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Pivotal Events
In the early hours of April 20, 1989, 28-year-old jogger Trisha Meili was assaulted and left for dead in Central Park. The ensuing media frenzy instigated a public outcry for swift justice. Within days of the attack five African-American teenagers implicated themselves, after hours of psychological pressure and aggressive interrogation. The teens were tried as […]
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A Moral Imperative
Since its inception in 1985 the Eugene M. Burke Lectureship on Religion and Society at UC San Diego has sponsored more than 70 public lectures in which scholars, theologians, and religious practitioners of various faiths address critical issues in the relationship between religion and society. One such pressing issue is immigration. The first two decades […]
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E-Cigarettes: What We Know, What We Need to Learn
In 2014 with vaping newly on the rise, Dr. Laura Crotty Alexander joined us to talk about the potential health risks. Five years later, we revisit the topic to see how the research is bearing out how e-cigarettes and their usage has evolved. Dr. Alexander shares a physician’s view of the specific dangers of vaping. […]
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Between Cultures
“Despite the current attempts to whitewash U.S. history, ethnic, racial, and cultural diversity is the predominant feature of the U.S. experience.” – Charles Musser Almost from their inception, motion pictures have dealt with the question of cultural assimilation. This was certainly true in America where many of the country’s film industry founders were themselves either […]
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Imagining Prison Abolition
Imagine a world that is more just, laws that are more compassionate and people being freer. Georgetown Law professor and author Paul Butler is very familiar with the U.S. criminal justice system. As a former prosecutor, he once fought for long sentences. Now he’s advocating for the abolition of prisons. While that sounds extreme, in […]
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Imaging Studies: A Revealing Look
Research imaging studies are crucial to finding effective treatments and therapies. Protocols are in place to protect both the study participant and the science, but what if the images reveal a previously unknown condition? Or a false positive or negative? Unraveling this question is more than a simple task and the consequences can range from […]
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The Dr. Seuss You Never Knew
The 2019 edition of UC San Diego Geisel Library’s “Dinner in the Library” series celebrates new acquisitions from the estate of Theodor “Dr. Seuss” Geisel, most of which have never before been exhibited publicly. The Library’s Special Collections already houses over 20,000 items related to Geisel, including sketches, paintings, cartoons, letters, and manuscripts, and these […]
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We Are All Africans
Svante Pääbo once said, “We are all Africans, either living in Africa or in recent exile from Africa.” It is now abundantly clear that Africa was the “cradle of humanity,” with multiple waves of hominins arising on that continent and spreading across the old world, eventually being effectively displaced by our own species, which also […]