Press

Wouldn't it be great if scientists could climb into a time machine and travel back in history to observe thousands of generations of a single living creature to see how it evolved over many years?

It turns out they've done just that, and they returned with evidence that the evolution of life is far more complex than many had thought. Instead of a single mutation that gave the creature an advantage over its peers, it took several mutations, in a very precise order, for the creature to be able to digest something it could not have eaten before.

After a year's deployment in Afghanistan, 600 members of Michigan's National Guard are coming home. They'll join the ranks of 19,00 local Guardsmen and women who’ve served in Iraq and Afghanistan.

But this particular unit will soon embark on a new mission. And this time, they're bringing their families.

For 3 years, the veterans, their spouses, and children will be part of a Michigan State University study on how families cope with life after combat.

A Michigan State University professor will use military families to study resiliency and how stress can make us stronger. 

"I have worked with military families for six years and I have always been incredibly impressed by these families' ability to get through stressful times," said Adrian Blow, an associate professor and a family and marriage therapist. 

LANSING -- The economic mood of Michigan voters is stuck where it was in the spring -- brighter than during the recent recession but nowhere near as optimistic as in the 1990s, according to a survey released Friday.

Michigan State University's State of the State survey of 1,015 likely voters found 54.4% rated their current economic situation as "excellent" or "good" this summer. That's the most upbeat result since 2005, but it's statistically about the same as the result from this spring, which was 54.1%.