Several other faculty members also made national news this month

The top-rated CBS news program “60 minutes” will air a profile of Oceanography Professor Robert Ballard, who will discuss ocean exploration and the importance of the University’s newly opened Inner Space Center, Sunday, Nov. 29 at 7 p.m.

A “60 Minutes” film crew joined Ballard and a team of researchers and students during an expedition to the Black Sea in August to search for the remains of ancient shipwrecks. The television crew also spent a day on the Narragansett Bay Campus earlier this month interviewing Ballard as he demonstrated the usefulness of the Inner Space Center in a live video communication with a research vessel in the Pacific Ocean.

Ballard was also featured on a National Geographic Channel premiere on Nov. 18 that examined his August 2009 efforts to find British and French warships sunk off the coast of Turkey during the epic World War I Battle of Gallipoli. Two previously aired programs about Ballard’s expeditions, “Ghost Ships of the Black Sea” and “Titanic: The Final Secret,” were rebroadcast that same night on the National Geographic Channel.

Ballard isn’t the only URI faculty member receiving national media attention in recent months. Research conducted by Kathleen Melanson, associate professor of nutrition, was reported in hundreds of news outlets that were viewed by more than 17 million people in late October and early November.

Melanson found that individuals who chew gum for an hour in the morning will consume fewer calories at lunchtime and expend greater energy than when they do not chew gum. Dozens of television stations from around the country mentioned the study, including MSNBC and the Today Show, and lengthy news reports aired on the Rhode Island affiliates of NBC and CBS. Read more about the study in a URI news release here.

In addition, URI biophysicists Yana Reshetnyak and Oleg Andreev have received international media attention for their discovery of a technology that can detect cancerous tumors and deliver treatment to them without harming the healthy cells surrounding them. News of their research was reported in Providence Business News and has spread across the Internet on dozens of blogs and health news sites. The research is summarized in this URI news release.

Another URI research study has also been featured in numerous online news sites in the U.S. and abroad. Human Development and Family Studies Professor Jacqueline Sparks conducted research that showed that couples who had systematic client feedback methods incorporated into their therapy sessions were 46 percent less likely to wind up divorced or separated. Read a Q&A with Sparks on the Providence Business News site.

For a summary of other URI news making headlines around the world, visit the URI News Blog.

Pictured above

60 Minutes reported Lara Logan interviews Robert Ballard in the Inner Space Center.

URI Department of Communications & Marketing photo by Joe Giblin.