The first public exhibition of items in The Maurice Sendak Collection at UConn is “Into the Night: Inspirations and Influences in Maurice Sendak’s In the Night Kitchen,” which celebrates the 50th anniversary of one of the most important books by the award-winning children’s author and illustrator. The exhibition, curated by UConn’s Archives and Special Collections, is on display in the gallery at the Thomas J. Dodd Research Center in Storrs through Dec. 20. In 1969, Sendak wrote excitedly of In the Night Kitchen. “I’m mad for it-and it’s mad,” he noted about the book that tells the tale of a sleeping boy’s dream about searching for milk to help bake a cake. Published a year later, the exuberant nakedness of its hero, Mickey, led to its being banned from certain libraries, and even today there are those who think it is inappropriate for children. The exhibition includes the multi-layered and various inspirations and influences found in In the Night Kitchen such as Walt Disney’s Mickey Mouse and Winsor McKay’s comic strip Little Nemo in Slumberland. Other highlights are the artwork and process materials for the book as well as an exploration of the book’s censorship and public reaction. A symposium focusing on In the Night Kitchen will take …

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If you like viewing pictures of adorable animals on the internet, it’s possible you’ve run across the Hawaiian bobtail squid, a glowing, squishy, golf-ball-sized cephalopod that prompted the Ocean Conservancy to call it the “cutest thing in the ocean.” But this formidable model organism is a heavy hitter in the biology world, especially at UConn, where it helps scientists understand symbioses, including bioluminescence, immune responses and how species co-evolve. Now, Spencer Nyholm of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences and Marcy Balunas of the School of Pharmacy have nailed down what was before a mere hypothesis: This squid harbors dozens of species of symbiotic bacteria in a specialized organ, with the purpose of protecting its eggs from fungal infections. In short, they’ve evolved to grow medicine inside their bodies – and they’re great new pharmaceutical leads. “This is a group that hasn’t been studied for its antimicrobial properties, or for producing drugs,” says Nyholm, associate professor in the Department of Molecular and Cell Biology. “It’s exciting that this system could lead to antifungal agents.” Although scientists have studied the squid – their scientific name is Euprymna scolopes – for more than 30 years, that’s mostly been to understand how they light up, glowing in different intensities. Nyholm was among the …

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When Samantha Siedlecki was a young girl in land-locked Chicago, she would go on family vacations to the beach, excursions that gave her a chance to play in the waves, build sandcastles, watch crabs, and fall in love with the ocean. In high school, Siedlecki worked as a volunteer at the Shedd Aquarium in Chicago. As her fascination with the ocean grew, she began looking into college programs in marine sciences. “I was always fascinated by what was going on in the ocean,” says Siedlecki, who received her bachelor’s degree in marine sciences with a concentration in marine geology from Eckerd College and her Ph.D. from the University of Chicago. “In grad school I mostly focused on theoretical questions, but real-world applications of my questions required less-idealized approaches,” Siedlecki says. “I wanted to learn about more realistic simulations in my post-doc work.” Now an assistant professor of marine sciences at the University of Connecticut, Siedlecki spearheads research on coastal environments. She recently received a grant from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to develop a regional model of ocean acidification for the East Coast. The ocean has been becoming increasingly acidic since the industrial revolution began releasing unprecedented amounts of fossil fuel emissions into the air …

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Occurrences of weight stigma are just as common among sexual minority adults as they are among heterosexual adults, according to a new study published in Obesity by researchers at the Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity at the University of Connecticut. Regardless of sexual orientation, two out of three adults enrolled in the WW program (formerly Weight Watchers) reported experiencing and internalizing weight stigma. The study focused on more than 18,000 US adults enrolled in the WW program who completed surveys about their experiences of weight stigma, health behaviors, and quality of life. In total, 658 participants who identified themselves as a sexual minority were compared to 658 participants who identified themselves as heterosexual, matched on characteristics of sex, race, body weight, age, and education. “We know from previous research that there are consistent links between weight stigma and negative health consequences, both mentally and physically, across all body types. But there has been little attention to how weight stigma affects sexual minority adults, who may be vulnerable to unfair treatment not only because of their sexual identity, but also because of their body weight,” says Rebecca Puhl, deputy director of the UConn Rudd Center, professor of Human Development and Family Sciences at the …

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Understanding the thermonuclear explosion of Type Ia supernovae — powerful and luminous stellar explosions — is only possible through theoretical models, which previously were not able to account for the mechanism that detonated the explosion. One of the key pieces of this explosion, present virtually in all models, is the formation of a supersonic reaction wave called detonation, which can travel faster than the speed of sound and is capable of burning up all of the material of a star before it gets dispersed into the vacuum of space. But, the physics of the mechanisms that create a detonation in a star has been elusive. Now, a team of researchers from the University of Connecticut, Texas A&M University, University of Central Florida, Naval Research Laboratory, and Air Force Research Laboratory has developed a theory that sheds light on the enigmatic process of detonation formation at the heart of these remarkable astronomical events. The research, published Nov. 1 in Science, offers a critical understanding of this physical process both in stars and also in chemical systems on Earth. It was led by Alexei Poludnenko, UConn School of Engineering and Texas A&M University; in collaboration with Jessica Chambers and Kareem Ahmed, the University of Central Florida; Vadim Gamezo, …

