Feature Channels: Travel and Transportation

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The start of the school year is the most dangerous time on neighborhood streets and in school zones for child-pedestrians and bus riders.

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As California and its myriad communities develop paths and policies to promote cycling, one segment of the bike-riding population remains largely invisible to policymakers: Those for whom bicycles are an economic necessity, not an option to driving a car.

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Parents are vital in encouraging their children to obey the road rules and young drivers are keen to show their parents they can be trusted, which means they may hold greater power in enforcing driver restrictions compared with traditional policing, according to QUT research.

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According to a new University of Minnesota study, the mismatch between unemployed workers and job vacancies is a serious problem in the Twin Cities region and it appears to have worsened since the turn of the millennium. The biggest concentrations of unemployed workers lack fast or frequent transit service to some of the richest concentrations of job vacancies, particularly vacancies in the south and southwest metro.

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Official government statistics on traffic deaths in southwest India significantly misrepresented the number of pedestrian and motorcycle deaths in the region over a two-year period, casting doubt on the reliability of that country’s government data on traffic fatalities, a study led by researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health suggests.

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Safe driving requires clear central vision and adequate peripheral vision. Glaucoma typically leads to constriction of the visual field, sparing the central vision.

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The Rush Comprehensive Stroke Center is planning a mobile stroke unit that literally will bring immediate stroke diagnosis and treatment to patients’ homes. The unit, serving in parts of the western suburbs, will be the first in Illinois and one of only a handful of its kind in the United States.

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Igor Danilov, researcher at the Laboratory of Intelligent Robotic Systems of Innopolis University is working on a project on autonomous battery swapping in drones without human intervention.

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Mosquitoes in the Aedes family can transmit not only the Zika virus, but also dengue and chikungunya. Travelers visiting regions affected by these diseases should take steps to protect themselves.

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The PNNL-led Battery500 consortium aims to significantly improve upon the batteries that power today’s electric vehicles by nearly tripling the specific energy in lithium batteries.

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Researchers at DePaul University found that car rental taxes originally aimed at tourists and business travelers are hurting the car-sharing sector.

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It’s called “zipper merge,” and more and more transportation departments around the country are encouraging motorists to use it, according to an Associated Press report by Bill Draper. That’s when a driving lane is closed ahead, and motorists use all available lanes and alternate entry into the open lane when they reach the lane closure. Missouri and Kansas have recently joined Minnesota and Washington in encouraging use of the “zipper merge.”

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Dr. Roger Lee, chief of staff at UCLA Medical Center, Santa Monica, is doing his part to reduce traffic on the roadways and cut down on air pollution. Thanks to his smartphone and apps for the Big Blue Bus and Metro Rail, Dr. Lee has public transit down to a science. This busy Los Angeles area physician travels to and from work -- and between his hospital campuses -- using public transportation and the UCLA shuttle.

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Travelers frequently report experiencing a significantly slower jet lag recovery after an eastward vs. westward flight. While some are quick to dismiss this complaint as being “all in their head,” new research suggests it may be caused by the oscillation of a certain type of brain cells.

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The authors recount how Dr. Robert Hubbard, a biomechanical crash engineer, and his brother-in-law, Jim Downing, a racecar driver, joined forces to create the HANS® device, which was designed to prevent the occurrence of shear injuries between the head and neck during high-impact crashes.

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The maneuvers of flying insects are unmatched by even the best pilots, and this might be due to the fact that these critters don’t obey the same aerodynamic laws as airplanes, a team of New York University researchers has found.

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Doctor Daniel A. Rodríguez is joining the College of Environmental Design this fall as Chancellor’s Professor of City and Regional Planning.

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Jet lag can be a real buzzkill when flying across multiple time zones, and most travelers assume their first several days in a new locale will be spent catching up on sleep and letting their body clocks adjust. However, jet lag doesn’t always have to intrude on your fun.

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Driving is a very complex process. Today, almost half of all drivers on the roadways are over the age of 65. With the decline of cognitive processes in older adults such as Alzheimer’s disease, there is heightened concern for public safety and unsafe driving in this population. Understanding the cognitive factors that inhibit effective driving as well as recognizing older adults who may be at risk for unsafe driving is key.

