DOUGLAS QUENQUA

Sun-Protective Everything

Douglas Quenqua — Wed, 30 May 2012 14:58:18 +0000

Last year it was magic sneakers that can tone your butt. Now, against a drumbeat of apocalyptic climate news, it’s products that will protect you from the sun: “UV protective” tank tops (and bikinis!), toddlers’ watershoes with SPF protection, “climate control” shampoo, and on and on. A lot of these products do contain chemicals like titanium dioxide or zinc oxide that reflect sunlight. Others not so much. And how much sun protection does a person not living in the Sudan really need? My article in the National section of the NYTimes, New Breed of Products Said to Offer Sun Protection, but Doubts Linger.

Filed under: 2012, Douglas Quenqua, New York Times

Are Drugs the Future of Sobriety?

Douglas Quenqua — Wed, 30 May 2012 14:30:07 +0000

As their understanding of addiction evolves, the more scientists believe that medicines have a significant role to play in kicking the habit. Addiction changes the brain, literally carving new pathways that determine how addicts perceive pleasure. In this respect, alcoholism becomes a chronic disease like diabetes or high-blood pressure–and nobody tells a diabetic to heal himself with willpower alone. Today, there are a handful of promising, and underused, drugs that tweak the reward systems in the brain and help alcoholics stay sober. Of course, all alcoholics are different. So what many addiction experts now envision is a future in which alcoholism is treated like depression: Find a medicine that works for you and couple it with talk therapy to achieve long-term improvement. The problem is convincing people, even doctors, that drugs have a role to play in sobriety. My New York Times article on the drugs that are changing treatments for alcoholism, Tailoring Treatments for Alcoholics.

Filed under: 2012, Douglas Quenqua, New York Times

Sex Week at Harvard

Douglas Quenqua — Tue, 17 Apr 2012 01:25:02 +0000

No, it’s not the one week of the semester that Harvard lets its students get it on. It’s a student-run program of lectures, panel discussions and parties celebrating S-E-X. Dirty? Kind of. Events included God Says Sex Is Good and What What (In the Butt): Anal Pleasure 101 (somehow that last one didn’t make it into the article). But come on. This is Harvard! Running a program originated at Yale! In the end, it was all about making informed choices and getting the most out of your time in bed, or wherever. In Tuesday’s Science Times, On Campus, Opening Up Conversations About Sex.

Filed under: 2012, Douglas Quenqua, New York Times

The Fight Club Generation

Douglas Quenqua — Thu, 15 Mar 2012 14:07:37 +0000

Biggest surprise when reporting this article: There are still some people who have never heard of mixed martial arts. Seriously? By some measures, it is now more popular than boxing (which, granted, is not that popular anymore). Plus it’s the subject of a pretty lousy MTV reality show. But somehow it’s still a kind of “underground” phenomenon, probably because a lot of people still associate it with the ”no-holds-barred,” Thunderdome-style blood orgy it was in the early 90s. And because it’s still illegal in a few states, including New York. But as MMA has evolved into a sophisticated, somewhat domesticated combat sport, it’s also come to represent for a generation of men what boxing was to their fathers: the ultimate measure of manhood and guts.

Filed under: 2012, Douglas Quenqua, New York Times

They’re, Like, Way Ahead of the Linguistic Currrrve

Douglas Quenqua — Tue, 28 Feb 2012 14:17:17 +0000

When a team of Long Island University researchers published a small study in December suggesting that young women were developing a new speaking habit–a growly fluttering of the vocal cords toward the end of sentences known as “vocal fry”–the media immediately set its phasers on snark. Just one more sign that teenage girls are flaky, right? Wrong, jerks. Linguists will tell you that the vocal embellishments we associate with young girls (like uptalk? As though everything is a question?), silly though they may sound, are actually powerful tools for building relationships, establishing a pecking order and getting what they want. And that they have a way of worming their way into the larger culture. You can read more about it in my, like, Science Times article.

Filed under: 2012, New York Times Tagged: Science, Vocal fry

The Long Shot

Douglas Quenqua — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 20:16:41 +0000

Nothing about Brent Stockwell says “radical.” He is soft-spoken, fastidious, polite, precisely tailored, and stacks water bottles in his office so neatly you’d think he used a ruler to place them. But Dr. Stockwell, associate professor of biological science and chemistry at Columbia University, has bet his entire career on a hail Mary: the idea that chemotherapy is a lousy approach to cancer treatment, and that we’d be better off treating cancer like any other disease, by finding drugs that interact with the diseased cells themselves. Of course, doing so means contradicting 30 years of conventional wisdom. My first piece for Columbia Magazine, The Long Shot.

Filed under: Douglas Quenqua Tagged: 2012, Columbia Magazine

Angry Fish

Douglas Quenqua — Tue, 27 Dec 2011 15:18:22 +0000

Kurt Cobain once sang, “It’s OK to eat fish, cause they don’t have any feels.” He must have been on to something because not even the Humane Society, which never met a slo-mo video of an abused animal it couldn’t set to sad music, has nothing to say on the topic of fish welfare. But one brave researcher at Case Western Reserve University decided to study the issue. He found that fish become aggressive when kept in tanks that are too small or sparsely decorated. Take that, Kurt.

Filed under: 2011, Douglas Quenqua, New York Times

One More Way Facebook Is Ruining Everything

Douglas Quenqua — Sun, 18 Dec 2011 20:57:15 +0000

It used to go like this: You graduate from high school. You lose touch with pretty much everyone. You grow up. One day you get an invite to your 20-year high school reunion. You go. You laugh at the fatter, dimmer versions of all those people you never liked anyway. Maybe you reconnect with one or two old friends. You go home. Life goes on.

Not anymore. Now, thanks to Facebook, the “reunions” happen online, leaving very few surprises for the actual party. Some people love it – they say it lets them skip the small talk. Others say it’s ruined the whole thing. Either way I think we can all agree they need to serve better booze. In today’s Sunday Styles section, Remember Me From Yesterday?

Filed under: 2011, Douglas Quenqua, New York Times

A Recipe for Okapi

Douglas Quenqua — Wed, 07 Dec 2011 18:27:45 +0000

Okapis are the wallflowers of the forest, so adept at avoiding interaction–even with other okapis–that western zoologists didn’t even document their existence till 1901. The calves don’t defecate for the first six months of their lives so predators can’t track them. That’s dedication. Getting these things to breed in captivity is not easy, so when a zoo pulls it off–like the Bronx Zoo recently did–they like to crow about it a little. From the Science section of the Times, For a Baby Okapi, Don’t Push Too Hard.

Filed under: 2011, Douglas Quenqua, New York Times

The Art and Science of Mazes

Douglas Quenqua — Thu, 13 Oct 2011 13:41:27 +0000

Maybe you heard about the Massachusetts family that got so lost in a corn maze they called 911 for help? And maybe you wondered whether this is the sort of thing that happens once in a while. After all, mazes are designed to confuse people, and who can’t picture himself getting a little panicky after the 2nd hour of turning blind corners? But corn mazes are complex structures meant to challenge people, not to put them in mortal jeopardy, say those who design them. (Tip: Next time, just walk through the damn corn.)

Filed under: 2011, Douglas Quenqua, New York Times