UC Science Today

Low-cost mobile tools developed by the University of California, Davis may soon take the guesswork out of current tests for sports-related concussions. Khizer Khaderi, the director of neuro-ophthalmology at the UC Davis Eye Center, found a way to more objectively measure for concussions by assessing the eye-brain connection.

"Over a third of the brain is dedicated to your vision. So given my expertise and the study and measurement of vision, so we came up with a device that uses a mobile solution that involves biometrics around different types of eye movements, pupil response and brainwave activity."

Current cognitive tests compare results to previous baseline measurements. But players who want to stay in the game can deliberately fudge those baseline tests so if an injury does occur, their results are not too different from their baseline scores.

"The current screening that's going on with cognitive testing is great, I mean it’s better than having nothing and what we’re trying to do is just continue to improve that process with this solution that we’re proposing and we’re going to be testing this fall."

Low-cost mobile tools developed by the University of California, Davis may soon take the guesswork out of current tests for sports-related concussions. Khizer Khaderi, the director of neuro-ophthalmology at the UC Davis Eye Center, found a way to more objectively measure for concussions by assessing the eye-brain connection.

"Over a third of the brain is dedicated to your vision. So given my expertise and the study and measurement of vision, so we came up with a device that uses a mobile solution that involves biometrics around different types of eye movements, pupil response and brainwave activity."

Current cognitive tests compare results to previous baseline measurements. But players who want to stay in the game can deliberately fudge those baseline tests so if an injury does occur, their results are not too different from their baseline scores.

"The current screening that's going on with cognitive testing is great, I mean it’s better than having nothing and what we’re trying to do is just continue to improve that process with this solution that we’re proposing and we’re going to be testing this fall."

If you were outside on a clear June day in 2012, you may have seen Venus’s silhouette as it passed exactly between Earth and the Sun. This phenomenon is called a “transit”, and it’s also a method that planet hunters like Lauren Weiss of the University of California, Berkeley use to find exoplanets.

"So we can see this phenomenon with exoplanets, too. We don’t actually see the picture of the silhouette of the planet, but we can measure how much the starlight dims as the planet passes in front. And this very characteristic dimming tells us where the planet is, and how big it is compared to the star. And we see this transit happen multiple times before we declare that there’s a planet there."

Weiss says that thousands of exoplanets have been discovered with Kepler, a NASA space telescope designed to find habitable Earth-like planets in the Milky Way.

"Although its primary mission has ended, it has been revived in a mission called “K2” and is still finding new planets around other stars."

If you were outside on a clear June day in 2012, you may have seen Venus’s silhouette as it passed exactly between Earth and the Sun. This phenomenon is called a “transit”, and it’s also a method that planet hunters like Lauren Weiss of the University of California, Berkeley use to find exoplanets.

"So we can see this phenomenon with exoplanets, too. We don’t actually see the picture of the silhouette of the planet, but we can measure how much the starlight dims as the planet passes in front. And this very characteristic dimming tells us where the planet is, and how big it is compared to the star. And we see this transit happen multiple times before we declare that there’s a planet there."

Weiss says that thousands of exoplanets have been discovered with Kepler, a NASA space telescope designed to find habitable Earth-like planets in the Milky Way.

"Although its primary mission has ended, it has been revived in a mission called “K2” and is still finding new planets around other stars."

If you were outside on a clear June day in 2012, you may have seen Venus’s silhouette as it passed exactly between Earth and the Sun. This phenomenon is called a “transit”, and it’s also a method that planet hunters like Lauren Weiss of the University of California, Berkeley use to find exoplanets.

"So we can see this phenomenon with exoplanets, too. We don’t actually see the picture of the silhouette of the planet, but we can measure how much the starlight dims as the planet passes in front. And this very characteristic dimming tells us where the planet is, and how big it is compared to the star. And we see this transit happen multiple times before we declare that there’s a planet there."

Weiss says that thousands of exoplanets have been discovered with Kepler, a NASA space telescope designed to find habitable Earth-like planets in the Milky Way.

"Although its primary mission has ended, it has been revived in a mission called “K2” and is still finding new planets around other stars."

Whether you’re grateful for a walk in nature, your good health or the comfort of family and friends – this is the season to give thanks. But it’s also a time of year that can trigger the ‘holiday blues’ – when feelings of stress and anxiety can be overwhelming and can cause even those who are usually content to experience loneliness and a lack of fulfillment. One ‘happiness strategy’ is to adopt an ‘attitude for gratitude’ – that is, to count one’s blessings. We spoke to UC Riverside’s Sonja Lyubomirsky, one of the nation’s leading experts on the topic of happiness. She describes a study they conducted in which people were directed to record what they were grateful for in their daily lives. Have a listen.

Whether you’re grateful for a walk in nature, your good health or the comfort of family and friends – this is the season to give thanks. But it’s also a time of year that can trigger the ‘holiday blues’ – when feelings of stress and anxiety can be overwhelming and can cause even those who are usually content to experience loneliness and a lack of fulfillment. One ‘happiness strategy’ is to adopt an ‘attitude for gratitude’ – that is, to count one’s blessings. We spoke to UC Riverside’s Sonja Lyubomirsky, one of the nation’s leading experts on the topic of happiness. She describes a study they conducted in which people were directed to record what they were grateful for in their daily lives. Have a listen.

Whether you’re grateful for a walk in nature, your good health or the comfort of family and friends – this is the season to give thanks. But it’s also a time of year that can trigger the ‘holiday blues’ – when feelings of stress and anxiety can be overwhelming and can cause even those who are usually content to experience loneliness and a lack of fulfillment. One ‘happiness strategy’ is to adopt an ‘attitude for gratitude’ – that is, to count one’s blessings. We spoke to UC Riverside’s Sonja Lyubomirsky, one of the nation’s leading experts on the topic of happiness. She describes a study they conducted in which people were directed to record what they were grateful for in their daily lives. Have a listen.

Whether you’re grateful for a walk in nature, your good health or the comfort of family and friends – this is the season to give thanks. But it’s also a time of year that can trigger the ‘holiday blues’ – when feelings of stress and anxiety can be overwhelming and can cause even those who are usually content to experience loneliness and a lack of fulfillment. One ‘happiness strategy’ is to adopt an ‘attitude for gratitude’ – that is, to count one’s blessings. We spoke to UC Riverside’s Sonja Lyubomirsky, one of the nation’s leading experts on the topic of happiness. She describes a study they conducted in which people were directed to record what they were grateful for in their daily lives. Have a listen.

Anyone who’s ever had kidney stones will tell you that the excruciating flank pain was not a pleasant experience. And once you’ve had a first stone, about half of people are at risk of developing another stone within five years. Dr. Thomas Chi of the University of California, San Francisco’s Department of Urology says that diet can play a big role in preventing kidney stones.

"Three things that really do change people’s kidney stones risks are your hydration, so drinking enough fluids. Not eating too much salt, and then people that eat a lot of animal protein or meat, all at one time, they tend to be at a higher risk. So commonly, when people have their first kidney stone, we’ll tell them, instead of eating a whole steak at dinnertime, eat half at lunch and half at dinner, and that tends to do better for your body."

Chi’s recent study found that zinc may be what drives stone formation, which he hopes will open new windows for treating kidney stones.

"Either new drugs, or new therapies, maybe even new surgical approaches that might focus on these heavy metals that may help us to prevent kidney stones."