
Can Twitter ‘sockpuppets’ actually get you fired?
A Twitter spat ended up causing a science fiction writer to lose his job. Rochester political scientist Bethany Lacina used data science to show how the incident was in part fueled by bots and “sockpuppets.”

Suicide risk in abused teen girls linked to mother-daughter conflict
Among adolescents who suffered abuse or neglect as children, not all entertain suicidal thoughts. So what can we learn about those who do? A Mt. Hope Family Center study shows a strong correlation between poor mother-daughter relationships and increased suicide risk in teenage girls.

Fan hate takes aim at Star Wars diversity
In an analysis of thousands of tweets from Star Wars fans, associate professor of political science Bethany Lacina found that offensive language doubled and hate speech jumped by 60 percent when those tweets were directed at actress Kelly Marie Tran or her character Rose Tico, the first nonwhite female lead character in the franchise.

Telling ‘Sekuru’s Stories’ through music, digital scholarship
Rochester ethnomusicologist Jennifer Kyker has embarked on a research project focused on the musical life of one of her earliest mbira teachers, renowned performer of the Zimbabwean mbira, Sekuru Tute Chigamba.

‘Goethe was really an outlier in stressing that love was more important’
The first complete English translation of Goethe’s original 1776 text of “Stella: A Play for Lovers” reveals greater differences in gender relations.

Wave particle duality of light: Resolving quantum ‘weirdness’
For 90 years physicists have known that incompatibly opposite properties are inherent in all elementary particles. Now Rochester researchers say they’ve resolved this weird and inescapable wave-particle duality.

In remote regions of the South Pacific, cell phones have transformed daily life
In a new book, The Moral Economy of Mobile Phones, Rochester anthropologist Robert Foster describes the sometimes surprising developments when governments open up the telecommunications sector to competition.

Researchers target protein that protects bacteria’s DNA ‘recipes’
In a new study, Rochester biologists describe some of the unique characteristics of the protein that makes bacterial like E. coli so resilient. Their research may lead to more targeted antibiotics and other drug therapies.

Lipid droplets play crucial roles beyond fat storage
You may not know it, but whenever you eat cheese, ice cream, or yogurt, you are also ingesting microscopic lipid droplets. Long thought of merely as formless blobs of fat, lipids are now proving crucial for understanding how embryos survive and how obesity affects the body.

Group ‘cleaves’ oxygen from surface of metal oxide, enhancing reactivity
A new method of opening solid state materials to oxygenation, using metallic oxide clusters, can eliminate guesswork from discovery of new catalysts. The ultimate goal is to more efficiently convert greenhouse gases to useful fuels.