Stories that featured UNL in January included:
Timothy Gay, physics, was quoted by NBC News, The New York Times and the Los Angeles Times on the mysterious deflation of footballs used by the New England Patriots in their Super Bowl-qualifying game against the Indianapolis Colts.
A Jezebel writer consulted with Sarah Gervais, psychology, for a “lemon cake” experiment described in a Jan. 6 article. By carrying cakes and other baked goods on the subway, men participating in the experiment got a sense of how a woman feels when she’s the subject of leers.
Lisa Kort-Butler, sociology, was quoted in a Jan. 4 story in The New York Times about the popularity of Investigation Discovery, a cable TV channel focusing on true-crime stories.
The latest expedition to Antarctica by the Antarctic Geological Drilling (ANDRILL) team based at UNL received worldwide coverage in late January, after scientists discovered fish living beneath the ice and made other new findings about the area where an ice sheet covering the continent meets the Ross Ice Shelf floating on the ocean. Stories mentioning the ANDRILL program; its director, Frank Rack; and its chief engineer, Bob Zook; appeared in Scientific American, Nature World News, the Antarctic Sun, Engadget and other publications.
Several outlets around the world covered new findings by Jason Head, earth and atmospheric sciences, about how snakes evolved. They included the Daily Mail in London, and Sciences et Aviner in France on Jan. 8, Popular Science on Jan. 20 and the archeology site Heritage Daily on Jan. 5.
Wheeler Winston Dixon, English and film studies, was quoted Jan. 3 in the South China Post, when it ran a version of an LA Times syndicated story about the long-term consequences of “The Interview,” the movie that was pulled from wide release after it inspired hackers’ ire for its depiction of an assassination attempt on North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un. Dixon also showed up Jan. 19 in the Christian Science Monitor to discuss “American Sniper” and in the Arizona Republic to predict the future of movies.
Motherboard featured Matthew Jockers, English, and his digital analysis of literature in a Jan. 21 story that pondered whether the tool could be used to answer whether Shakespeare's plays were truly authored by a glove maker's son from Stratford.
Blogs and columns written by UNL experts also generated attention. A NBC news story included a link to a blog entry by Ari Kohen, political science, about the American Sniper movie and the nature of heroism. Film International published a column by Wheeler Winston Dixon about "The Interview," Sony Pictures and changing distribution models for the film industry, published by Film International.