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Groucho Marx. Jerry Lewis. Gilda Radner. Larry David. Sarah Silverman. Amy Schumer. What do these modern comedians have in common? Go ahead…you can say it, encourages Avinoam Patt, new director of the Center for Judaic Studies and Contemporary Jewish Life. Being funny, he says, is an important part of Jewish history. For example, the popular professor screens the slapstick Marx Brothers comedy, Duck Soup, in his course titled Jewish Humor. “Students get to examine how humor works through Jewish culture,” he says. “As early as the 1930s, Jewish comedians like Groucho Marx are poking fun at fascist dictators. “Which,” he notes wryly, “is always relevant.” Patt joined UConn in August as the center’s third director and Doris and Simon Konover Chair of Judaic Studies. He follows on the legacy of nearly 40 years of Judaic studies at UConn, and sees a bright – and, yes, humorous – future for its researchers and students. Growing up in Houston, as the son of Israeli immigrants who came to the U.S. for medical fellowships, Patt says that being both Jewish and a Texan grounded him in two very different worlds. “For Jews, it’s an important question: Where is home?” he asks. “Most of my extended family is in Israel. What does …

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On Friday, Oct. 18, years of long-simmering tension over economic inequality, an unresponsive political system, and other factors erupted into massive demonstrations in cities across Chile after people in the capital of Santiago came into the streets to protest a fare increase for the city’s train system. Long seen as a model of economic prosperity and democratic stability in the region, Chile’s billionaire president, Sebastián Piñera, boasted in an interview just days before the protests that his nation was safe from the unrest that has recently erupted in Ecuador, Peru, Venezuela, and elsewhere. Professor Mark Healey, head of the Department of History and an authority on contemporary Latin America, explains in this interview how Chile reached this point, how its government might de-escalate the situation, and what it means for the rest of the region. (The conversation has been lightly edited for clarity and length) Q: Press coverage in the US so far has focused on the now-rescinded metro fare hike as the spark for the protests, but presumably the discontent goes deeper than that. What are some of the broader reasons for the protests? A: One of the most telling slogans of the protests has been, “It’s not about 30 pesos, it’s about …

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Fire starting is a skill that many modern humans struggle with in the absence of a lighter or matches. The earliest humans likely harvested fire from natural sources, yet when our ancestors learned the skills to set fire at will, they had newfound protection, a means of cooking, light to work by, and warmth at their fingertips. Just when this momentous acquisition of knowledge occurred has been a hotly debated topic for archaeologists. Now, a team of University of Connecticut researchers, working with colleagues from Armenia, the U.K., and Spain, has found compelling evidence that early humans such as Neanderthals not only controlled fire, but also mastered the ability to generate it. “Fire was presumed to be the domain of Homo sapiens but now we know that other ancient humans like Neanderthals could create it,” says co-author Daniel Adler, associate professor in anthropology. “So perhaps we are not so special after all.” Their work, published today in Scientific Reports, pairs archaeological, hydrocarbon and isotope evidence of human interactions with fire, with what the climate was like tens of thousands of years ago. Using specific fire-related molecules deposited in the archaeological record and an analysis of climatological clues, the researchers examined Lusakert Cave 1 in the Armenian …

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A surge in street protests since the election of President Donald Trump nearly three years ago has scholars struggling to find new methods to study this form of social activism, according to a new paper co-authored by UConn political scientist Jeremy Pressman. In the paper, published Oct. 23 in Sciences Advances, titled “The science of contemporary street protest: New efforts in the United States,” Pressman and his colleagues outline the challenges and limitations associated with studying protests scientifically on a large scale. As an example of the scholars’ concerns, the frequency and widening geographic scope of recent protests throughout the country such as the 2017 Women’s March and the recent Youth Climate Strikes makes it difficult to gather event data and conduct crowd surveys for demonstrations happening simultaneously in different regions and cities, according to the researchers. “Participating in protests and demonstrations is an important form of political participation throughout the world,” says sociologist Dana R. Fisher, of the University of Maryland, lead author for the paper. “If scholars are to understand the meaning of these events for politics, greater collective effort is needed to scale-up and standardize the way we study them.” The authors say forming teams of scholars and developing a methodology for …

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University of Connecticut Professor Bernard Goffinet spent the last 20 years studying the rich diversity of lichens and moss in sub-Antarctic Chile and today, images of his work will be unveiled at that nation’s embassy in Washington, D.C. Goffinet’s presentation is part of an announcement about the launch of Chile’s Sub-Antarctic Cape Horn Research Center. Set to be inaugurated next October, the center will be the southernmost long-term ecological experiment station in the world. “These organisms are living in the extreme … there is much to be discovered,” says Goffinet, of ecology and evolutionary biology. The exhibit and panel discussion at the embassy this week focus on research opportunities in the context of climate change happening in Chile, which, in just a few weeks, will host the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). The photo gallery was purposely left without species or size information, Goffinet says, because he wanted the images to stand alone without any details to distract viewers. It emerged out of a desire by Goffinet to stress that there is much to be learned about the diversity within the biosphere of Patagonia. He worked with UConn graduate Ricardo Rozzi, an advocate for the biosphere reserve, and Mark Smith ’13 MS, to …

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