VILLANOVA UNIVERSITY NEWS

New York Times
How is Extreme Heat Affecting Air Travel?

June 13, 2025 - The extreme heat caused by climate change is posing new challenges to airlines. Air temperature has a powerful effect on the physics of flight, making matters more complicated for aircraft designers and pilots ... And because planes can take decades to develop, plane designers should be taking climate projections into account for the next generation of aircraft, said Mary McRae, an engineer at Villanova University.

Associated Press
Pope Leo XIV's Fashion Choices Make Waves, and Many Wonder What They Mean

June 13, 2025 - Massimo Faggioli, professor of theology at Villanova University, said U.S. conservatives seem particularly happy with Leo’s traditional attire, given Francis’ disdain for the fashion pomp of the papacy. “In this sense, Francis might have been a parenthesis or an interlude, more than a changer of the tradition in ‘papal style,’” he said.

Forbes
Instagram Focuses on Inspiring Creators 'Anyway' Possible

June 13, 2025 - "Social media has a complicated relationship with individuals’ self-esteem, especially among young users ... With this in mind, Instagram’s new ‘Anyway’ campaign is focused on helping inspire users and build confidence when disseminating content." Charles R. "Ray" Taylor is the John A. Murphy Professor of Marketing at the Villanova School of Business. 

Space.com
AI Could Solve Puzzles Posed by Twin Stars in 'Mere Minutes or Seconds on a Single Laptop'

June 3, 2025 - A new artificial intelligence program could revolutionize our understanding of binary star systems, deeply reducing the time it takes to distinguish the characteristics of their stars... "More than 50% of sun-like stars and more massive stars are in binary or multiple stellar systems," research author and Villanova University researcher Andrej Prša told Space.com. "What took two weeks plus on a supercomputer now takes mere minutes or seconds on a single laptop."

Sports Illustrated
Business of Football: Making Sense of Roger Goodell's Comments About the Salary Cap

May 29, 2025 - "As NFL teams put in their final offseason work before the league's true six-week offseason, NFL owners finished up some Business of Football at their annual May meeting. The meeting... resulted in some news and transactions that again showed the brand's power"... Andrew Brandt is the executive director of the Moorad Center for the Study of Sports Law at Villanova University.

Bloomberg
RFK Jr. Puts Health Insurers in Limbo by Dropping COVID-19 Shot

May 28, 2025 - U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s decision to pull the COVID-19 vaccine from the CDC's recommended immunization list for healthy children and pregnant women means health plans must navigate whether to keep providing coverage for the shot... People covered by Medicaid and the Children's Health Insurance Program are likely to be affected most by this action..., said Ana Santos Rutschman, a law professor at Villanova University.