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The National Institute of Standards and Technology through its Advanced Manufacturing Technology Consortia Program (AMTech) has awarded $500,000 to the University of Rochester’s Center for Emerging and Innovative Sciences (CEIS) to lead the development of a national roadmap for photonics.

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University of Rochester Professor of Biology Vera Gorbunova, whose innovative research on DNA repair and the aging process has been internationally recognized, has been awarded a $9.5 million grant from the National Institute on Aging to study longevity.

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The disturbing imagery or violent storylines of videos games like World of Warcraft or Grand Theft Auto are often accused of fostering feelings of aggression in players. But a new study shows hostile behavior is linked to gamers’ experiences of failure and frustration during play—not to a game’s violent content.

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Voice students who want to perfect how they sing their vowels could get help from a new simple, free application developed by a group of University of Rochester students who developed it as part of their Human-Computer Interaction computer science class.

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For decades, the American Bar Association has vetted judicial nominees, rankling conservatives and liberals alike when candidates earn less than stellar marks. Now a new study suggests that the sometimes-controversial ratings could be tilted against minorities and women.

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Current reforms to American public education are not working and enough is enough, says Joanne Larson, professor of education at the University of Rochester's Warner School of Education and author of the new book Radical Equality in Education: Starting Over in U.S. Schooling.

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Urban legislators have long lamented that they do not get their fair share of bills passed in state governments, often blaming rural and suburban interests for blocking their efforts. Now a new study confirms one of those suspicions but surprisingly refutes the other.

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Discussing five movies about relationships over a month could cut the three-year divorce rate for newlyweds in half, researchers report. The study, involving 174 couples, is the first long-term investigation to compare different types of early marriage intervention program

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John R. Huizenga, Tracy H. Harris Professor Emeritus of Chemistry and Physics at the University of Rochester and an internationally recognized leader in the field of nuclear science, died last Saturday in La Jolla, Calif.

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Until recently measuring a 27-dimensional quantum state would have been a time-consuming, multistage process using a technique called quantum tomography, which is similar to creating a 3D image from many 2D ones. Researchers at the University of Rochester have been able to apply a recently developed, alternative method called direct measurement to do this in a single experiment with no post-processing.

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The naked mole rat has been named Vertebrate of the Year by Science Magazine, thanks to the work of University of Rochester biologists Vera Gorbunova and Andrei Seluanov.

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In time for World AIDS Day on Sunday, Dec. 1, one of the world's largest collections of AIDS posters-- comprising over 6,200 pieces from 124 countries, in 68 languages and dialects--is complete and available online thanks to catalogers at the University of Rochester.

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Faced with the dual demands of motherhood and poverty, as many as one fourth of low-income minority mothers struggle with major depression. Now a new study shows that screening for the disorder and providing short-term, relationship-focused therapy through weekly home visits can relieve depression among minority mothers, even in the face of poverty and personal histories of abuse or violence.

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With the help of computerized eye trackers, a new cognitive science study finds that at least 50 percent of people can see the movement of their own hand even in the absence of all light.

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States across the country have started to implement the Common Core State Standards for Mathematics (CCSSM). But, according to a National Science Foundation-funded study, a large majority of middle school math teachers point to the new high-stakes tests and teacher evaluations associated with the CCSSM as challenges for implementing the new standards. In fact, most teachers reported that the content of these new state assessments and the teacher evaluation systems aligned with the CCSSM will ultimately drive their classroom practices. These are among other findings released as part of a new survey, conducted by researchers from the University of Rochester, Western Michigan University, Michigan State University, and Washington State University Tri-Cities in April and May 2013, that examines how teachers perceive the new standards, CCSSM-related assessments, and the teacher evaluation process linked to the new standards.

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Vasilii Petrenko, an assistant professor of earth and environmental sciences, is one of 16 researchers being awarded a prestigious David and Lucille Packard Foundation Fellowship for Science and Engineering.

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The University of Rochester’s Ching Tang, a professor of chemical engineering at the Hajim School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, is being honored on two continents within the next week for his pioneering work on organic light-emitting diodes, or OLEDs, which are expected to become a dominant technology for flat screen displays.

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Benjamin Hafensteiner, a professor of chemistry at the University of Rochester, didn’t plan on starting the fall semester as a star in a viral video, but that’s exactly what happened. And in true fashion, Hafensteiner turned it into a teaching moment.

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Although slavery was abolished 150 years ago, its political legacy is alive and well, according to researchers who performed a new county-by-county analysis of census data and opinion polls of more than 39,000 southern whites.

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A first-ever study of air trapped in the deep snowpack of Greenland shows that atmospheric levels of carbon monoxide (CO) in the 1950s were actually slightly higher than what we have today. This is a surprise because current computer models predict much higher CO concentrations over Greenland today than in 1950. And it appears that improved combustion technology is linked to the lower CO levels.

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Across the country, middle school mathematics teachers are increasingly familiar with the Common Core State Standards for Mathematics (CCSSM) and report that the CCSSM are more rigorous than the state standards they are replacing, according to a recent survey funded by the National Science Foundation. However, the survey data shows that more support and resources are needed in order for educators to put the CCSSM into practice.

