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About Kala
Kala felt the calling to train in the scientific method and completed a PhD in nutritional sciences. She aspires to live in appreciation of all creation, and remains curious of what humanity might learn from natural life and the cosmos. Always keen to grow and evolve, she enjoys reading and is passionate to share research discoveries that nature provides as clues for vibrant living.
Kala is the editor of 18 Breaks:
Subsidise fruits and vegetables to encourage healthy and sustainable diets
Many families buy too little fruits and vegetables because market imperfections drive up their prices. With disturbed supply chains and rising inflation, imperfections become more pronounced, forcing many to choose less healthy alternatives. We propose a subsidy on fruits and vegetables financed through a progressive tax and show that it would strongly push diets in the right direction.
May 31, 2023 | 3.5 min readPluto orbits in elegant arrangement with the giant planets
Pluto has such a peculiar orbit that people have wondered how it exists. In our new work, we found that the orbital architecture of the giant planets lies in a Goldilock's zone that allows for the survival of Pluto and many other similarly peculiar trans-Neptunian objects. A slightly different arrangement of the giant planets would’ve ejected Pluto long ago from the solar system.
May 24, 2023 | 3 min readCan CBD help to combat COVID variants?
There is an urgent need to find new treatments that complement the use of vaccines and antiviral drugs to combat the COVID-19 pandemic. Our interdisciplinary research team uncovered evidence that cannabidiol (CBD), a non-psychoactive compound produced by cannabis plants, has the potential to inhibit SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID.
May 18, 2023 | 3 min readHow the early Earth evolved from a hellish to a habitable world
Earth began with an atmosphere similar to that of Venus. While Venus continues to have a hellish surface, Earth turned into a habitable world within just 100-200 million years. How was that possible? We proposed a scenario using theoretical modeling, where a peculiar type of rock that is currently extinct on Earth could have triggered such a radical change.
May 19, 2023 | 4 min readCan Training Make Policing Fairer and More Effective?
Following a series of high-profile cases of police harassment and violence, police reform has become a growing national concern in the U.S. We evaluate one reform effort, training police to treat people more fairly in hot spots of crime. We find training significantly improves officer behavior and citizen perceptions of police misbehavior while reducing arrests and crime.
May 22, 2023 | 3 min readNature favors simplicity and symmetry in biological forms
Why do symmetric and regular shapes abound in biology? Using arguments based on algorithmic information theory, we explain why a preference for simple shapes often occurs in biological systems. Our theory is validated via predicting the shape frequencies for naturally occurring protein assemblies, non-coding RNAs, self-assembled tile shapes, and a cell cycle mathematical model.
May 26, 2023 | 4 min read