In The News: Division of Research
Body cameras are quickly becoming commonplace on police officers. Buoyed by the Justice Department’s decision to allocate more than $23 million in funding for bodycam implementation, nearly one-third of the 18,000 state and local police departments in the U.S. have adopted the technology, according to TIME. They hope the tech can increase accountability and help to de-escalate situations.

Mexico-born mentalist Santiago Michel just moved the needle on the scale of Las Vegas entertainment demographics. The 24-year-old UNLV hospitality major is scheduled to premiere his new show, Ilusión Mental (Spanish for “mental illusion”), at Planet Hollywood in the spring. In the meantime, Michel has launched a slate of preview shows at Sin City Theatre (current home of the enduring Crazy Girls revue). But the reason Ilusión Mental is a game-changer is simple and long overdue.

More than 80 percent of land in Nevada is publicly owned. This wealth of open space is a treasure trove for paleontologists. Their digs into the dirt can teach us about what our world was and hint at issues we might have to confront tomorrow.

Celebrity socialite Kim Kardashian West says it boosted her energy level. Mad Men’s January Jones touts it as a cure for postpartum depression. But does eating one’s placenta after birth—an apparently growing practice around the globe—actually confer any health benefits? Not really, according to the first in-depth analyses of the practice.

In 2015, North Las Vegas-resident Mike Ziethlow had an idea for creating something like a Yelp for independent music, but he didn’t know how to turn that idea into a product.
Stem cells have the potential to revolutionize treatment for a wide array of diseases, such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s, though harvesting enough of them for beneficial use and keeping them viable until they are needed presents significant challenges. So, researchers at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV), have developed an efficient technique for taking these cells from a common source—wisdom teeth.

Stem cells. Few research discoveries hold as much promise of single-handedly expanding medical treatment options as they do. Miraculously able to act as transformers—either re-creating or morphing into a variety of cell types found within the organisms they originate from—stem cells offer humanity hope for new, more effective therapies against a number of chronic and terminal diseases. And finding them is surprisingly easy.
“Stem cells can be extracted from nearly any living tissue,” said Dr. James Mah, director of UNLV’s advanced education program in orthodontics, doctor of dental surgery, and dental researcher. “In fact, stem cells can even be found in tissues of the deceased.”

Every 9 seconds a woman in America is beaten or assaulted.
Nevada consistently ranks high in deaths related to domestic violence. In 2016, there were at least 24, according to the Nevada Coalition to End Domestic and Sexual Violence. The year before, 43 victims lost their lives.

A trio of UNLV student teams took home big prizes in a statewide entrepreneur competition recently.
Student ideas on joint-pain relief, e-sports business and the hospitality industry netted a total of $55,000 in the Donald W. Reynolds Governor's Cup Collegiate Business Plan competition in Reno.

In the United States, 10 million men and women experience domestic violence each year, according to the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence. That includes physical and sexual abuse.

Rama Venkat, dean of the Howard R. Hughes College of Engineering, is calling UNLV’s latest collaboration — a $5 million, five-year master service agreement with Lockheed Martin — “one of a kind.”