Fashion travels quickly from ramp to street. It is no longer confined to ramp or backstage, but has gone beyond with increase in affordability. Fashion experts believe that globalization has brought a shift in fashion from being region specific to cosmopolitan. (more…)
Much has been made about who or what is to blame for the “obesity epidemic” and what can or should be done to stem the tide of rising body mass among the U.S. population.
A new book by a UCLA sociologist turns these concerns on their head by asking two questions. First, how and why has fatness been medicalized as “obesity” in the first place? Second, what are the social costs of this particular way of discussing body size? (more…)
COLUMBUS, Ohio – A new study provides the first experimental evidence that the negative effects of playing violent video games can accumulate over time.
Researchers found that people who played a violent video game for three consecutive days showed increases in aggressive behavior and hostile expectations each day they played. Meanwhile, those who played nonviolent games showed no meaningful changes in aggression or hostile expectations over that period. (more…)
Are you allergic to peanuts and worried there might be some in that cookie? Now you can find out using a rather unlikely source: your cell phone.
A team of researchers from the UCLA Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science has developed a lightweight device called the iTube, which attaches to a common cell phone to detect allergens in food samples. The iTube attachment uses the cell phone’s built-in camera, along with an accompanying smart-phone application that runs a test with the same high level of sensitivity a laboratory would. (more…)
Hot flushes are not “in the head,” but new research suggests they may start there. A UA research team has identified a region in the brain that may trigger the uncomfortable surges of heat most women experience in the first few years of menopause.
Hot flushes – also called hot flashes – affect millions of people, and not just women. Yet, it is still unclear what causes the episodes of temperature discomfort, often accompanied by profuse sweating.
Now a team of researchers around Dr. Naomi Rance, a professor in the department of pathology at the UA College of Medicine, has come closer to understanding the mechanism of hot flushes, a necessary step for potential treatment options down the road. This research was published recently in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. (more…)
Researchers have found the first proof that a chemical in the brain called glutamate is linked to suicidal behavior, offering new hope for efforts to prevent people from taking their own lives.
Writing in the journal Neuropsychopharmacology, Michigan State University’s Lena Brundin and an international team of co-investigators present the first evidence that glutamate is more active in the brains of people who attempt suicide. Glutamate is an amino acid that sends signals between nerve cells and has long been a suspect in the search for chemical causes of depression. (more…)
The plague-causing bacteria Yersinia pestis evades detection and establishes a stronghold without setting off the body’s early alarms. New discoveries reported today help explain how the stealthy agent of Black Death avoids tripping a self-destruct mechanism inside germ-destroying cells. (more…)
Researchers at Michigan State University have discovered a protein that does its best work with one foot in the grave.
The study, which appears in the current issue of the Journal of Biological Chemistry, focuses on the nontraditional lifestyle of Retinoblastoma tumor suppressor proteins, which could lead to new ways to treat cancer.
“Retinoblastoma proteins are unique in that they use controlled destruction to do their jobs in a timely but restrained fashion,” said Liang Zhang, a lead author and MSU cell and molecular biology graduate student. “This is an unusual way for proteins to act.” (more…)
