Category Archives: News

New Electric Cars: “Faraday Future FF91” At CES 2020 Show (Video)

Faraday Future has been a consistent presence at the Consumer Electronics Show over the past five years. Founded in 2014, the luxury electric automaker unveiled the FFZero concept car in 2016 and its all-electric FF91 in 2017, but has faced an uphill climb getting those vehicles on the road and into the hands of consumers. Adweek got to take a ride along in the preproduction version of the FF91, which has been updated since its debut three years ago—and boasts an impressive range for an electric car.

New Study: “Five Healthy Habits” For Diet, Exercise, BMI, Smoking & Alcohol” Lower Chronic Disease, Raise Lifespan (Harvard)

From a BMJ online article:

We derived a healthy lifestyle score based on information on five lifestyle factors—diet, smoking, physical activity, alcohol consumption, and body mass index (BMI).

Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health LogoOur findings suggest that promotion of a healthy lifestyle would help to reduce the healthcare burdens through lowering the risk of developing multiple chronic diseases, including cancer, cardiovascular disease, and diabetes, and extending disease-free life expectancy. Public policies for improving food and the physical environment conducive to adopting a healthy diet and lifestyle, as well as relevant policies and regulations (for example, smoking ban in public places or trans-fat restrictions), are critical to improving life expectancy, especially life expectancy free of major chronic diseases.

The average life expectancy in the world has increased substantially in the past few decades. The aging of the population has led to a high prevalence of chronic diseases such as diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and cancer. Although people live longer, older individuals often live with disabilities and chronic diseases. People with chronic diseases including cancer, cardiovascular disease, and diabetes have a shorter life expectancy than do their peers without these chronic conditions. Estimates of the loss in life years due to these chronic conditions range from 7.5 to 20 years, depending on the methods used and the characteristics of the study population.

Life Expectancy In Men and Women with Five Healthy Habits BMJ Study Harvard Medical 2020
Estimated life expectancy at age 50 years with and without cancer, cardiovascular disease (CVD), and/or type 2 diabetes among participants of Nurses’ Health Study (women) and Health Professionals Follow-up Study (men) according to levels of individual lifestyle risk factors. Estimates of multivariate adjusted hazard ratios (sex specific) for morbidity and mortality associated with low risk lifestyles compared with people with zero low risk lifestyle factors adjusted for age, ethnicity, current multivitamin use, current aspirin use, family history of diabetes, myocardial infarction, or cancer, and menopausal status and hormone use (women only). AHEI=Alternate Healthy Eating Index; BMI=body mass index; F=fifth. *Cigarettes/day. †Hours/week. ‡Grams/day

Modifiable lifestyle factors including smoking, physical activity, alcohol intake, body weight, and diet quality affect both total life expectancy and incidence of chronic diseases. Studies have shown that smoking, inactivity, poor diet quality, and heavy alcohol consumption contribute up to 60% of premature deaths and 7.4-17.9 years’ loss in life expectancy. Nevertheless, little research has looked at how a combination of multiple lifestyle factors may relate to life expectancy free from the major diseases of diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and cancer.

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Technology Podcasts: Experts Discuss Vehicle Innovations At CES 2020

We’ve talked about the latest in vehicle tech all year, but at CES 2020, we got to show you. On the show floor, vehicle and automotive companies demonstrated the innovations driving the consumer tech industry forward more safely and effectively.

Media experts share their experiences from the show floor. Guests Anthony Elio, Associate Editor, Innovation &  Tech Today Dana Wollman, Editor in Chief, Engadget Matt Swider, Managing Editor, Tech Radar.

New Science Podcasts: Two People In An MRI Machine; Wisdom & Culture Lab (ScienceMag)

scimag_pc_logo_120_120 (2)Getting into an MRI machine can be a tight fit for just one person. Now, researchers interested in studying face-to-face interactions are attempting to squeeze a whole other person into the same tube, while taking functional MRI (fMRI) measurements. Staff Writer Kelly Servick joins host Sarah Crespi to talk about the kinds of questions simultaneous fMRIs might answer.

Also this week, Sarah talks with Igor Grossman, director of the Wisdom and Culture Lab at the University of Waterloo, about his group’s Science Advances paper on public perceptions of the difference between something being rational and something being reasonable.

