Welcome to Science Saturday, where the Overnight News Digest crew, consisting of founder Magnifico, regular editors jlms qkw, maggiejean, wader, Oke, rfall, and JML9999, alumni editors palantir, Bentliberal, and ScottyUrb, guest editor annetteboardman, and current editor-in-chief Neon Vincent, along with anyone else who reads and comments, informs and entertains you with this week's news about science, space, and the environment.
To celebrate President Obama's re-election and the increased number of Democratic Senators elected on Tuesday, Overnight News Digest: Science Saturday is highlighting the research stories from the public universities in swing states for either the presidential election or competitive contests for the U.S. Senate that either elected Obama or elected Democratic Senators. The states that did so were Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Indiana, Iowa, Massachusetts, Missouri, Montana, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Ohio, Virginia, and Wisconsin. Tonight's edition highlights the science, space, environment, health, and energy stories from universities in all of the above states.
After this week, OND:SS will resume its regular programming, whatever that is.
This week's featured story comes from the University of Virginia.
U.Va. International Students Picked Obama, Too
H. Brevy Cannon
November 8, 2012
International students and students of politics at the University of Virginia heavily favored President Obama over Mitt Romney in a hypothetical vote for president, according to an informal online poll of U.Va. students conducted Tuesday by the Woodrow Wilson Department of Politics of the College of Arts & Sciences.Science stories after the jump and more election news in the tip jar.The poll was emailed to 2,000 international students (undergraduate and graduate) and roughly 850 undergraduate politics majors. It had 777 respondents in the four hours it was open, including 443 self-identified non-U.S. citizens, said politics Ph.D. student Adam Hughes, who created the poll under the supervision of politics professors Nick Winter and Lynn Sanders.
Obama was the favorite by a wide margin among students from every continent. While students from the United States preferred the Democratic candidate by a 3-to-2 margin, students from other countries favored Obama by even larger margins.
Students from Latin America, Africa, the Middle East, Europe and Asia all favored Obama by at least 78 percent to 18 percent for Romney (see graph). The trend was strongest among European students, 87 percent of whom preferred Obama to 11 percent for Romney.