The Stanford Story Bank: International Issues

Stanford expands distance learning across the globe -[photos]-

Researchers at Stanford and at universities in Africa and Latin America are pushing the boundaries of distance learning to develop new collaborative models that will prepare students to work in an increasingly borderless world.

Caller ID in the wild: African elephants communicate by ground vibration

In the vast expanse of African grasslands, wild herds of migrating elephants have learned to communicate with each other by listening with their feet to vibrations in the ground. Now a Stanford University researcher has found their seismic communication system is so sophisticated the elephants have their own version of "caller ID".

Clay Carson on the Chinese production of Passages of Martin Luther King - [video]-

Passages of Martin Luther King, a play written by history Professor Clayborne Carson, had a groundbreaking five-night run in Beijing last spring. The play, based on the late civil rights leader's letters and papers, was performed in the capital of a nation long criticized for human rights abuses. Yet the performance was hailed a success, playing to capacity audiences all five nights.

Afam Onyema's singular goal: to build a hospital in Nigeria

Afam Onyema, who graduated from Stanford Law School in 2007, spent the better part of his law school career refining a business plan, enlisting support, and raising funds to build a hospital in Nigeria--a longtime dream of his physician father.

Competing for jobs, hearts, and minds

The shift to a global economy and to knowledge-based industries means more competition for jobs that require more schooling, Professor Martin Carnoy explains. "There's a great fear out there of not getting a good job." As a result, he says, "You've got a tremendous expansion of education. It's worldwide."

Stanford working group explores human well-being

Joining forces under Stanford's International Initiative, Stanford faculty are working to identify particular problem areas in "human well-being" using their combined expertise with the aim of proposing effective policy solutions. One of the first areas to emerge as a priority is the lives of children, especially in developing countries where many factors contribute negatively to their health, education, and overall living conditions. With the goal of promoting further research in the area, the group recently hosted a seminar to examine the endangered childhoods of juveniles in countries under stress due

Analyzing threats to democracy

Professor John McMillan's work in economic reform and growth in the developing world looks at the connections between corruption, poverty, markets, and politics. McMillan has examined the movement of inefficient, centrally planned economies toward market-based economies. He broke new ground in the 1990s, when his analysis revealed that different types of market and political reform produced radically divergent results-witness the contrast of Russia's rapid, "shock therapy"-style change with the gradual, evolutionary transformation of China. One of McMillan's most recent projects explores the impact of poor countries' high mortality rates on

Understanding risk

Elisabeth Pat-Cornell specializes in understanding risk-going behind the scenes to perceive threats and trying to prevent them from materializing. "If we're doing our job well, nobody hears about it," says Pat-Cornell, Stanford's Burt and Deedee McMurtry Professor of Engineering and chair of the Department of Management Science and Engineering. It's a kind of analysis that has applications far from engineering itself, from detecting terrorists' plans to fighting infectious diseases to predicting human error in a variety of situations.

A multidisciplinary look at terrorism

Terrorism, notes Stanford Law School Professor Allen S. Weiner, is a surprisingly unexamined phenomenon given the gravity of the problem. So when the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI) at Stanford announced new grants for interdisciplinary research and teaching on critically important global issues, Weiner teamed up with his colleague Amir Eshel, professor of German Studies and Comparative Literature, to seize the opportunity to create a new course to examine modern terrorism.

Business and engineering collaboration launches sustainable travel company

"When people ask me what I'm doing with my new Environmental Engineering PhD from Stanford," says Matthew Davie, "they're pretty surprised when I tell them that I'm starting a travel agency." Ask a few more questions, though, and it starts to make sense. The newly launched agency, Whole Travel, Inc., was developed in Evaluating Entrepreneurial Opportunities, an integrated lab course at Stanford's Graduate School of Business. Requiring at least two MBA students to collaborate with a non-MBA student, the class guides students through the process of evaluating a business opportunity

Icy stare: electrical engineers focus satellite eyes on precious polar ice

By one estimate, about a tenth of this warming planet's population lives near a coast at an elevation of less than 10 meters. That's 600 million people who need someone to keep a sharp set of eyes trained on the earth's poles, where ice melting into the oceans could put their homes at risk. Stanford electrical engineers Howard Zebker and Shadi Oveisgharan are developing precisely such a sentry for detecting changes in polar ice masses.

