Shifting off-cycle elections to on-cycle races has dramatic effects on the turnout and demographics of voters making their voices heard, new UC San Diego research shows By: Christine Clark | UC San Diego | August 20, 2021 Low and uneven turnout is a serious problem for local democracy. However, simply moving off-cycle, local elections to be held on the same day as ... Continue Reading »
Health + Behavior
How Adolescents Used Drugs During the COVID-19 Pandemic
Alcohol use declined, but use of nicotine and misuse of prescription drugs rose By: Scott LaFee | UC San Diego | August 24, 2021 The advent of the COVID-19 pandemic, which began in earnest in the United States in early 2020, affected different demographic groups in different ways. According to a new study, among adolescents ages 10 to 14 in the U.S., the overall rate of ... Continue Reading »
Graphic Warning Labels on Cigarette Packaging Changes Perceptions
Smokers in a randomized clinical trial were more likely to recognize the negative consequences of tobacco and consider quitting By: Tadira Galindo | UC San Diego | August 4, 2021 Purchase a pack of cigarettes in Australia and be prepared to be accosted with graphic warning labels depicting the dangers of tobacco use — including images of gangrene of the foot, a newborn ... Continue Reading »
Obesity and Cardiovascular Factors Combine to Cause Cognitive Decline in Latinos
Obesity is a widespread health issue, but conditions like hypertension and cholesterol are stronger predictors of worsening brain function By: Dan Bennett and Scott LaFee | UC San Diego | July 28, 2021 Obesity is linked to several cardiometabolic abnormalities, such as high blood sugar and hypertension, which are considered to be risk factors for Alzheimer’s disease. ... Continue Reading »
Scientists develop brain organoids with complex neural activity
By: Sarah C.P. Williams | UC Los Angeles | August 23, 2021 Researchers at the Eli and Edythe Broad Center of Regenerative Medicine and Stem Cell Research at UCLA have developed brain organoids — 3D brain-like structures grown from human stem cells — that show organized waves of activity similar to those found in living human brains. Then, while studying ... Continue Reading »
Artificial Intelligence Could Be New Blueprint for Precision Drug Discovery
Scott LaFee | UC San Diego | July 12, 2021 Mathematical approach could transform drug development by searching for disease targets, then predicting if a drug will be successful Writing in the July 12, 2021 online issue of Nature Communications, researchers at University of California San Diego School of Medicine describe a new approach that uses machine learning to ... Continue Reading »
3D “Assembloid” Shows How SARS-CoV-2 Infects Brain Cells
Scott LaFee | UC San Diego | July 16, 2021 Researchers at University of California San Diego School of Medicine and Rady Children’s Institute for Genomic Medicine have produced a stem cell model that demonstrates a potential route of entry of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, into the human brain. The findings are published in the July 9, 2021 online issue ... Continue Reading »
Soft Skin Patch Could Provide Early Warning for Strokes, Heart Attacks
Liezel Labios | UC San Diego | July 22, 2021 Engineers at the University of California San Diego developed a soft and stretchy ultrasound patch that can be worn on the skin to monitor blood flow through major arteries and veins deep inside a person’s body. Knowing how fast and how much blood flows through a patient’s blood vessels is important because it can help ... Continue Reading »
Smokers Light Up More Cigarettes Following California COVID-19 Lockdown Order, Study Finds
By: Juan Flores, UC Merced | May 27, 2021 The fallout from the coronavirus pandemic has been felt around the world. COVID-19's grip has affected people's mental health and sense of what was once normal, prompting them to turn to new and familiar behaviors to help cope. According to a new study published in the International Journal of Environmental Research and ... Continue Reading »
Embracing diversity – one dental student at a time
By: Brianna Aldrich, UC Los Angeles | May 13, 2021 For UCLA dental students Isaiah “Izzy” Sampson and Ryan Davis, entering the dental field was, in a word, perplexing. Growing up in several different states, Sampson never saw a Black person in his family’s dentist offices. Not the dentists, the hygienists or even the office staff. As he started thinking about ... Continue Reading »