Fabric

Out of the frying pan and onto your clothes. DuPont's Teflon, which put the no-stick coating on cookware, is broadening its stain-free finishes for ready-to-wear. Most spills on treated clothes bead up and can be blotted off. Last fall, Koret of California, which caters to the working woman, added Teflon fabric protector to a collection of wool separates. Even silk can be treated to stay clean longer without losing its soft touch and bright color.

"What's the difference between Jewish and Chinese mah jong?" the protagonist of Amy Tan's "The Joy Luck Club" asks her mother about the quintessential Chinese game. Her mother replies, "Entirely different kind of playing.... Jewish mah jong, they watch only for their own tile, play only with their eyes. " "Project Mah Jongg," a colorful exhibition opening Thursday (through Sept. 2) at the Skirball Cultural Center, tells the Jewish side of the story. With vintage photographs, souvenirs, playing guides and other ephemera, and of course examples of the tiles themselves, the exhibition traces how the game was enthusiastically adopted and integrated into the social life of Jewish women in the 20th century.

'Nova: The Fabric of the Cosmos' Where: KOCE When: 9 p.m. Wednesday Rating: TV-G (suitable for all ages)

When I discovered I was pregnant with our second child, I pulled out the storage bin containing the maternity clothes from my first pregnancy and was instantly depressed. After nine months of wearing a Diane von Furstenberg maternity wrap dress and Lilly Pulitzer maternity shift in heavy rotation — and I mean heavy in every sense — I couldn't face another pregnancy in these same few outfits. But at $300 for designer maternity dresses I would wear another half a year at most, I wasn't prepared to splurge on an entirely new pregnancy wardrobe.

Science, which is confusing to many people — some to the point that they regard it as a form of superstition — has always needed its champions, its spokespersons, its interpreters, big brains who also function efficiently as celebrities and have a knack for taking impossible-sounding theories and making them sound, at least for the moment they're speaking, comprehensible. Here comes Brian Greene, again. (He is TV's favorite theoretical physicist.) Like Carl Sagan and Stephen Hawking before him, Greene — whose "The Fabric of the Cosmos" begins a four-week run Wednesday in the framework of the PBS series "Nova" — is both mediagenic and a working scientist.

Riitta Immonen, 90, a co-founder of Marimekko, the Finnish fabric and fashion design company, died Aug. 24 in a Helsinki hospital, according to news reports. The cause of death was not released. She was born in Ilomantsi, Finland, and studied dressmaking at a trade school in Helsinki before she went into the fashion business. Immonen was designing women's clothes for her own boutique when she and a friend, textile designer Armi Ratia, started Marimekko in 1951 to create hand-printed cotton fabrics.

Ten gunmen tied up and gagged three employees at a Carson textile business and made off with about 35 40-pound rolls that the company says are worth $100,000, authorities said Thursday. About 8 p.m. Wednesday the gunmen bound and gagged three employees at Sunflower Textiles, said Sgt. Mike Browne. The suspects took the rolls of fabric stored in 16 carts and fled. Browne said the employees were able to free themselves and called authorities. He said the incident is under investigation.

Back in the day, a runner hit the pavement wearing cotton shorts and a cotton T-shirt, and when things got hot, sweat turned those clothes into a big, wet, stinky mess. Today, fitness clothing is all about nanoparticles that suspend moisture, compression garments that give muscles a boost and super-thin insulation that keeps even Mt. Everest climbers too warm. Thanks to nanotechnology and other innovations, textiles are becoming more sophisticated, enabling engineers, scientists and manufacturers to move way beyond microfiber and Thinsulate, synthetic insulation introduced decades ago. Fancy new materials are showing up in gear marketed to elite and weekend athletes alike.

There is one category of merchandise that I buy whether I need it or not--and that is fabric--gorgeous fabric at low prices. Somewhere down the line there will be a use for it, either for a chair, curtains, a wall hanging or a gift. A new source for a fabric foray, Stern's, has arrived in the San Fernando Valley after 40 years in downtown Los Angeles.

