Life News (Popular Culture)

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In a study of obese children, researchers found that when television viewing is contingent on physical activity, the children watch significantly less TV and they lose weight.

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Drivers tend to be more cautious during winter, but summer heat waves can spawn road conditions that are just as hazardous.

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A list of 4 Purdue University experts who can discuss various aspects of travel: educational travel, tourism, traveling with children and pets.

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Cornell University food science students have developed a mocha-flavored, chocolate-coated snack that uses an unusual ingredient: whey. The students call their concoction Café Crunch, and the product won the $5,000 top prize at the Dairy Management Institute's annual Discoveries in Dairy Ingredients contest.

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In the new book, Queer Airwaves: The Story of Gay and Lesbian Broadcasting (M.E. Sharpe, 2001), Phylis Johnson and Michael C. Keith explore both the history and current state of the gay/lesbian/transgender community's use of electronic media.

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Hip Hop Generation's second annual "Hip Hop As A Movement" conference, April 20-22, at the University of Wisconsin-Madison focuses on youth activism, the global influence of hip hop and the role of youth and elders in the social justice movement.

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"The Essential Bob Dylan," 30 songs on two CD's, boils the legendary singer's 40-year career down to a couple of hours. Michael Gray, on the other hand, spent most of the 1990s working on the massive third (and final) edition of his seminal work, Song & Dance Man, described as the definitive study of the work of Bob Dylan.

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It's not the "juiced ball," it's not cozy ballparks and it's not expansion that caused the explosion of offense in Major League Baseball in the 1990s. Rather, the root causes are a new, free-swinging hitting style, combined with a new relationship between hitters and pitchers, lighter bats and stronger players, two University of Nebraska-Lincoln historians report.

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Using the Internet as a tool for youth ministry is the subject of a new book,"eMinistry: Connecting with the Net Generation," by Andrew Careaga of the University of Missouri-Rolla. The book was published recently by Kregel Publications of Grand Rapids, Mich.

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Black History Month: Story ideas from Georgia State University

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University of South Florida experts are available to discuss all aspects of Valentine's Day, including how to find love, the drugs that can enhance a woman's sex drive and aphrodisiacs like chocolate.

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Bugs hissing, bugs racing, bugs in a stew. Bug petting, bug study in a bug zoo. Bugs and more bugs are the featured attraction at Purdue University's annual Bug Bowl, April 7-8.

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Oprah Winfrey seems to be everywhere ñ in magazines, on television, the silver screen, the Internet. She also seems to own everything ñ her own television show, cable TV network, entertainment group, magazine, book club. And now she has yet another venue: the college classroom.

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The new book "Bottom of the Ninth: An Oral History on the Life of Harry 'The Hat' Walker" (2000) examines the life of a baseball legend whose game-winning hit in the 1946 World Series gave St. Louis the victory over Boston.

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In an annual event, Cornell marketing expert and students will rate Super Bowl commercials for success.

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Don't expect reality shows like Temptation Island and Survivor to go away any time soon, says a Ball State University telecommunications professor.

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Part "Survivor," part "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire," the 36th edition of Lawrence University's 50-hour tribute to all matters obscure and insignificant will challenge the mental dexterity and physical endurance of hundreds of players game enough to try.

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The holidays are here so make some "scentsable" choices to help get you through happy, healthy and stress free! Science has known for some time the power of the senses, said Janis Burke, a preceptor at the Washington State University.

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Jessica Lange as angel? Sure, but Clint Eastwood? Audrey Hepburn as God? How about locations shots of Hell in Punxsutawney, Penn.? Who says God isn't a force in the cinema?

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Filmmaker Woody Allen's often tense relationships between art and life and audience and artist are examined in a new book by St. Lawrence University Professor of English.

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Need a John Lennon expert for his 20-year death date anniversary?

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A quick holiday quiz: Name one ancient yet abiding Christmas tradition. If you answered "attacking the institution of Christmas," you would be right.

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Psychological tests are standard for many NFL teams and are a growing trend in college as well as high school sports and corporations.

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Playwright Shelley Russell's latest effort is Holdin' Our Own: The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald. The play opens at Northern Michigan University Nov. 8 -- two days before the 25th anniversary of the tragedy

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A team of University of Rhode Island scientists has found that the cores of Major League baseballs from 1995 and 2000 bounce higher than ones from 1960s and 1970s and that they contain materials that could make them livelier.

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"Baseball's Future: Competitive Balance and Labor Relations" will bring together eight leading figures in sports economics, journalism and management to discuss ways to restore competition and avoid labor strife in America's pastime.

