One of the three guiding principles of The Research Project is finding research that brings new understanding to previously held beliefs. The research I’m sharing this week has brought me to a new understanding of one of my beliefs. For years I wondered why hundreds of people didn’t go to jail when the housing bubble burst,…
By now it is a familiar routine; get your car serviced, spend the night in a hotel, call customer service for help with a problem, and a few hours or days later you get an email asking you to complete a survey to evaluate your experience. But what if, after making a court appearance, you…
At just past the halfway point in The Research Project it’s time to do a little looking back at what we’ve blogged about so far, maybe pick some favorites. To be sure I have discovered that we have some really amazing colleges and universities in our country. And there is a phenomenal amount of fascinating…
After eight weeks of states whose names begin with the letter “M” we are moving on to the N’s as in Nebraska. This week we head to Creighton University, a Jesuit school in Omaha, where they are developing a promising new way to help those suffering from PTSD, also known as shell shock or battle fatigue syndrome. The…
Last summer’s explosion of the Space X rocket meant the destruction of a research project that a team of scientists from Montana’s Rocky Mountain College was working on. The team, led by Dr. Andy Wildenberg, was attempting to grow algae in space in a jello-like substance instead of in water. The team from Montana had gone to Florida…
Hard to believe I am that with this post I will be halfway done with this 50-state research project. With the plight of refugees a pressing topic in global news and Europe facing its biggest refugee crisis since World War II, seven Webster University – Geneva students recently participated in a refugee simulation to elicit insights and…
Sporting events give people the opportunity to relax, have a good time and join thousands of others in cheering for their favorite team. It is precisely because of the crowds and the relaxed atmosphere that sporting events have become a target for terrorists. The two bombs that went off on April 15, 2013 near the finish line of the…
This week we feature research done by someone I actually know. Trevor Vannatta, whose parents are members of my church, is trying to figure out why moose are dying off in Northern Minnesota as part of his graduate work at the University of Minnesota – Duluth. Turns out the giant liver fluke, a parasite that has a…
Here’s what Michigan Tech professor Jeremy Goldman has been doing to improve a common medical procedure: Blocked artery, the doctor says. Too much plaque clogging the inside, curbing the flow of oxygen-rich blood to the heart and raising the risk of blood clots. Better widen the opening with a balloon-tipped catheter and insert a stent—a…
One of the most fascinating books I’ve read recently is called Kidding Ourselves by Joseph Hallinan. The book is basically a long litany of studies showing that people did just as well with a placebo or a fake treatment as they did with real drugs or treatments. What made the difference time and again was whether…
Mirror Neurons 