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Charismatic species—such as felines and primates or whales, sharks, and turtles—are attractive to tourists, and the opportunity of seeing them in the wild motivates tourists to visit protected areas. New research indicates that tourists’ preferences are not restricted to charismatic species, however, and they extend to less charismatic biodiversity, as well as to landscapes.

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Driving while talking on a hands-free phone can be as distracting as talking on a hand-held mobile, psychologists at the University of Sussex say.

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UCLA-led team of researchers has taken a unique approach to explain the way in which technologies evolve in modern society. Borrowing a technique that biologists might use to study the evolution of plants or animals, the scientists plotted the “births” and “deaths” of every American-made car and truck model from 1896 to 2014.

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A small, squishy vehicle equipped with soft wheels rolls over rough terrain and runs under water. Future versions of the versatile vehicle might be suitable for search and rescue missions after disasters, deep space and planet exploration, and manipulating objects during magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), according to its creators at Rutgers University. Their most important innovation is a soft motor that provides torque without bending or extending its housing.

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Before your family heads to Mexico, Asia or beyond, do a little planning ahead of time to keep everyone healthy during their journey. Dr. Nava Yeganeh, an assistant professor of pediatric infectious diseases and director of the Pediatric International Travel and Adoption Clinic at Mattel Children’s Hospital UCLA, explains three important strategies.

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Engineers from the University of Southampton are helping to develop an electric-hybrid engine for Venice water taxis this summer to provide cleaner, greener transport.

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School’s out for the summer, and as the temperatures rise across the United States, so does the volume of vacation travel. But the types of vacations Americans seek in 2016 buck travel trends from recent years and show a shift in what they hope to get out of their well-earned time away. Expert insight from Michigan State University’s Broad College of Business forecasts the biggest 2016 vacation trends and explains the forces driving them.

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Shanghai Jiao Tong University researchers have learned more about the role of droplet size impact in aircraft icing to improved safety.

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Interventions rooted in behavioral economics can significantly boost the use of fuel- and carbon-efficient flight practices in the airline industry, according to a study by economists at the University of Chicago and the London School of Economics and Political Science.

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Fatal bicycle and pedestrian crashes are on the rise in Wisconsin, where urban planning professor Bob Schneider has created a list of policy recommendations and urban design solutions to make the state's roads safer.

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Lack of transportation is a hurdle for many families in Texas whose children could benefit from free summer meals, a federally funded program administered by the Texas Department of Agriculture, according to a study by the Texas Hunger Initiative at Baylor University.

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If you purchased a Toyota Prius, you may have been driven by the desire to conserve the environment or to save yourself some money at the gas pump. But consumers may also choose to buy sustainable products to make themselves appear socially responsible to others. Before making purchases, they evaluate how their decisions will stack up against their peers’, according to a new study.

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Find Political Experts, The Latest Research and Polls in the U.S. Politics News Source

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Up front for Guy McHendry, Ph.D., is the TSA’s lack of communication for novice airline passengers who, when confronted with security procedures, might not have the firmest grasp of what’s expected.

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Given declining revenues from gasoline and diesel fuel taxes and the need for new ways of funding road infrastructure, state and federal policymakers are considering or have enacted annual registration fees for plug-in vehicles. In a paper to be published in the August issue of Energy Policy, researchers at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis say that approach is misguided.

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New management research from Syracuse University’s Martin J. Whitman School of Management provides quantitative estimates of economic value creation and appropriation in two industries, the U.S. airline industry and global automotive industry.

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A school has joined a landmark health research project at the University of Louisville designed to use nature to tackle the health impact of busy city streets

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More than 3,100 people were killed in 2014 as a result of distracted driving, according to the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration. Although distractions come in many forms, texting is the most dangerous because it takes eyes, hands and minds away from the task at hand.

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While much has been made about the dangers of texting and driving, less attention has been focused on the age-old distractions of being absent minded or upset while driving. A team of researchers from the University of Houston (UH) and the Texas A&M Transportation Institute (TTI) focused on all three of these important factors.

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Researchers at the University of Iowa’s National Advanced Driving Simulator have developed the world’s first large-scale, multi-use driving simulation environment.

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DHS S&T will conduct a airflow study in portions of the NYC subway system May 9 to May 13 to gather data on the behavior of airborne particles in the event contaminants were released. This study poses no risk to the general public.