Melissa Homestead, English, director of The Cather Project at Nebraska, was featured in a Nov. 1 “Bell Ringers” video, produced by C-SPAN. She discussed the impact of the Homestead Act of 1862 on Nebraska and its relevance to Willa Cather’s “My Ántonia.”
Tierney Lorenz, psychology, was quoted in a Nov. 9 New York Times article on the sexual side effects of antidepressants. Researchers found that men were much more likely to report such side effects to their doctors than women were, even though women are more often prescribed antidepressants. “The charitable interpretation is that we simply have more treatments available for male patients, and so doctors are more likely to ask after things that they feel they can actually help with,” she said. “The significantly less charitable interpretation is that we still live in a very sexist society that doesn’t believe that women should have sexual interest.” (This article requires a subscription.)
Qi (Steve) Hu, Earth and atmospheric sciences, was interviewed for a Nov. 10 Scientific American article on whether farmers’ almanacs can be trusted for weather predictions. Two almanacs predict colder weather and more snowfall than last year, but the NOAA says that the northern U.S. will be warmer than usual and the southern U.S. has even odds of cooler, average or warmer weather. “When you have so many things out there, and some of them are in conflict or totally opposite, which ones do you use?” Hu said.