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Halloween tip sheet from Hamilton College professors: Halloween is Not Satanic; Things That Go Bump in the Night; Turnip Jack-O-Lanterns?; Exorcism and the Movies; Thrills and Chills; Hamilton Students Provide Safe Trick-or-Treating for Local Children.

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BERNI Marketing & Design, seeks nominations for its annual BERNI awards for best consumer product packaging introduced in 2000. This year, a branding category has been added for naming, corporate identity, and website/e-commerce.

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Contrary to what many Americans assume, Madison Avenue may not be the only force pumping up the presence and popularity of Halloween in the United States.

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Launching October 12, an innovative program, take the lead!, will empower 33 high school students from around the country to address social issues in their own communities.

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Two world-class track athletes are heading to Sydney to represent the United States. Both are undergraduate students at the University of Arizona in Tucson.

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Baseball has inspired poetry and drawn rhapsodic praise from some of the country's most gifted writers, but this semester a Saint Joseph's University's business professor is taking a more hardheaded look at America's pastime.

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Experts report on: Harpers Weekly engraver Thomas Nast who created and popularized the elephant and the donkey over 125 years ago; relations between the president and Congress being altered by technology; the dynamics of race relations in politics and history.

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Four Purdue University experts are listed who can discuss various aspects of traveling: educational travel, vacation planning, traveling with kids, traveling with pets.

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Without the tuba, we wouldn't have been scared of the water in "Jaws," or have sensed the looming threat of Jabba the Hutt in "Star Wars." An Arkansas musician tracks the tuba's role in making movie magic (TUBA Journal).

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Consumers can improve their odds of topping off Independence Day with the perfect, dewy-sweet watermelon treat if they examine the fruit carefully before buying, says a Purdue University expert.

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Sure, they look good in their swimwear, and they can even be seen working out if you get to Texas Gulf beaches early enough, but the Galveston Beach Patrol emphasizes preventive lifeguarding over dramatic rescues.

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Grace Halsell was a white woman working as a speechwriter for President Lyndon Johnson, when she decided to leave her White House job and darkened her skin to live in segregated Mississippi and Harlem.

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E-commerce has raised the value of and market for used and rare books; online sales have increased the number of used books sold by an average of 12.5 percent, Ohio University researchers found.

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Drug addicts, alcoholics and criminals--that is how half of the American public report seeing people with mental illness portrayed in the entertainment media, according to a new survey by the National Mental Health Association. In addition, many see people with mental illness portrayed as violent, scary, dangerous, victims of crime, or sad and lonely. The findings were released at the American Psychiatric Association Annual Meeting.

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The online version of USA TODAY has eclipsed its newspaper rivals' Web sites in three key measures -- size of audience, time spent at the site, and profitability -- according to the author of a new book about the national newspaper.

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A memorial service for Peabody Awards Director Barry L. Sherman, who died suddenly in Athens May 2, has been scheduled for 3 p.m. Friday, May 5, in Hodgson Hall of the Performing Arts Center on the University of Georgia campus.

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A Hamilton College religious studies professor studies the portrayal of Jesus in films and is calling the CBS mini-series Jesus (May 14 and 17) "the most amazing and startling selling of Jesus by Hollywood that I have seen."

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1- Sports psychologist talks about the importance of team chemistry and whether the Philadelphia Flyers want Eric Lindros and Roger Neilson to return; 2- The Vietnam War profoundly affected pop culture, especially the depiction of war in film, says film studies prof.

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Easter is a special time for Kathleen Delaney because it is reminiscent of her first introduction to marshmallow Peeps; the University at Buffalo librarian and archivist has been collecting these marshmallow Easter treats for more than 25 years.

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Mercedes de Acosta, the poet and playwright who wrote of her affair with Greta Garbo, left the letters she received from the film star to Philadelphia's Rosenbach Museum and Library; now that the ten-year waiting period is almost over, two Swarthmore College English professors are eagerly awaiting their unsealing.

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Judging by last year's turnout, Roger Ebert's upcoming -- and ironically named -- "Overlooked Film Festival" promises to be anything but overlooked.

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Six Purdue University experts can discuss various aspects of gardening and landscaping.

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Entertainment awards help us to validate our own opinions, says an Agnes Scott College professor of theater; when our favorite movies, actors or television shows receive nominations, we know that experts have considered them among the best in the field.

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Communicating with extraterrestrials will be more difficult to resolve than has been envisioned so far, says Hamilton College professor of anthropology Douglas Raybeck at CONTACT 2000 in Santa Clara, Calif., March 3-5.