Society

Society: Understanding Human Nature and Behavior

For the Love of Language

June 17, 2020

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. Such displacement greatly affects lives, and even language — within just three generations their native tongue is barely spoken. Linguistics PhD students Amy Reynolds and Jen Boehm strive to understand this shift and hope to preserve the Karen people’s histories in the process.

Sounding the Alarm

June 11, 2020

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 abatement efforts in black communities.

Emily Hynes

June 10, 2020

Emily Hynes is a PhD student in the Department of Music within the UNC College of Arts & Sciences. She studies women who made music within prisons of the American South from the 1930s to '40s and creates interactive digital maps to convey this information.

Machine Morality

May 19, 2020

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 self-governing technology is required to make life-or-death decisions.

Editing Along Ethical Boundaries

May 18, 2020

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 manipulation of DNA in embryos? CRISPR, a gene-editing technology, is tricky business — and geneticists at UNC are addressing the ethics surrounding it.

Navigating Ethics in Animal Research

May 13, 2020

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 of gray areas — which Walker explores using the ancient philosophical approach called virtue ethics.

Rachel Despard

May 6, 2020

Rachel Despard is a senior majoring in music with minors in public policy and social and economic justice within the UNC College of Arts & Sciences. She studies how recorded music boosts community collaboration, affects visibility for vulnerable populations, and addresses systematic inequalities.

Chloe Scattergood

April 22, 2020

Chloe Scattergood is a senior majoring in archaeology and minoring in art history and geological sciences within the UNC College of Arts & Sciences. She has spent the past two summers uncovering artifacts in Huqoq, Israel, and plans to pursue a master's degree focused on colonial-era ceramics from the American East Coast.

Animals that Fueled the World

April 15, 2020

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 researchers Benjamin Arbuckle and Heather Lapham use ancient animal remains, texts, and iconography to understand how relationships with animals changed peoples’ lives and the world.

Boosting Teen Spirit

March 24, 2020

More than 13 percent of U.S. teenagers between the ages of 12 and 17 experience a major depressive episode, which can follow them into adulthood. How can families protect their teens’ mental health as they grow? More fun and family time are just a few ways, according to researchers from the UNC Carolina Population Center.