A new vision for global security

In 2003, Secretary-General Kofi Annan formed a blue-ribbon commission to document global threats and recommend a new course of action for the U.N.-heavy tasks. A key appointment was Stanford's Stephen Stedman, senior fellow at the Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC) at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI), who was tapped as the panel's research director.

Reducing emissions while preserving profits

Because fossil fuels serve as the world's main source of energy and the lifeblood of many large and influential industries, political and industry leaders have had difficulty agreeing on methods of reducing emissions. In order to create a politically viable carbon emissions plan, says Lawrence Goulder, the Shuzo Nishihara Professor of Environmental and Resource Economics, we must find a way to avoid placing big costs on the industries that source and process these fuels.

Valuing nature

What is a honeybee worth? Or the serenity of an unspoiled nature preserve, alive with native species? Both have value, but quantifying that value when making land-use and conservation decisions is a complicated and largely unknown process. To address that problem, Stanford has joined with The Nature Conservancy and the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) to create the Natural Capital Project. This interdisciplinary research effort is designed to make conservation attractive and commonplace by developing a new process for incorporating the values of nature into decision making.

Extending the reach of medical care

Paul Wise found inspiration for his life's work in a village in Guatemala. As a college student at Cornell, keen to explore the world, he signed up to spend a summer working as an orderly at a children's hospital outside Guatemala City. When he arrived, he was shocked to find many children suffering and dying from preventable diseases such as dysentery and measles. He made a pledge then to work to improve the healthcare of the world's most vulnerable children.

New research program aims to overhaul the Internet

The Internet is enough of a marvel that most people would never ask, "Is this really how we would build it if we could design it all today?" But asking that very question is the job of a broad-based team of Stanford researchers. Taking a nothing-is-sacred approach to better meet human communications needs, they recently launched a new program called the Clean Slate Design for the Internet. They presented their ideas March 2007 during a day-long workshop at the annual meeting of the Stanford Computer Forum.

With lives on the line, professor informs HIV policymakers

Margaret Brandeau flew to St. Petersburg, Russia, last month on a mission to save lives with math. The professor of management science and engineering sought to convince a conference of AIDS prevention officials from across Eastern Europe to look at the numbers. Her research team's model of AIDS in St. Petersburg shows that the official policy of leaving HIV-positive heroin addicts untreated is the worst option for slowing the epidemic's rapid and tragic spread.

The art of being online

The World Wide Web typically connects people through static media like text and photos. But what if people on two different continents could share a real-time environment combining sights and sounds from both places? Can online technology do justice to a musical performance, for example? And can the arts bring this technology to life?

2007 Roundtable at Stanford

A day after the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded for efforts to publicize and fight global warming, panelists speaking at the annual Roundtable at Stanford pointed to the university's and the nation's responsibility to combat what President John Hennessy called "the problem of our time."

Satellite images reveal link between urban growth, changing rainfall patterns -[video]-

For the first time, scientists have used satellite images to demonstrate a link between rapid city growth and rainfall patterns, as well as to assess compliance with an international treaty to protect wetlands. The results have been published in two studies co-authored by Karen Seto, assistant professor of geological and environmental sciences and a fellow at the Woods Institute for the Environment at Stanford University.

Working to halt one of Asia's biggest killers

Three young Americans and the Stanford Asian Liver Center seek to stop hepatitus B in China by immunizing 500,000 rural children and educating the community about the disease.

Scholorships for International Students

Four Stanford students-from China, India, Pakistan, and the Czech Republic-discuss the financial challenges of getting to Stanford and the incredible experiences they've enjoyed with help from scholarship donors.

AIDS tutorial uses animation to cut through cultural taboos and educate students

In India, HIV/AIDS is tough to talk about. Even as 2.5 million infected Indians spread the virus, many states have banned sex education in schools, and cultural taboos discourage people from seeking information on their own. To teach students about HIV in a culturally appropriate manner, Piya Sorcar, a doctoral student in the School of Education, created an interactive, animation-based tutorial that centers on a doctor's conversation with a curious patient. The program is designed to appeal to young adults and focuses on biological, rather than sexual, aspects of HIV

Areas of Africa, Asia face crop losses due to climate change, study finds.

Many of the world's poorest regions could face severe crop losses in the next two decades because of climate change, according to a new study by researchers at the Stanford Program on Food Security and the Environment (FSE). Their findings were published in the Feb. 1 issue of the journal Science.

