Brenda Malinics, director of alumni relations at Temple's School of Pharmacy, says bats are misunderstood animals, thanks in large part to their portrayal in movies. She recently hosted an "All about Bats" program at Ridley Creek State Park to dispel some of the myths surrounding the flying mammals. "The misconceptions come from Hollywood," she said, adding that they're quite vulnerable: Due to habitat loss, lack of food and a fungal infection epidemic, "bats may disappear from Pennsylvania in the next 10 years," she said.
Many people who lose weight after dieting often get frustrated when those extra pounds come back. Research suggests that a rise in appetite-stimulating hormones could be to blame. Patients in one study were asked to rate their levels of hunger more than a year after dieting. But Gary Foster, director of Temple's Center for Obesity Research and Education, says since those findings are subjective, it can be difficult to draw lasting conclusions. "Hunger can mean different things to different people," he said. "Hunger isn't the driving force for most people who overeat."
Jenny Shanker, an instructor at Temple's Tyler School of Art, has been traveling across the state to collect an unusual raw material for her latest work: Marcellus Shale. Shanker is using the rocks, known as a source for natural gas extracted in a controversial process known as fracking, to sculpt cups that will be used for a symposium on the Marcellus Shale formation at Temple Gallery as well as the gallery's weekly coffee club. "I wanted to use a form from an everyday object," she said.
New visitor centers and websites for Chicago tourists have prompted visitors to extend their stays, increase their spending and plan return visits. A study co-authored by Daniel R. Fesenmaier of Temple's School of Tourism and Hospitality Management found that explorechicago.org brought $172 million in tourist spending to Chicago last year. City tourism centers added another $32 million. The study was commissioned by the Chicago Office of Tourism and Culture.
Once a representation of something beyond our comprehension, the word trillion has now sealed its place in common parlance. As U.S. politicians were trying to find budget savings of $1.2 trillion, European leaders were topping up their rescue fund to the tune of 1 trillion euros. "'Trillion' does seem to have much more currency than it used to, probably because of the costs of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars and the budget and deficit," said John Allen Paulos, a professor of mathematics at Temple. "This doesn't mean that most people have a visceral grasp of its size."
Temple University Health System recently opened a new facility in Oaks, Pa., a move that is part of its strategy to expand its presence outside the city. The new site will focus on providing orthopedic and pulmonary care to nearby residents, while also providing access to advanced therapies and clinical trials available at Temple Hospital in North Philadelphia, said Larry Kaiser, dean of the School of Medicine and CEO of the Temple University Health System. "We want to plant the Temple 'T' in a number of locations around the community," Kaiser said.
According to a new Temple Fox School of Business study, if you view your car as part of your identity, you’ll also believe the road around you is your personal space, which results in aggressive driving. "If somebody is walking down the street with a stick and tries to hit you, you’ll probably act aggressively back," explains Ayalla Ruvio, an assistant professor of marketing at Fox and the study's lead author. "Some drivers show the same kind of behavior on the road. If someone cuts you off, even accidentally, you might act aggressively to defend your space."
Temple's Fox School of Business has come up with a creative way to improve services. By combining three wireless projectors with a complete wall covered with projector paint, large whiteboards and easily movable furniture, the Fox School's Department of Management Information Systems (MIS) transformed Speakman Hall Room 200 into a high-tech meeting and events space. "We wanted to push the frontier of integrating technology, space and meetings," said MIS Chair Munir Mandviwalla. "The requirements of flexibility, multipurpose, mobile and so on all came from that vision."
A magnitude 7.3 earthquake hit the city of Van in eastern Turkey Sunday afternoon. Turkey lies in a major seismic area where there are many fault zones. Nilgun Anadolu-Okur, associate professor of African American studies at Temple and a Turkish native, said that there had been some awareness on the part of officials there to replace some of the structures in vulnerable cities like Van: "In the city of van, old buildings were being renewed and new structures were rising.
