The Journal’s editorial page recognizes the University’s recent gift of 12,000 graphing calculators to the Providence public schools, inspired in part by the report of the University’s Steering Committee on Slavery and Justice, but it cautions against guilt. The editors write: “No one now at Brown had anything to do with slavery, and we don’t believe in racial or ethnic guilt, be it for Americans or for those people living in Africa now whose ancestors captured and sold other Africans into slavery to Western traders.”

A new, larger clinical trial has begun for BrainGate, technology developed to help paralyzed people use their brain signals to control assistive devices. The new trial is taking place at Massachusetts General Hospital in collaboration with Brown. The technology behind BrainGate was developed in the laboratory of neuroscientist John Donoghue. Publications including The Boston Globe and The Providence Journal also picked up the news, as did media outlets in Russia and around the world.

Michael Wyatt, assistant professor of geological sciences, is attending the launch of the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, NASA’s first step toward returning humans to the moon. Wyatt’s blogs will appear daily this week.

Emily Harrison, M.D., clinical assistant professor of family medicine at The Alpert Medical School, helped deliver a baby girl to Christina Ballard as her husband Marine Cpl. Jacob Ballard watched on a webcam in Afghanistan. “The whole staff was emotional,” said Harrison. “Even though he was not physically in the room, his presence was much more real than I had expected.”

Most countries follow international recommendations that require their banks to maintain capital ratios of at least 8 percent. But Ross Levine, professor of economics, suggests the ratio should be higher, since most countries now regard the minimum as the norm.

A new poll, funded by a group opposing gay marriage, suggests that 43 percent of Rhode Islanders are against same-sex nuptials, while 36 percent support it. The findings are at odds with a poll on same-sex marriage by the Taubman Center last month, which found that most 60 percent of Rhode Island voters support same-sex marriage while 31 percent do not.

Vice President Biden and members of President Obama’s staff skipped the recent U.S. Conference of Mayors hosted by Providence Mayor David Cicilline, rather than cross city firefighters’ picket lines. Marion Orr, professor of political science, says the controversy may impact the mayor’s run for a third term.

Meredith Hastiings, assistant professor of geological sciences, has shown that ice cores bored in Greenland yield an indisputable account of how fossil fuel burning has altered the nitrogen cycle. Her work also was covered by Scientific American, The Providence Journal and various environmental web sites.