China’s nursing home industry is seeing a boom in business due to a large aging population, with little oversight from the government to regulate living conditions. Zhanlian Feng, assistant professor of community health, led a 2011 study examining China’s surging nursing home industry and made suggestions for necessary government mandates that would improve patient care.

Despite their relatively cumbersome wings, bats are champions of nocturnal aviation, a feat accomplished through an ingenious bit of aeronautical engineering.

Bats fold their wings inward while lifting them in flight, saving 65 percent of the energy that would be required to lift wings still outstretched, say Brown University researchers who used high-speed video to analyze the aerial kinematics of fruit bats.

In a new study by Fiery Cushman, assistant professor of cognitive, linguistic, and psychological sciences, baseball fans exhibit a high moral tolerance for a form of revenge not otherwise practiced in most of contemporary society: avenging one’s own hit batsman by aiming a pitch at an opposing batter who was not previously involved. The research suggests that such systems of vicarious retribution, found throughout history, may not depend on an underlying assignment of moral responsibility.

Jack Hayes, currently director of athletics at Hofstra University, has been named director of athletics at Brown University. Hayes will begin his work at Brown July 1, 2012, succeeding Michael Goldberger. As director of athletics at Brown, Hayes will have responsibility for 37 varsity teams and their coaches, as well as 17 intercollegiate teams that compete at the club level. This story was also reported by Bloomberg, the Wall Street Journal, IvyLeagueSports.com and other national outlets.

Five professors from Brown University have made the Princeton Review’s list of top professors in the country. They are Barrett Hazeltine, professor emeritus of emgineering; Joseph Pucci, associate professor of classics; Stephanie Ravillon, lecturer in French studies; Robert Serrano, professor of economics; and Daniel Stupar, studio technician in visual arts.

The Japanese Cultural Association at Brown University held an event on Sunday, March 11, to commemorate the anniversary of the devastating earthquake and tsunami that struck Japan exactly one year ago. “Cranes on the Green” was an interactive installation in which passersby placed blue and white paper cranes, handed out by the JCA, on the College Green.

An op-ed about Brown’s newly named president-elect Christina Hull Paxson describes the experience she brings to the role, her accomplishments at Princeton, and what duties she will be charged with upon beginning her tenure at the University. Should she inherit the ongoing negotiations with the city, “She arrives with some solid fund-raising credentials of her own and ample experience dealing with strong wills.”

Twenty years after the announcement that he had been diagnosed with HIV, former NBA star Magic Johnson narrates a documentary about that event. “This film couldn’t come at a more opportune time,” says Amy Nunn, assistant professor of medicine. “HIV testing is the most important tool we have to fight this ... Magic Johnson, by being so well-liked and respected, is helping to provide a model to youth who think it’s uncool to be tested.”

Undergraduate and musician Nicolas Jaar has found an international following for his unique brand of electronica. The comparative literature concentrator used his winter break to play concerts throughout South America and Europe. His 2011 debut album “Space Is Only Noise” sold 25,000 copies worldwide and appeared on many year-end “best-of” lists. “I’ve had a dream forever of making music live for people, to actually improvise from scratch, and to do it for a long time, so that people get to see the whole creative process,” Jaar says.

James Morone, professor of political science, contributes to this conversation about whether the GOP needs to rethink its primary system. Morone argues that the Republican primary system is simply not working for the GOP the way that it worked for Democrats in 2008 and that it may, in fact, be tearing the party apart. “What we ought to be looking at is a large set of Super Tuesdays, a set of regional primaries one after the other that helps tamp down the kind of great insurgency that comes from a small minority,” Morone says.