UCLA in the News lists selected mentions of UCLA in the world’s news media. Some articles may require registration or a subscription. See more UCLA in the News.

Prehistoric bat skeletons tell a ‘really weird’ tale | National Geographic

The oldest bat skeletons in the world have been identified as a new species, helping scientists fill in the spotty fossil record of these flying mammals and providing new clues about how they evolved. ... “It’s kind of a mystery,” says Alexa Sadier, an evolutionary biologist at the University of California, Los Angeles, who was not involved in the new study. “We don’t have any transitional forms.”

The atoms that could heal us | Politico

Google the phrase “quantum medicine” and you will find a plethora of sites pushing dubious New Age healing practices. As a result, “It’s very hard to have sustained funding,” said Clarice D. Aiello, an assistant professor at the University of California Los Angeles who leads the school’s quantum biology tech lab.

Preempting gun violence in schools | Christian Science Monitor

Based on data from 3,253 secondary schools across California between 2001 to 2019, a report by the University of California, Los Angeles found “significant and substantial” reductions in every category of violence – from verbal abuse to confrontations involving weapons. Overall, said Ron Avi-Astor, a [UCLA] social welfare professor and co-author of the study, “on a day-to-day basis for most students, American schools are safer than they’ve been for many decades.”

Short-term holds for mental health not a one-size-fits-all | LAist

Kristen R. Choi, who teaches public health and nursing at UCLA, says she has worked with thousands of people who have been put on short-term holds through the Lanterman Act as well as hundreds of people who have been placed under conservatorships, which she says are a blunt instrument — they can be lifesaving to some and deeply painful for others, and not enough care is put into identifying the best path.

Voters reject abortion bans. Their politicians don’t. | Los Angeles Times

As UCLA political scientists Lynn Vavreck and Chris Tausanovitch found in research they did on voters during the 2020 presidential campaign, a significant number of Republicans say they support abortion rights, but are very willing to vote for Republican candidates who oppose them. “They’re not really cross-pressured on the issue, because they don’t care that much” about it, Tausanovitch said in an interview last year.

As Earth warms, ‘flash droughts’ threaten agriculture | Associated Press

Climate change is making droughts faster and more furious, especially a specific fast-developing heat-driven kind that catch farmers by surprise, a new study found. … “It’s the increasing thirstiness of the atmosphere,” said UCLA and National Center for Atmospheric Research climate scientist Daniel Swain, who wasn’t part of the study. Swain called the issue “very relevant in a warming climate.”

Don’t be surprised by AI chatbots creating fake citations | Marketplace Tech

It’s a problem that Sarah Roberts, a professor of information studies at the University of California, Los Angeles, told us she also encountered when she asked ChatGPT to generate an annotated bibliography of research in her field. She said it produced titles that sounded so plausible, she couldn’t believe she hadn’t heard of them. So she went looking for them and found they were all made up.

Moving the needle on the college presidency | Inside Higher Ed

“The demographics are not surprising. The college presidency is a powerful and influential position, and people in positions to hire presidents — board members, search firm executives — also tend to be white and seek people who fit the traditional model of ‘leader,’” [UCLA’s Eddie] Cole wrote in an email to Inside Higher Ed. “This explains why, despite rapidly changing demographics among students on many campuses, the college presidency remains majority white.”

Solar flares created in the lab for 1st time | Live Science

This is not the first time that scientists have attempted to replicate the sun in a laboratory setting. In January, researchers at UCLA unveiled an artificial “mini sun” that can generate sound waves to mimic the effects of gravity. The plasma-filled glass sphere, which is just 1 inch (3 cm) across, could also be used to study how the sun’s magnetic fields influence solar flares.