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Girls who watched violent TV found to be more aggressive

Girls who often copied the big coiffure of Farrah Fawcett during her days as one of "Charlie's Angels" may have picked up aggressive behavior by watching the show, according to a University study.

Women in their early 20s who watched television shows such as "The Bionic Woman" and "Wonder Woman" as children and identified with aggressive heroines are now more physically aggressive, according to the study.

The study found that these women have more aggressive personalities and are more prone to criminal acts than women who did not watch much television violence as children.

The findings are based on an initial study of 384 girls in 1977 and a recent follow-up study of 211 of them.

"Increasingly, society accepted aggression in women, and the new acceptance showed up in television scripts. Television heroines began to use guns and muscle to attain their ends, just like the male heroes," said L. Rowell Huesmann, professor of psychology and research scientist in the Aggression Research Group at the Institute for Social Research.

The study will appear in the spring issue of Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences.

Professors to speak on Galileo spacecraft

In a free public lecture called "Galileo Probes Jupiter: Unlocking the Mysteries of a Giant Planet," University scientists will relate new findings from the spacecraft Galileo's Dec. 7 probe of Jupiter's atmosphere.

The lecture will take place Feb. 7 at 7 p.m. in Rackham Auditorium.

The lecture will include a video and slides and will be presented by Sushil Atreya, University professor of atmospheric and space science, and George Carignan, associate dean for research at the College of Engineering. The lecture will be geared toward high school and middle school students.

The other lectures in the "Evenings at Rackham" series scheduled for this term are "A Visit to the Gallery," a reading of new poems sponsored by the University Museum of Art, and "Welfare Reform and America's Future," presented by civil rights activist Roger Wilkins. "A Visit to the Gallery" will take place March 19 and Wilkins' talk is scheduled for April 9.

`U' epidemiologist says vaccine trial should be modified

University epidemiologist James Koopman says HIV vaccine trials should be redesigned to also test the vaccine's effectiveness in reducing contagiousness in those already infected with the AIDS-causing virus.

Currently, the trials are only set to test how effective the vaccine is in preventing infection in healthy people.

Koopman said a vaccine that protects people from HIV infection only 25 percent of the time could reduce an infected person's ability to spread the disease to others by up to 90 percent. Scientists would then have a valuable weapon in the battle against HIV and AIDS.

-- Compiled by Daily Staff Reporter Alice Robinson. The Associated Press contributed to this report.