widely available. So those donors are unprotected, and that's the grave concern that we have."
-- Dr. Amy Friedman, associate professor of transplant surgery, "Article Proposes Open Market for Human Kidneys," "All Things Considered," National Public Radio, Feb. 16, 2006.
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"We've just finished looking at the results of a school district that had 41% of students proficient, 43% in reading and math, and in five years, they were 93% to 98% proficient, and that was done by creating a culture that focused on the development of the children. That requires a change in the way we prepare teachers and administrators who think about more than raising test scores, which is the problem with No Child Left Behind."
-- Dr. James Comer, the Maurice Falk Professor of Child Psychiatry, "African-American Boys in Crisis," "News & Notes," National Public Radio, Feb. 20, 2006.
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"Everyone should have access to their local observatory periodically to get the chance to see the moon, planets and stars. Of all of the modern research sciences, people tend to be especially interested in astronomy. I think part of the reason is that astronomy is trying to answer some very big questions, like how did the universe begin, or what is our place in the universe, or are we alone in the universe? Also, the sky has an intrinsic aesthetic beauty that is accessible to anyone who looks up, and the appreciation of that beauty is enhanced by getting to look through a telescope."
-- Michael Faison, lecturer in astronomy, on the recent reopening of the Leitner Family Observatory atop Pierson-Sage Garage, which offers public viewings the first Thursday of every month, "Where the Earth Meets the Sky," Hartford Courant, Feb. 23, 2006.
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"The world we have known is history. A mere one degree Fahrenheit global average warming is already raising sea levels, strengthening hurricanes, disrupting ecosystems, threatening parks and protected areas, causing droughts and heat waves, melting the Arctic and glaciers everywhere and killing tens of thousands of people a year. Yet there are several more degrees coming in our grandchildren's lifetimes. It is easy to feel like a character in a bad science fiction novel running down the street shouting 'Don't you see it!' while life goes on, business as usual."
-- James Gustave Speth, dean of the School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, and professor in the practice of sustainable development, in his letter to the editor "The Globe Is Warming. Why Aren't We Marching?" The New York Times, Feb. 24, 2006.
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"Toward the end of the 17th century, wig-wearing was definitely on the rise, mainly among fancy folks. Up to the Revolution, people were wearing wigs. ... It stirred up a big controversy, mainly among clergy people. They thought it was immoral. ... The basic point is that some found it just unnatural and a form of vanity."
-- John Demos, the Samuel Knight Professor of American History and professor of American studies, "Field Trip a Hair-Raising Experience," Connecticut Post, Feb. 25, 2006.
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"The reality is that [among businesses listed in religious or ethnic-oriented directories] there may be some marvelous people, the salt of the earth. There's also a lot of people that are using this, and they are no more moral and ethical than anyone else."
-- David Miller, executive director of the Center for Faith and Culture at the Divinity School, "Shoppers Balance Beliefs, Business; Directory Identifies Christian Firms," Washington Post, March 5, 2006.
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"If you've got a big intellectual workload in the morning it might be worth skipping breakfast."
-- Tamas Horvath, associate professor of comparative medicine and of neurobiology, on his team's discovery that a hormone released from the stomach when it is empty may enhance brain-cell connections, in his letter to the editor "Skipping Breakfast," The Times (London), Feb. 28, 2006.
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"I see women suffering every day [from symptoms of menopause] and afraid to take hormone therapy. We've blown the risks out of proportion and forgotten a lot of the reason women started taking hormones. ... For those of us who haven't had a hot flash, it sounds like some nice, warm, fuzzy feeling. But it can be much more devastating than it sounds."
-- Dr. Hugh S. Taylor, associate professor of obstetrics and gynecology and of molecular, cellular and developmental biology, "The Hormone Dilemma," U.S. News & World Report, March 6, 2006.
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"In a whole array of clinical and basic science challenges, evolutionary biology is turning out to be crucial. For example, the evolution of antibiotic resistance is widely recognized, but few appreciate how competition among bacteria has shaped chemical weapons and resistance factors in an arms race that has been going on for hundreds of millions of years. ... There is growing recognition that cough, fever and diarrhea are useful responses shaped by natural selection, but knowing when it is safe to block them will require studies grounded in an understanding of how selection shaped the systems that regulate such defenses and the compromises that had to be struck."
-- Stephen C. Stearns, the Edward P. Bass Professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Randolph M. Nesse and Gilbert S. Omenn, in their article "Medicine Needs Evolution," Science, Feb. 24, 2006.