Stanford to help new Saudi university in applied math, computer science

Stanford is joining a team of universities working to build a major science and technology university along a marshy peninsula on Saudi Arabia's western coast. The King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) will be an international, graduate-level research university, sponsored by Saudi Arabia's reigning monarch. The university, intended to be a showcase for modernization, plans to open its doors to students in September 2009.

Stanford physicist leads group in calling for nuclear detectives

A terrorist nuclear explosion devastates Manhattan, but no group takes credit. The pressure on the U.S. president to retaliate is intense, but information about the attackers is sketchy at best. To avoid that scenario, a group of 12 scientists with extensive nuclear expertise, headed by Stanford physicist Michael May, is urging an international push to improve the science of nuclear forensics.

International grants totaling $1 million awarded to interdisciplinary Stanford research teams

A project to enhance health security and child survival in Africa through improvements in water and sanitation, an inquiry into the management practices of Indian firms, a study of the courts, politics, and human rights, and an analysis of the Middle East and the stability and prosperity of the world economy were recipients of new grants totaling just under $1 million from Stanford's Presidential Fund for Innovation in International Studies (PFIIS) in mid-February 2008.

The HIV/AIDS Pandemic and Africa's Orphaned Elderly

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Biofuels expansion has ripple effect on global food prices

Stanford researchers demonstrate how high energy prices and policies that promote biofuels result in higher food prices, examining in detail the potential global effects of biofuels expansion in four countries for four crops.

Professor optimistic on North Korea nuclear disablement

North Korea has shut down its key nuclear facilities and is discussing how to retrain workers at the Yongbyon nuclear complex, Siegfried Hecker said following a five-day visit to the country.

Professor Cohen's Google.org course on poverty and development now available on YouTube

Full video of the 10 week Google.org course on poverty and development, moderated by Stanford Program on Global Justice Director, Joshua Cohen, is now available on YouTube.com.

Nepal's Step Toward Democracy

On April 10, 2008, millions of Nepalese went to the polls in an historic election. Medical School staff member, Paul Costello, gives a first-hand account based on his week as an international observer.

Biothreats aren't new, but they are real and warrant study, says researcher

The biological arsenal that could be used for harm against humanity has an almost limitless supply of weaponry, thanks to nature's own talent for creating infectious agents of destruction.

Is oil bad for democracy?

New research challenges the widely held theory that democracy and oil exports are inversely related.

Helping China's rural poor harvest their educational dreams

In China, only 5% of rural poor students go on to pursue higher education compared to 70% of their counterparts in urban areas. Stanford researchers are working in rural China to help improve education through a combination of direct interventions and scientific research

Bringing solar irrigation to farmers in rural Africa

Roughly 75% of people living in poverty worldwide are in rural areas where they often lack access to the electricity that could be used to improve farm yields. Stanford researchers are working on a program to bring solar-powered drip irrigation to Benin and assess its effectiveness.

Law students learn by serving -[video]-

Through Stanford's diverse legal clinics, students and professors provide services to people who otherwise couldn't get them. These experiences also serve as a bridge between the classroom and real-world cases involving fundamental rights and vital public issues.

When we allow cars to compete with people for food -[video]-

Rosamond Naylor and Walter Falcon confront the global food crisis, urging the United States to alter its current policies on biofuels, international food aid and agricultural research.

Stanford on YouTube debuts

A YouTube channel from Stanford made its debut Monday, featuring Oprah Winfrey's keynote speech at the university's Commencement ceremony on Sunday, June 15. The channel, at http://www.youtube.com/stanford, also includes nearly 200 other videos, and Stanford will continue to add additional content as it becomes available.

Saddam Hussein’s papers, along with controversy, find a temporary home with the Hoover Institution

After five years of storage in a Baghdad home and a U.S. government facility, millions of records from Saddam Hussein's regime may soon be available for review at the Hoover Institution.

Feeding and fueling the future: the bioenergy potential of reviving abandoned agricultural land

Could hundreds of millions of acres of abandoned agricultural land help ease the energy crunch without worsening the world food shortage or contributing to global warming?

New offering from Stanford education program puts students on 'Road to Beijing'

Stanford has developed a multimedia curriculum for teenagers that introduces them to China's history, culture and politics through the prism of the upcoming Olympics. Free video downloads and teacher guides are available.

Amid trauma, getting medical relief to Iraq civilians

Stanford professor of emergency medicine, Robert Norris, is part of an effort to set up a formal emergency medicine training program for Iraqi health professionals for the first time in that nation's history.