NEWS OUTLETS AROUND THE GLOBE ARE TAKING NOTE OF ODU FACULTY
A national television show Sunday night, Feb. 18, will feature Old Dominion University researchers and cap a remarkable series of media notices won by the university so far in 2007. In only about six weeks, ODU faculty members and their research have drawn the attention of The New York Times, the History Channel, USA Today, National Geographic, Harper's magazine and dozens of other print, online and broadcast outlets from as far away as Japan.
The History Channel will premier a documentary titled "Star Trek Tech" on Sunday night, Feb. 18, at 9 p.m. that features the futuristic bioelectrics research of ODU faculty members Mounir Laroussi and Richard Nuccitelli. Laroussi's work with plasmas, including his invention of a cold plasma "saber," has been the subject of articles in National Geographic and other national magazines.
USA Today's edition of Thursday, Feb. 15, included a front-page story featuring the red light photo enforcement research of ODU psychologist Bryan Porter. The professor's findings in support of photo enforcement also have been publicized recently in The Washington Post and in newspapers and on television news programs throughout Virginia.
The New York Times published a story and illustration in its Science section on Tuesday, Jan. 30, about the discovery by ODU herpetologists Deborah Hutchinson and Alan Savitzky of an Asian snake that eats poisonous toads and recycles the poison. This was the second New York Times story about ODU-based research in less than a year. In May 2006, a story in the Science section reported on research by ODU biologists Mark Butler and Donald Behringer about the quarantine habits of spiny lobsters.
Hutchinson, a postdoctoral researcher, and her mentor Savitzky, professor of biological sciences, received media attention for their latest snake research from National Geographic, the journal Nature, Science magazine and many newspapers around the globe. Their research appeared first in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
The New York Times in January was among the media noting that Adm. William J. Fallon, the new commander of the U.S. military's Central Command-including Iraq and Afghanistan-holds a master's degree in international studies from ODU.
The Harper's January cover story quoted ODU oceanographer Tom Royer about thousands of toy rubber ducks that escaped from a storm-tossed ship and have been tracked by scientists to provide new information about the orbits of the Subarctic Gyre-a swirling vortex of ocean currents. Royer and ODU oceanography colleague Chester Grosch were authors of another article about the rubber duck research in the Jan. 2 issue of EOS, a publication of the American Geophysical Union.
Also in recent weeks, French media coverage-both print and broadcast-highlighted the work of ODU physicist Charles Hyde-Wright, who won a prestigious $1-million grant from the French government to head up projects at the Laboratoire de Physique Corpusculaire (LPC particle physics laboratory) in central France.