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Hundreds of psychologists from 38 countries will gather in Rochester, N.Y. to share the latest scientific insights into the mysteries of human motivation during the Conference on Self-Determination Theory, June 27 to 30.

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A brief visual task can predict IQ, according to a new study. This surprisingly simple exercise measures the brain’s unconscious ability to filter out visual movement. The study shows that individuals whose brains are better at suppressing background motion perform better on standard measures of intelligence.

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Children with autism see simple movement twice as quickly as other children their age, and this hypersensitivity to motion may provide clues to a fundamental cause of the developmental disorder, according to a new study.

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Opposing thumbs, expressive faces, complex social systems: it’s hard to miss the similarities between apes and humans. Now a new study with a troop of zoo baboons and lots of peanuts shows that a less obvious trait—the ability to understand numbers—also is shared by man and his primate cousins.

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Students not performing well academically? Look no further—the answer may be in their motivation for attending college in the first place. Researchers at the Warner School of Education at the University of Rochester found that student motivation for attending college is related to academic success. And, they uncover unique relationships that exist between the different types of student motivation—as conceptualized by Self-Determination Theory (SDT)—and academic achievement and persistence.

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Fear of public speaking tops death and spiders as the nation’s number one phobia. But new research shows that learning to rethink the way we view our shaky hands, pounding heart, and sweaty palms can help people perform better both mentally and physically.

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If you think giving someone the cold shoulder inflicts pain only on them, beware. A new study shows that individuals who deliberately shun another person are equally distressed by the experience.

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Physicists make the first direct measurements of the polarization states of light. Using a recently developed technique, their work both overcomes some important challenges of Heisenberg’s famous Uncertainty Principle and also is applicable to qubits, the building blocks of quantum information theory.

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An 18-foot-long rhinestone covered replica of a U.S. Predator drone will be the center of new multimedia art exhibit opening on Friday, March 1, at the Hampden Gallery at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.

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It's time for the Mars/Venus theories about the sexes to come back to Earth, a new study shows. From empathy and sexuality to science inclination and extroversion, statistical analysis of 122 different characteristics involving 13,301 individuals finds that men and women, by and large, do not fall into different groups.

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There’s no debating that smartphones have sped up communication. But two professors at the University of Rochester are looking to do the opposite by using mobile technology to slow people down. Their new “Indeterminate Hikes” (IH+) app encourages participants to focus attention on the environment and experience nature in unexpected urban spaces.

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Using brain scans of children and adults watching Sesame Street, cognitive scientists are learning how children’s brains change as they develop intellectual abilities like reading and math. The novel use of brain imaging during everyday activities like watching TV, say the scientists, opens the door to studying other thought processes in naturalistic settings and may one day help to diagnose and treat learning disabilities.

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From rock ‘n’ roll to pop and hip hop, popular music may be, well, popular. But it is rarely understood as a musical form. Now that’s about to change. The University of Rochester has established an Institute for Popular Music that treats the study of popular genres as seriously as classical music.

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To mark World AIDS Day on Saturday, Dec. 1, 2012, more than 1,000 new posters from one of the world’s largest AIDS education poster collections have been digitized and put online by archivists at the University of Rochester.

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Featuring more than 200 examples of the century’s best political art, a new history of health care reform provides an entertaining review of 100 years of partisan wrangling over medical insurance.

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For the past four decades, the “marshmallow test” has served as a classic experimental measure of children’s self-control: will a preschooler eat one of the fluffy white confections now or hold out for two later? Now a new study demonstrates that being able to delay gratification is influenced as much by the environment as by innate ability.

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With the Democratic Party platform officially calling for “equal treatment under law for same-sex couples,” it may be hard to remember that just four short decades ago being in a gay relationship was grounds for imprisonment, not protection. To preserve that history, the University of Rochester has launched an online archive of the Empty Closet, New York State's oldest gay newspaper.

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Professor David Williams, University of Rochester, will receive the António Champalimaud Vision Award at a ceremony in Lisbon, Portugal, on September 14 2012. The award recognizes Williams’ work on adaptive optics technologies as a “major breakthrough in the understanding and/or the preservation of vision.”

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Researchers from the University of Rochester and Texas A&M University have found that bacteria consumed and removed 200,000 tons of oil and natural gas following Deepwater Horizon.

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Infants ignore information that is too simple or too complex, focusing instead on situations that are “just right,” according to a new study. Dubbed the “Goldilocks effect” by the University of Rochester team that discovered it, the attention pattern sheds light on how babies learn to make sense of a world full of complex sights, sounds, and movements.

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For decades political scientists have failed to establish a direct connection between money and legislative outcomes. Now a 50-state study documents the subtle and not-so-subtle ways in which money buys influence – from setting a party’s agenda, to keeping bills off the floor, to adding earmarks and crafting key language in legislation.

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Few dispute Dick Clark’s prominence in American music and entertainment during the second half of the 20th century. But for the history of rock music, the early years of Clark’s career are the most significant, says John Covach, professor of music at the University of Rochester and its Eastman School of Music.

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Homophobia is more pronounced in individuals with an unacknowledged attraction to the same sex and who grew up with authoritarian parents who forbade such desires, a series of psychology studies demonstrates. The study is the first to document the role that both parenting and sexual orientation play in the formation of intense fear of homosexuals.