Category Archives: research update

Shawna, a pregnant Pima Indian, calls diabetes a scourge. "Diabetes is a sign that this life we’re living isn’t our life," she says. "The one our ancestors had was way better."
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Popular culture’s image of the 21st-century woman is tall, large-breasted, narrow-hipped and ultra-slender. Like cultural standards of beauty throughout history, today’s "thin ideal" is unattainable for most women; for many, it also can be destructive.
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For hundreds of years the beauty and mystery of Taos, New Mexico, have lured thousands of settlers and visitors, from the ancestors of the Taos and Picuris Indians and Spanish settlers to skiing enthusiasts and artists.
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The United States still shines as a beacon to millions of citizens of other countries, many of whom continue to make their way to its borders. Currently the nation is experiencing the largest wave of immigration in its history: 12.4 percent of U.S. residents are immigrants; each year 1 million immigrants arrive legally and 300,000 to 500,000 arrive illegally.

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At the border between Switzerland and France, the pristine Alps hide a world-shaking secret. In a 27-kilometer circling underground tunnel, scientists from SMU and other institutions are preparing for a subatomic demolition derby unprecedented in scale, scope and potential significance.

The Large Hadron Collider (LHC), which will power up for the first time in November 2007, can fling high-energy protons at speeds approaching light itself until they crash into each other, releasing even smaller bits of matter. When the largest particle accelerator ever constructed becomes fully operational, physicists will be able to recreate and record conditions at the origin of the universe. Scientists from SMU and more than 140 institutions and 38 countries will be on hand for research and discovery.

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