Congratulations to ISG Faculty member Terence Keel, whose book “Divine Variations: How Christian Thought Became Racial Science” won the 2021 Iris Book Award. “When I wrote Divine Variations,” said Keel, “I wanted to explain why our science continues to frame human differences in terms of race despite the significant lack of evidence to support such thinking. It was clear to me…
Image Credit: Patrick Semansky/AP In November of 2016 ISG Professor Nicholas Shapiro emailed a dozen colleagues initiating a collective conversation on how they might be able to leverage their research skills in anticipation of the new administration’s likely dismantlement of federal environmental and climate protections. This email led to the creation of the Environmental Data and Governance Initiative (EDGI), which…
A UCLA research team led by Patrick Allard, assistant professor of society and genetics, has been awarded a $1.1 million grant from the John Templeton Foundation as part of the foundation’s funding efforts for research into genetics. The project’s co-leaders are Amander Clark, associate professor of molecular, cell and developmental biology, and Hannah Landecker, director of the UCLA Institute for Society and…
In research that potentially could delay the onset of Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer’s disease, cancer, stroke, cardiovascular disease, and other diseases of aging, biologists have produced a genetic one-two punch that significantly slowed aging and improved health in the middle-aged fruit flies they studied. The approach focuses on mitochondria, the tiny power generators within cells that control the cells’ growth and…
Companies advertise BPA-free plastic as a safer version of products ranging from water bottles to sippy cups to toys. Many manufacturers stopped using bisphenol A, a chemical that is used to strengthen plastic, after studies linked it to early puberty and a rise in breast and prostate cancers. However, bisphenol S, or BPS, a common replacement for BPA in plastics,…