THIS IS PURELY an idea book, and one that--despite a chapter called "Keeping It Simple"--leans toward the elaborate in window treatments. Few plain draperies here; what you'll find instead are pages of french pleats, beribboned swags, tails and ruching designed to cover bay windows, shuttered windows, dormer windows, arched windows and bed canopies. Each section has a brief introduction (offering a historical perspective on styles as well as such tips as "If you like to use table and floor lamps to create distinct pools of light at nighttime, heavily ruched fabrics might be a good choice: Deep shadows will gather in the folds, conveying an air of mystery and sophistication")

SACRAMENTO — Federal securities regulators sued a former chief executive and a former director of the California Public Employees' Retirement System, accusing them of scheming to defraud an investment firm of $20 million. The Securities and Exchange Commission alleged that former CEO Federico Buenrostro Jr., 62, and former director Alfred J.R. Villalobos, 68, fabricated documents requested by Apollo Global Management, a New York private equity firm. Apollo had hired Villalobos, a close friend of Buenrostro, as a so-called placement agent to secure billions of dollars of investments from the country's largest public pension fund.

The next generation of New York City taxis will sport the iconic yellow color, but much about them will be new. The updated, boxy vehicles -- scheduled to start hitting the streets in October 2013 -- will be made by Nissan, which won a competition to produce the taxis, according to an Associated Press report. On the outside, they'll have sliding doors to lessen the chance of smashing into cars and bicycle messengers. Inside, the new cabs will have more leg room, skylights, floor lights to aid in searching for dropped items, overhead lights for reading and chargers for digital gadgets, including cellphones.

LONDON  -- Bolton player Fabrice Muamba was still fighting for his life in intensive care on Sunday night, remaining in critical condition a day after collapsing during a match because of a cardiac arrest. The 23-year-old midfielder's heart only started beating on its own when he arrived at a London hospital on Saturday night from Tottenham's ground, medics said, after having fallen face down on the turf just before halftime. Amid an outpouring of global concern for Muamba's health - from FIFA executives to players at rival clubs - members of the Bolton management team, relatives and friends visited him at London Chest Hospital.

It's only natural, given their proximity to Mexico and rapidly growing Latino constituencies, that California art museums would be engaged with Latin American material. But the robust lineup of exhibitions, exchanges and educational programs indicates that the days of focusing on historic "treasures" or romanticized figures such as Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera are over. Museum directors and curators are talking about examining fresh topics and weaving Latin American art into a global fabric — in projects that require inter-departmental collaboration, international networking and community outreach.

It's fast becoming the money-laundering method of choice for Mexican drug traffickers, U.S. and Mexican officials say, and it involves truckloads not of cash, but of fruit and fabric. Faced with new restrictions on the use of U.S. cash in Mexico, drug cartels are using an ingenious scheme to move their ill-gotten dollars south under the guise of legitimate cross-border commerce. U.S. and Mexican authorities say trade-based money-laundering may be the most clever — and hardest to detect — way in which traffickers are washing and distributing their billion-dollar profits.

In a letter to Major League Baseball's top official, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa told Commissioner Bud Selig that he strongly believes the next Dodgers owner should be from Los Angeles and should understand how the storied franchise is "deeply woven into the fabric of our great city. " "Dodger fans and all Angelenos deserve an owner who loves and believes in this city, who understands that the Dodgers and their historic baseball stadium are not just a team; they are a collective community asset," he wrote.

Planning to redo the interior of your home? This is the paperback reference book to consult if you want to compare construction and decorating materials. This book describes just about every imaginable substance that can be used in a home improvement project, including woods and wood composites, papers, fabrics, concrete and ceramics.

"I simply can't believe that the world needs a $50 T-shirt," said my editor, forever banning reviews of "high-tech" clothing in this column. Well, in the eight years since that conversation, high-tech's gone higher and attitudes have mellowed. "Performance" clothes for sports and fitness are everywhere, and a few of them actually work. A few examples are below — including a $99.95 T-shirt. Stand up straight AlignMed Posture Shirt: Polyester-spandex compression shirt designed to improve your posture and reduce muscle fatigue by pulling and tilting kyphotic (rounded-forward)

'Nova: The Fabric of the Cosmos' Where: KOCE When: 9 p.m. Wednesday Rating: TV-G (suitable for all ages)

Science, which is confusing to many people — some to the point that they regard it as a form of superstition — has always needed its champions, its spokespersons, its interpreters, big brains who also function efficiently as celebrities and have a knack for taking impossible-sounding theories and making them sound, at least for the moment they're speaking, comprehensible. Here comes Brian Greene, again. (He is TV's favorite theoretical physicist.) Like Carl Sagan and Stephen Hawking before him, Greene — whose "The Fabric of the Cosmos" begins a four-week run Wednesday in the framework of the PBS series "Nova" — is both mediagenic and a working scientist.