Depending on whom you ask, conspiracy theories are either having a heyday or it’s just business as usual. But whether or not there is a long-term increase happening, certain factors likely influence the ebb and flow of conspiratorial beliefs.
Features
Balancing Art and Academia
Lisa B. Thompson is doing great. Not “all right” or “pretty good under the circumstances” or any other common COVID-era reply to the question of “how are you?” Just great. And it’s not surprising. Her life of late is series of awards, achievements and new projects so plentiful that it’s honestly a bit hard to keep track of them all.
How Social Dynamics Influence the Gut Microbes of Wild Lemurs
New research from The University of Texas at Austin shows that Verreaux’s sifaka, a species of wild lemur native to Madagascar, have gut microbes that are affected by those they socialize with.
Blog
After Life: Remembering Don Graham
Don Graham took his last breath on Saturday, June 22, 2019, at 6:33 a.m., as I held his hand in mine in a narrow room at St. David’s Hospital in Austin. It had been a long time since I had seen a sunrise, and the gray outside his window was beginning to infuse itself with rose and gold.
Primary Source: Notes for a Napoleonic Scandal
In 1815, William Warden was surgeon of HMS Northumberland as it transported Napoleon Bonaparte to his second (and hopefully final) exile. Well aware that folks back home—or even, possibly, history itself—would be interested, Warden took notes in an old surgeon’s log.
A Language for Big Data Neuroscience
Imagine your brain activity displayed on a computer screen — multiple, bustling tabs open, some sparked by a fleeting thought, others derived from prior or underlying behaviors or features. Now imagine a scientist trying to make sense of that activity.
In Memoriam: Teresa Lozano Long
Beloved philanthropist and educator Teresa Lozano Long passed away peacefully on March 21, 2021, with Joe R. Long, her loving husband of 63 years, holding her hand. She was 92.
Books
Book Excerpt: A Time to Gather by Jason Lustig
The Nazi Party’s rise to power and the concomitant exclusion of Jews from public life led to a somewhat surprising strengthening of Jewish institutions, the Gesamtarchiv included.
Leaf Through a Good Book
Keep your to-read list up-to-date with our fall book list, featuring a selection of titles from College of Liberal Arts faculty members and alumni.
Commentary
Alan Warren Friedman
Shakespeare’s Returning Warriors – and Ours
If it is wise, every society that sends its young citizens off to war will find a way to reassimilate them when they return.
Jeffrey Abramson
Supreme Court poised to put Boston Marathon bomber back on death row
In a legal marathon running alongside the real Boston Marathon, the Supreme Court heard oral argument this week about whether to re-instate the on-again, off-again death sentence of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, for his role in planting the deadly bombs near the 2013 Marathon finish line.
Art Markman
Changing your mind about something as important as vaccination isn’t a sign of weakness – being open to new information is the smart way to make choices
Culturally, this is an era in which people are held in high esteem when they stick with their beliefs and negatively labeled as “flip-floppers” or “wishy-washy” when they change what they think.