In an article about pressures on moderate Republicans to choose sides in the polarized arena of U.S. politics, the electorate this fall may be inclined to purge party moderates, political science Professor Darrell West notes. This article also was distributed through the Knight-Ridder/Tribune wire service and appeared in several dozen newspapers and Web sites across the United States.

Steven Lubar, professor of American civilization and director of Brown University’s John Nicholas Brown Center for the Study of American Civilization, notes that history museums nationwide are grappling with rising costs and falling attendance. “At some level,” he says, “they are competing with Hollywood, amusement parks - all the different things people are doing with their spare time.”

Head athletic trainer Russ Fiore discusses the important role proper hydration plays for athletes practicing outdoors when the heat and humidity are high.

Ladies’ Home Journal presented to Susan Cu-Uvin, MD, a physician at The Miriam Hospital and associate professor at Brown Medical School, its first-ever Health Breakthrough Award for establishing the nation’s first known HIV Menopause Clinic designed to understand the compounded effects of menopause on women with HIV. Cu-Uvin is one of seven physicians and researchers who received the award, which is presented to medical professionals whose research and work has significantly helped women and families. Honorees will be profiled in the September issue of Ladies’ Home Journal, available on newsstands on August 8.

Martin Weinstock, chairman of the American Cancer Society's Skin Cancer Advisory Group and a professor of dermatology and community health, thinks sunless tanners can be a helpful tool for those committed to a deep tan, but only if the product is used as a substitute for the sun. If using a sunless tanner means that you are not going to go out and bake in the sun any more, that will reduce the risk of skin cancer,” he said. “If using a sunless tanner means you do it in addition to baking out in the sun, it’s not going to make much of a difference.”

TOEFL - Test of English as a Foreign Language - is getting competition, and the competition has set off debates at American colleges over the best way to measure students’ English competency, the obligations of American colleges to students from the poorest parts of the world, and the changing nature of international recruiting. The challenger is IELTS - International English Language Testing System. Brown University is this year, for the first time, saying that IELTS scores will be considered the same as TOEFL for undergraduate applicants from other countries. Panetha Ott, director of international undergraduate admissions, said she views this as “a question about access.”

As quickly as drug companies find ways to sabotage HIV, the virus develops a new survival strategy. Physicians are beginning to use drugs from different classes in combination to fight the virus at different steps in its life cycle. “It's only when we started giving people three drugs from at least two different classes that we really started making an impact," said Kenneth Mayer, medical research director at Boston's Fenway Community Health and a Brown University professor of medicine.

Providence youths considered at high risk for contracting HIV or sexually transmitted diseases will be part of a national prevention study led by Emory University researchers. The study is scheduled to begin next month. Brown University health researchers will lead the Providence component.

In an article about the reelection campaign of Conn. Sen. Joseph Lieberman, Wendy Schiller, an associate professor of political science who studies the U.S. Senate, says “there is a disconnect” between what the Democrats in Washington want “and what back home on the ground wants. Democrats are finally saying we want to fight the Republicans the way they fight us. It is getting nastier."

The Choices curriculum, an educational outreach program developed by the Watson Institute for International Studies and designed to get students talking about current major issues, is being used at a summit of the Capitol Forum on America's Future, a national program for high school social studies students and teachers to discuss the nation's future in a changing environment.

A new wave of IT startups in the Providence area began with students at schools in the city, particularly at Brown University. Their business strategy: begin small, keep expenses low, and accept as little outside investment as possible.

Brown University is one organization that strongly promotes walking for its employees and the general public. University teams have participated in Walk Rhode Island for a number of years, and last year had the largest number of walkers for any company.

Teams from Brown University participated in sampling Narragansett Bay to measure levels of dissolved oxygen is in the water. Water containing less then 3 milliliters of dissolved oxygen per liter of water is in a state called hypoxia. Warren Prell, professor of geological sciences, sayd the timing of the sampling was deliberate so researchers could see how extensive the hypoxia was. This article also was distributed through the Associated Press wire service and appeared in several other newspapers, including the Boston Globe.

James Der Derian, director of the Global Security Program at Brown University's Watson Institute for International Studies, comments on a recent three-day seminar in Pennsylvania that brought together about 50 civilians from nonprofit organizations, universities, business, the intelligence community, and the news media to discuss the impact of Iraq, Congress, and the media on military strategy. Joining them were more than 300 military officers. The seminar was an example of how the armed services are seeking outside help from civilians on a wide rage of topics from strategy to foreign cultures to science to public opinion, Der Derian said.

Brown University physicists have identified a surprising force in pattern formation - physical force. Results of their work shed important light on how life takes shape inside cells and are published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.