Social Sciences

Primate tourism, an economic benefit and conservation tool in many habitat countries, has exploded in popularity over the past two decades in places like China, Borneo, Uganda, Rwanda, Northern Sumatra, Madagascar, Gabon and Central America. New research by scientists in the United States, China and Japan, however, has found that some primate tourism practices are inappropriate because they provoke an unprecedented level of adult aggression that is proving deadly for infant monkeys.

Bloody murder has been a quintessentially American preoccupation since John Newcomen sailed in on the Mayflower and was whacked by a fellow colonist. What followed in America from the 17th century to the present, says cultural analyst and author David F. Schmid, Ph.D., is a form of "entertainment by murder," a ghastly enthrallment that conflates some of Americans' favorite preoccupations: consumerism, titillation by celebrity gossip and violence.

A study by a University at Buffalo urban planning researcher has found that houses located within a half-mile radius of Buffalo's light rail stations are assessed at $1,300 to $3,000 more than similar properties that are not within walking distance of the stations.

Monica Ridgeway, a University at Buffalo undergraduate entering her senior year, knows that when people think of a scientist, they usually think of a white male in a lab coat; but not too far in the future, she hopes they will envision someone more like herself, a young African-American woman with a head full of braids who is curious about correlations between frozen mud and global warming.

A researcher at the University at Buffalo's Research Institute on Addictions (RIA) is investigating the "brain's own marijuana" -- called endocannabinoid -- in the regulation of stress, stress-related behavior and anxiety.

If you're in the market for a weird, intriguing and exciting Saturday night, head down to Buffalo's Central Terminal, 495 Paderewski Drive, for a multi-media marriage of ghosts, puppets, mechanical spiders, robotic dance partners, hallucinatory discovery and industrial progress -- together at last at an event produced by University at Buffalo robotic artist Don Paul Swain.

In the name of raising environmental awareness, enterprising University at Buffalo students are turning their campus into a virtual -- and real -- playground this week as they conduct a final project for their class in "Pervasive Gaming," an emerging game genre in which virtual and real-life play come together.

Contrary to the unhappy experience of the first little pig, straw bale is a strong, cost-effective, exceptionally insulating, fire-resistant, sustainable, natural building system. University at Buffalo architecture students and community members -- cold, covered in mud and stuck with hay -- recently raised 130 50-pound "two-string" straw bales that will constitute the load-bearing walls of a community greenhouse on Buffalo's West Side.

Kathryn A. Foster, director of the University at Buffalo Regional Institute, will serve as co-investigator for the Network on Building Resilient Regions, a recently launched initiative funded by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.

Samina Raja, Ph.D., assistant professor in the Department of Urban and Regional Planning in the University at Buffalo School of Architecture and Planning, has been awarded a $105,000 contract from the Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus to study physical activity levels among the 6,000 employees on the medical campus in relation to improvements made to its infrastructure and streetscape.