College Clips

By Abby Holekamp

Published Oct. 20, 2006

Hawaii earthquake damage assessed

Twenty-nine homes were seriously damaged and made unlivable, 1,130 were partially damaged and 14 had only minor structural damages during an earthquake that struck Hawaii on Sunday, according to Maj. Gen. Robert Lee. The total damage added up to 1,173 affected houses from the 6.7 magnitude earthquake. Lee said the Big Island, which received the most damage, remains the main focus of a joint federal and local emergency assistance effort.

Lee held a news conference Wednesday with local civic leaders and members of the Federal Emergency Management Agency in the state Civil Defense headquarters to discuss the extent of the damage.

Michael Karl, appointed by President Bush to be the FEMA federal coordinating officer, spoke as well as State Director of Transportation Rod Haraga, Hawaii Tourism Authority Vice Chairwoman Marsha Wienert and Sandra Kunimoto, the chairwoman of the Board of Agriculture.

— Ka Leo O Hawaii (University of Hawaii)

Vaccines for smoking addiction, obesity in the works

Imagine a vaccine that would make obese people lose their appetites. Or make cigarettes taste bad to smokers. In a few years, this might be a reality. Studies being conducted in Switzerland and the U.S. might make it easier to end addictions with a simple shot.

The vaccine study to treat obesity is being tested by Cytos, a Swiss organization. According to a Cytos news release, the vaccine works by reducing appetite. The test will include 112 obese individuals and success will be measured by weight loss. The vaccine test has been successful on lab animals. Results for the human trial are expected some time before the end of the year.

The National Institute on Drug Abuse is the government group funding the study for the smoking addiction vaccine, called NicVax. The group is recruiting people for the second phase of the vaccine trial, NIDA spokesman Brian Marquis said.

— The Lariat (Baylor University)

Movies play down mixed-race relationships

A University of Florida study found that movie couples involving mixed races tend to be more superficial, sex-based, unhealthy and short-lived.

"You hardly see it, and when you do, the message is that it's dangerous and basically a sexual matter with little long-term staying power," the study's author, Nadia Ramoutar, said in an e-mail interview.

Ramoutar, now an assistant professor of communication at Flagler College, conducted the research for her doctoral dissertation in the mass communications program at UF.

The study examined mixed relationships in the 15 top-grossing films each year between 1967 and 2005. Ramoutar watched each film several times for the study. The criteria by which she determined a film relationship were that it had to be romantic or sexual. This meant that the characters had to display physical contact or imply that such contact had taken place, she said.

— Independent Florida Alligator (University of Florida)