With Good Reason

Bacteriophages are everywhere you look — in the soil, in the ocean, in your backyard.  They’re viruses that infect bacteria, and they could one day be used to fight off drug-resistant strains of bacteria like tuberculosis.   Mark Forsyth and Kurt Williamson (College of William and Mary) lead a group of students into the field [...]

Inter-country adoptions gone awry have a way of capturing headlines.  A missionary group lands in jail after trying to remove children from Haiti.  An American woman puts her seven year-old adopted son on a one-way flight back to Moscow.  Karen Rotabi (Virginia Commonwealth University) has studied this issue in Guatemala and beyond for decades and [...]

Access to health care is still a major challenge for many Americans, even with the recent government overhaul.  In Appalachia, access can be even more limited.  With the nearest  health specialists sometimes hundreds of miles away, many people rely on free clinics for their medical, dental, and vision needs.  Thousands travel to Wise, Virginia each year for a weekend of teeth [...]

After teaching courses on marriage and family relations to community college students for 40 years, it’s clear to Russ Crescimanno (Piedmont Virginia Community College) that most couples don’t have a clue on how to compromise.  There is, he says, a science to love and intimacy, and many rocky marriages could thrive if couples would just [...]

For years, lawyers have advised parties in high stakes cases to avoid apologizing, because doing so could be construed as an admission of guilt.  However, Rick Warne (George Mason University) shows that apologizing may not only sometimes be the right thing to do, it can also save people from paying higher damages.  Also: The recent [...]

Back pain is the leading cause of disability among Americans who are less than forty-five years of age. A new therapy offers what could be the answer to the prayers of many suffering from the pain of degenerating discs. Micheal Depalma (Virginia Commonwealth University Spine Center) is participating in cutting edge research involving the use [...]

After teaching courses on marriage and family relations to community college students for 40 years, it’s clear to Russ Crescimanno (Piedmont Virginia Community College) that most couples don’t have a clue on how to compromise.  There is, he says, a science to love and intimacy, and many rocky marriages could thrive if couples would just [...]

With Good Reason invites you to a traditional Thanksgiving meal, but nearly everything on the table is grown, made, or brewed, within 100 miles of Charlottesville, Virginia.  The dinner host, Tim Beatley (University of Virginia),  introduced the 100-mile Thanksgiving idea to his students after reading The 100-mile Diet: A Year of Local Eating.  About 95 [...]

Zelda and F. Scott Fitzgerald (left) had a celebrity marriage during the Jazz Age of the 1920s.  However, from 1930 until her death in 1948, Zelda was in and out of mental hospitals.  Karen Tatum (Norfolk State University) is exploring the possibility of a link between the medication Zelda took for eczema and her debilitating [...]

The Elizabeth River is one of the most polluted waterways in the country and the world’s first floating wetlands classroom–‘The Learning Barge’–is coming to her aid. Phoebe Crisman (University of Virginia) developed the floating field station, which is powered by solar and wind energy and utilizes recycled materials. The barge allows students to study and [...]