With Good Reason

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 [...]

Philosophers from Epicurus to Charlotte Joko Beck offer insights that may change how we view the world and our place in it. In How Philosophy Can Save Your Life, Marietta McCarty (Piedmont Virginia Community College) introduces ideas from the world’s greatest minds, weaving together the various strands as a tapestry for good living.  Also [...]

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 [...]

Rod Serling may have gotten it right when he said, “There is a fifth dimension beyond that which is known to man.”  Physics professor John Simonetti (Virginia Tech) is exploring the possibility of an extra dimension beyond the three dimensions of space and one of time.  Also featured: Andres Sousa-Poza (Old Dominion University) and his [...]

It has been three years since the tragic deaths of the 13 trapped miners in West Virginia.  In an effort to prevent such an event from happening again, Col. Jim Squire, Lt. Col. Jay Sullivan, and Maj. Elizabeth Baker (Virginia Military Institute) have developed a device that uses seismic waves to communicate with miners trapped [...]

Think you could pick out a serial killer in a crowd? Mike Aamodt (Radford University) says you couldn’t if your life depended on it.  Aamodt has compiled a database profiling information on more than 1,700 serial killers around the world.  The data were collected, in part, to determine whether the commonly used profile of a [...]

Despite what many people believe, fall leaf color in Virginia is remarkably consistent every year. Dendrologist John Seiler (Virginia Tech) has been studying fall leaf color for decades.
Also: biologist Dan Cristol (William & Mary) says mercury pollution in waterways is not only bad for fish-eating birds, but for songbirds as well, who are absorbing the [...]

Female tree frogs use complex information processing when listening to the mating calls of male frogs to select their mates.  Kit Murphy (James Madison University) is discovering how females make their choices and may be close to answering the age old question, “Why is she with him?”  Also featured: Between 33 and 50 percent of [...]

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 [...]

Winslow Homer’s famous painting (left) shows a sailor wrestling against the Gulf Stream current that pushes water from the Americas to Europe and back with a force three hundred times more powerful than the Amazon River.  Stan Ulanski (James Madison University) explains that the Gulf Stream was essential to the early exploration of the New [...]