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"We need an 'emergency constitution.' ...There are two kinds of [potential national] emergency: One is created by a terrorist attack; another when the attack paralyzes our government. The first kind is almost inevitable -- it will be a miracle if we can stop the burgeoning traffic in increasingly powerful weapons, and I don't believe in miracles. But the second is entirely of our own making. It is the product of an ostrich-like refusal to confront the obvious inadequacies of our present arrangements."
-- Bruce Ackerman, the William O. Douglas Clinical Professor of Law, proposing changes to the process governing succession of the president, congressional representatives and Supreme Court judges in the wake of a "doomsday" scenario, in his article "If Washington Blows Up," The American Prospect, March 1, 2006.
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"The three diseases that [the simple act of washing hands] prevented in the study done in Karachi [Pakistan] were pneumonia and diarrheal disease and impetigo -- you know these kind of horrible sores that you often see in the drip zone under kids' noses. It actually decreased pneumonia by half, it decreased diarrhea by half, and it decreased impetigo by about a third. And this is incredibly important because in the world these days about three-and-a-half, or probably more than three-and-a-half million children who are less than five years of age die from just diarrhea and acute respiratory tract infections, that is pneumonia, every year."
-- Dr. Sydney Z. Spiesel, associate clinical professor of pediatrics and clinical professor of nursing, "Research Reinforces Importance of Washing Hands," "Day to Day," National Public Radio, Feb. 20, 2006.
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"Global economic balances are shifting fast in all domains -- manufacturing, trading and financial. Only those wearing heavy blinkers can deny that. Alas, there are many European politicians, and even more American ones, who wear such blinkers."
-- Paul Kennedy, the J. Richardson Dilworth Professor of History, in his article "The Empire Buys Back: Global Economic Balances are Shifting, and Western Politicians Had Better Get Used to It," The Guardian (London), March 1, 2006.
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"Nature has concentrated metals geologically, and ores are extracted from these deposits. If the resulting metal is dispersed after use, it is no longer available in sufficient concentration to make its recovery feasible. It is not so much the form the metal is in, but how concentrated it is. Most human use has been one dimensional: dig it up, use, throw away. We recycle and reuse to some extent, but our approach has not been to design for optimum reuse."
-- Thomas Graedel, the Clifton R. Musser Professor of Industrial Ecology, "Earth's Metal Supply is Finite, Which Could Mean Problems," New Haven Register, Feb. 26, 2006.
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"The ['mosaic theory' of intelligence gathering] holds that individually harmless pieces of information, when combined with other pieces, can generate a composite -- a mosaic -- that reveals national security vulnerabilities. Because of this informational synergy, records that would be unclassifiable in their own right may require protection. ... When the director of the Information Security Oversight Office remarked recently that he's seen information classified since 9/11 that he's 'also seen published in third-grade textbooks,' he was alluding to this phenomenon -- and implying it has gone too far."
-- David Pozen, student at the Law School, in his article "The Mosaic Theory," Hartford Courant, Feb. 28, 2006.
T H I S
W E E K ' SS T O R I E S
Patient care expert Paul Cleary named dean of public health
Gift will help expand music education for city students
Yale experts provide cancer information on 'Healthline'
Alumnus playwright debuts 'dance of the holy ghosts' at Yale Rep
Noted journalists to discuss media's role in international justice
Public service is focus of talk by former U.S. secretary of state
Library acquires the papers of artist and gay rights activist Harvey Fierstein
SCHOOL OF MANAGEMENT NEWS
Conference will explore challenges to providing quality healthcare
School hosts second delegation of Kazakhstan government leadersScientists say most human-chimp differences due to gene regulation
Events to mark guitarist's two decades of teaching
Yale biomedical engineers create stable network of fine blood vessels
Fortune magazine editor to deliver lecture on 'Power and Leadership'
Famed composer and lyricist Stephen Sondheim to visit campus
Event to explore how Christians, Muslims view government
Event to explore executive power and its recent effects
MEDICAL SCHOOL NEWS
Disaster planning and recovery is focus of conference
Study: Turned head results in more serious whiplash
Researchers say frailty in elderly is preventable
Team finds bone marrow cells can convert to gut lining cells
Deleting specific gene in brain cells mimics effects of . . .
Trial to assess new treatment for auditory hallucinations
Keys to successful heart attack treatment identified
Slifka Center for Jewish Life at Yale to host 'Seeing Sinai' . . .
Survey shows that STARS alumni give program high marks
In Memoriam: Dr. Lawrence Brass
Celebration of the library's 75th anniversary continues . . .
Forum will explore issue of payment for forest ecosystem services
Free haircuts offered to those who donate to Locks of Love
Memorial service planned for Dr. Charles McKhann
Campus Notes
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