Headliners

AN UNFORGETTABLE TUNE: Alicia Clair, professor and associate dean of music and dance, was quoted in a recent New York Times story about music and its therapeutic affects on individuals with Alzheimer’s disease. Music is stored in the brain differently than language and is therefore more difficult to forget. “You can’t rub out music unless the brain is completely gone,” Clair said. She also noted that Alzheimer’s is retrograde: “Things fall off in the opposite order from the way they were acquired.”

EXERCISING FOR TWO: Kathleen Gustafson, research assistant professor at the KU Medical Center, was cited in a recent story on upi.com about the benefits exercise by pregnant mothers can have for children. Gustafson and her research associates recorded the physiology of the developing fetus in a group of expecting mothers involved in moderate aerobic exercise and a group of mothers with no exercise routine. They found heart rates were significantly lower in the fetuses of mothers who exercised. "These findings suggest a potential benefit of maternal exercise on fetal development because of the link between fetal breathing movements and the developing autonomic nervous system," Gustafson and her colleague Linda May said in a statement.

OVERCOMING COMMUNICATION CHALLENGES: Research at the Life Span Institute to help deaf and blind children communicate has been cited in numerous media outlets, including the Kansas City Star. “Kids don’t just not communicate until one day they start talking,” said Nancy Brady, assistant professor of speech, language and hearing and principal investigator in the study. “In reality, they’re communicating like crazy with gestures and vocalizations almost from birth.” The study worked to adapt those gestures to overcome the challenges the children face.

A MISTAKE OR A ‘MISTAKE:’ Nancy Baym, associate professor of communication studies, was quoted in a recent New York Times article about a mistake in Amazon.com’s algorithm that caused numerous books by gay and lesbian authors to lose their sales rankings. Baym said that whether or not the error was intentional, the fact that it centered on gay and lesbian-themed books made the questions of bias more vital. “People have very good reason to believe that companies will behave homophobically,” Baym said. “There is a lot of homophobia out there.”

She wondered if the lessons now being drawn from the episode would be as potent if, say, cookbooks had been the group that lost its sales rankings.

“People would have just said ‘what’s wrong with Amazon?’ ” Baym said. “People wouldn’t have said ‘they’re censoring cooking!’ ”.

HOW STRONG IS THE TEA? Allan Cigler, professor of political science, was quoted in a Topeka Capitol-Journal article about the effectiveness of TEA Parties, anti-tax protests that took place across the country on April 15. “I don’t think in the near future taxes are going to be a big issue with most people,” he said. “You don’t get a tax revolt until you have a tax increase. I just don’t think much of it.”