An Active Storm Season
June 1 marked the start of the 2020 hurricane season — and it’s slated to be an active one. In this Q&A, UNC researcher Rick Luettich talks about this year’s above-average hurricane forecast, ...
For the Love of Language
Since 1984, over 100,000 Karen refugees have fled their homeland of Myanmar to escape civil war. Since then, more than 40,000 have resettled in the U.S., and more than 5,000 live in North Carolina. ...
Crescendos of Creativity
Give Marc Callahan an opera and, in return, you’ll get an explosion of color, empathy, and sound — and a bit of mid-century flare snuck in for good measure. As the director of UNC Opera, Callahan ...
Sounding the Alarm
Racial discrimination is not only a matter of sight — sound can also be racialized. Petal Samuel’s research traces colonial bans on drums and horns included in slave codes to modern-day noise ...
Moments of Clarity
In the past, cochlear implants were employed in people with severe hearing loss, improving their ability to hear the conversations around them. But now, studies show that these devices offer ...
Machine Morality
As machines become more autonomous, humans must define the limits of their decision-making. UNC postdoctoral researcher Yochanan Bigman addresses this topic, suggesting where to draw the line when ...
Editing Along Ethical Boundaries
Imagine a tool that could cure thousands of genetic illnesses by replacing faulty strands of DNA. What if that same invention could enhance traits like height and intelligence in children through ...
The Fast and the Autonomous
In a small corner of Sitterson Hall sits a fleet of pint-size cars that can see and navigate independently, winning races for the team of UNC computer science students that created them. While the ...
Navigating Ethics in Animal Research
How do people distinguish between what’s right and what’s wrong in the world of animal research? It’s not simple, says UNC bioethicist Rebecca Walker. Like most complex issues, this topic has a lot ...
Animals that Fueled the World
When an archaeologist uncovers an artifact, while likely enthralled by the piece, they are more interested in what it can teach them about human behavior. Zooarchaeologists have a similar goal. UNC ...
Biomechanics on the Fly
It’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s a gliding lizard! A first-of-its-kind study by Pranav Khandelwal and Tyson Hedrick went deep into the Indian jungle to capture and analyze the biomechanics behind the ...
Flocking to the Coast
Professors Allen Hurlbert and Keith Sockman want their students out of the classroom as much as possible. Every other year, the UNC researchers lead an avian biology course that explores the ...