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Innovation In Aging: “Creating an Age-Friendly Public Health System”

From an Innovation In Aging online release:

Age-Friendly Social MovementBecoming an Age-Friendly Health System entails reliably acting on a set of four evidence-based elements of high-quality care and services, known as the “4Ms,” for all older adults. When implemented together, the 4Ms represent a broad shift to focus on the needs of older adults:

  • (1) What Matters: Know and align care with each older adult’s specific health outcome goals and care preferences including, but not limited to, end-of-life care and across settings of care;
  • (2) Medication: If medication is necessary, use Age-Friendly medication that does not interfere with What Matters to the older adult, Mobility, or Mentation across settings of care;
  • (3) Mentation: Prevent, identify, treat, and manage dementia, depression, and delirium across settings of care; and
  • (4) Mobility: Ensure that older adults move safely every day to maintain function and do What Matters

The Age-Friendly Health Systems movement, initiated in 2017, recognizes that an all-in, national response is needed to embrace the health and well-being of the growing older adult population. Like public health, health systems, including payers, hospitals, clinics, community-based organizations, nursing homes, and home health care, need to adopt a new way of thinking that replaces unwanted care and services with aligned interventions that respect older adults’ goals and preferences. Becoming an Age-Friendly Health System entails reliably acting on a set of four evidence-based elements of high-quality care and services, known as the “4Ms,” for all older adults.

The number of Americans Ages 65 and Older will more than Double by 2060 graphic from Census Bureau

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Tributes: 89-Year Old Actor & Screenwriter Buck Henry Has Died

From a Hollywood Reporter online release:

Buck Henry Saturday Night Live 1970s“Turman, Nichols and I related to The Graduate in exactly the same way,” Henry told Vanity Fair. “We all thought we were [the book’s protagonist] Benjamin Braddock. Plus, it’s an absolutely first-class novel, with great characters, great dialogue, a terrific theme. Who could resist it? I read it and I said, ‘Yes, let’s go.'”

Henry landed his first Oscar nom for the screenplay (he came up with the word “plastics” and had a small role in the film) and received a second nom for co-directing (with Warren Beatty) the reincarnation comedy Heaven Can Wait, a remake of the 1941 film Here Comes Mr. Jordan.

Buck Henry, the impish screenwriter whose wry, satirical sensibility brought comic electricity to The GraduateWhat’s Up, Doc?To Die For and TV’s Get Smart, has died. He was 89.

Henry, a two-time Oscar nominee who often appeared onscreen — perhaps most memorably as a 10-time host (all in the show’s first four years) on Saturday Night Live — died of a heart attack Wednesday at a Los Angeles hospital, his wife, Irene, told The Washington Post. He had suffered a stroke in November 2014.

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Politics & Society: Panel Discuses Free Speech And First Amendment (Video)

What does our evolving view of the First Amendment mean for America, our democracy and our future generations? The New York Times’ Frank Bruni and Bret Stephens, Ruth Marcus of the Washington Post, and NPR’s Tamara Keith explored cutting-edge questions about free speech, public discourse and the role of the First Amendment in today’s society.

The UC National Center for Free Speech and Civic Engagement’s inaugural #SpeechMatters conference brought together leading national experts to engage on today’s most pressing issues related to free speech on campus, the internet and beyond.

Learn more about the event at: freespeechcenter.universityofcalifornia.edu/speech-matters

Top New Science Podcasts: Multiple Missions To Mars, Electric Cars & Dengue Fever Prevention (Nature)

Nature PodcastsIn this episode of the podcast, Nature reporter Davide Castelvecchi joins us to talk about the big science events to look out for in 2020. We’ll hear about multiple missions to Mars, a prototype electric car, efforts to prevent dengue, and more.

Top New Exhibitions: “Charles Arnoldi | Four Decades” (Fisher Museum)

 

USC Fisher Museum Of Art Charles Arnoldi Four Decades Exhibit January 21 - April 4 2020

USC Fisher Museum of Art proudly presents Charles Arnoldi | Four Decades, a survey of the versatile and prolific Venice Beach artist, which traces the evolution Charles Arnoldi Artof the artist’s expansive and materials-focused practice from the 1970s to the present.

USC Fisher Museum of Art proudly announces Charles Arnoldi | Four Decades from the Collection of Jordan D. Schnitzer and His Family Foundation, a survey of Venice Beach artist Charles (Chuck) Arnoldi. The exhibition, organized by the USC Fisher Museum of Art with the generous support of the Jordan Schnitzer Family Foundation and curated by Bruce Guenther, author of Charles Arnoldi: Paper (2017), opens January 21, 2020 and runs through April 4, 2020.

USC Fisher Museum of Art logoCharles Arnoldi was a young man from Dayton, Ohio who had seen little of the world when he arrived in Southern California in the mid 1960s. Following stints at a local community college and Chouinard Art Institute, Arnoldi won LACMA’s New or Young Talent Award in 1969 and thus began his ever-evolving career which continues to this day in his sprawling Venice studio.

For close to 50 years, Arnoldi’s work has reflected a passion for the material world, a commitment to experimentation, and a tireless focus on studio production. Charles Arnoldi | Four Decades is drawn from the holdings of the collector Jordan D. Schnitzer and His Family Foundation.

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