A University of Virginia researcher believes he has found a way to curtail automobile fuel consumption and greenhouse gas emissions.
The answer, according to engineering professor Byungkyu “Brian” Park, is relatively simple — tweak the timing of traffic signals.

A longtime University of Virginia English professor has been named director of the Carter G. Woodson Institute for African-American and African Studies at UVa.

“Some dumb schmuck that broke into this car isn’t going to be too computer savvy,” said Lt. Todd Hopwood of the Albemarle County Police Department. “That’s what we hope for anyway.”
The majority of vehicle break-ins are rarely planned out ahead of time, Hopwood said, suggesting that the thief was not targeting the sensitive information stored on the laptop.

The University of Virginia Pep Band — a ragtag club of irreverent musicians in orange and blue vests jam-packed with buttons — held a concert at the McIntire Amphitheater on Thursday afternoon to mark the fifth anniversary of its ouster from UVa athletics events.

A University of Virginia freshman testified Thursday that he thought he had canceled his student debit card after his wallet disappeared last month, only to discover 19 extra transactions the next day.
Andrew Cassidy took the stand in Albemarle General District Court during the first part of a preliminary hearing for UVa students Lester Guy Spellman III and former redshirt linebacker J’Courtney Rydell Williams. Spellman, 18, and Williams, 19, were charged March 31 with credit card theft and credit card fraud in connection with Cassidy’s stolen wallet.

Fans who want to learn more about how jazz is performed can catch workshops and performances by guitarist Paul Bollenback and vocalist Chris McNulty this weekend.
The Richardson Guitar Studio will present a jazz master class with Bollenback at 2 p.m. Saturday at the 214 Community Arts Center.
Participants will perform for Bollenback and get his feedback.

Charlottesville police are searching for a middle-aged man who ran off with an envelope filled with cash that had been donated for cancer treatment and research.

The tears streamed down Elisabeth Krebs’ cheeks as hundreds of University of Virginia students held a moment of silence to reflect on the massacre at Virginia Tech exactly one year earlier.
“I’m just thinking about their families,” said Krebs, a friend and high school soccer teammate of Reema Samaha, one of 32 killed in the shootings. “What they’re going through is pretty unimaginable.”

Over his years of teaching at the University of Virginia, professor and historian Gary W. Gallagher has noticed that his students’ understanding of history tends to be influenced primarily by Hollywood.
“They think ‘The Patriot’ is history, rather than a Mel Gibson fantasy about history,” Gallagher said.

To date, the real world applications of nanotechnology have been somewhat limited in scope: stronger sunscreens, better cosmetics and stain-resistant fabric.
Yet in the coming years the great promise of this groundbreaking $4 billion industry will begin to pay major dividends and dramatically redefine the fields of electronics, medicine and energy production, scientists say. These impending advancements will not just improve the quality of life, but help researchers unravel the mysteries of how intricate atomic properties act and interact, Rosalyn Berne, a University of Virginia professor, told an audience Sunday during a nanotechnology “open house” and as part of the Virginia Festival of the Book.

Gov. Timothy M. Kaine’s Commission on Climate Change will hold its second meeting today at the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia.
The 40-member commission is developing a plan to curtail Virginia’s greenhouse gas emissions. Carbon dioxide emissions in the state rose by 34 percent from 1990 to 2004 — a rate nearly twice the national average.

Virginia high schools are generally safe and serious acts of violence are rare, according to a study released Wednesday by the University of Virginia.
The study, conducted by Curry School of Education professors Dewey Cornell, Anne Gregory, Xitao Fan and Peter Sheras, represents the first statewide effort to gauge student attitudes toward their school environments.

Construction is nearly set to begin on a new 25,265-square-foot complex for elite University of Virginia graduate students.
The “Jefferson Fellows Center” of the Jefferson Scholars Foundation will offer its graduate, doctoral and post-doctoral fellows a place to congregate, perform research, exchange ideas and teach classes.

Veteran Daily Progress journalist Bob Gibson has been named executive director of the Sorensen Institute for Political Leadership at the University of Virginia.
The move punctuates a newspaper career that has spanned more than three decades and will bring years of experience and contacts from the front lines of Virginia politics to the Sorensen Institute.