UCLA In the News lists selected mentions of UCLA in the world’s news media. Some articles may require registration or a subscription to view. See more UCLA In the News.
UCLA gymnast Kyla Ross embraces final season as new era begins at the school | Los Angeles Daily News
“This year, I just really want to go out and celebrate not only myself, but my teammates, UCLA and gymnastics as a sport,” [UCLA’s Kyla] Ross said. “It’s been just such an honor to be able to do this for so many years and to still have a love and joy for it.” … “In every moment that I’ve ever witnessed being around her, she is living with purpose and honesty and integrity,” UCLA head coach Chris Waller said. “She’s literally one of the, [if not ] the strongest person I know. She just has this unbelievable will power that she can just get herself to a place, this mental place, where it’s like, ‘Okay, it’s game time. Let’s go.’”
Easter Island’s soil might help solve the Moai puzzle, UCLA thinks | KNBC-TV
A researcher has offered a new theory for the mystery of Easter Island’s stone heads, arguing in a recent study that carvers believed they helped the growth of crops…. “This study radically alters the idea that all standing statues in Rano Raraku were simply awaiting transport out of the quarry,” [UCLA’s Jo Anne] Van Tilburg said in the UCLA release. “That is, these and probably other upright Moai in Rano Raraku were retained in place to ensure the sacred nature of the quarry itself. The Moai were central to the idea of fertility, and in Rapanui belief their presence here stimulated agricultural food production.”
Climate change could affect pregnancies and newborns’ health, California study shows | Sacramento Bee
The study by University of California, Los Angeles, found that births on hot days 90 degrees and higher were happening much earlier than expected – as many as 14 days sooner. Pregnancies generally last 40 weeks. “That’s enough to take somebody from what’s considered to be a pretty healthy pregnancy into a ‘we are somewhat worried’ pregnancy,” the study’s lead author, UCLA professor and environmental economist Alan Barreca, said in a story on the findings this month for the UC system.
Hubble captures incredible photos of comet Borisov as it speeds past our sun | Science Alert
“Hubble gives us the best measure of the size of comet Borisov’s nucleus, which is the really important part of the comet,” says astronomer David Jewitt from the University of California Los Angeles. “The radius is smaller than half a kilometre. This is important because knowing the size helps us to determine the total number, and mass, of such objects in the Solar System, and in the Milky Way.” (Also: Xinhua, CNN)
Central American studies was the most important class I ever took | Washington Post Commentary
It felt like a natural progression when last month my sister campus of UCLA voted 15 to 1 to add Central American studies to the name of the César E. Chávez Department of Chicana/o Studies…. An op-ed started making the rounds on #CentralAmericanTwitter. In it, the author argues that the addition of Central American studies is an erasure of the Chicano and Mexican American experience.Leisy Abrego, a professor at the UCLA department and a Salvadoran immigrant herself, tweeted: “If recognizing our work alongside the work of the Chicanx community is erasure, what would you call having us continue to do work without recognition?”
What black faculty need from our white and Asian allies | Insider Higher Ed
(Commentary by UCLA’s Nina Harawa) Allying yourself with marginalized groups can bring you closer to them in several ways, not all of them pleasant. But if you are not willing to take this risk, you are not allies. You are not serving the communities you study, and you deserve the criticism of the commentator I spoke of earlier. Well-intentioned or not, you are complicit. It will not always be easy, but it will be easier for you than for those few black colleagues to whom this work generally falls. It will not be easy, but this hard work is urgently needed to create the type of biomedical and public health workforce that will not just document but improve the devastating health inequities that black people still experience in America.
How to deal with board gender quotas | The Economist
Critics say boards are the wrong thing to focus on — a symptom of workplace gender inequality, not its cause. A study just published by Zoë Cullen of Harvard and Ricardo Perez-Truglia of the University of California, Los Angeles, highlights this. The authors studied promotion at a large Asian bank and found that men with male superiors rose up the hierarchy faster than those with female ones. Women managers do not appear to be similarly partial to female underlings, which may help explain why female board quotas have no effect on management’s gender mix.
Medicaid expansion hasn’t boosted ER visits to U.S. hospitals, study finds | United Press International
“At the time of the law’s passage, there were concerns that expanding the number of Medicaid beneficiaries would increase the burden on emergency [rooms], because that’s historically where a lot of Medicaid recipients went for even basic care services,” study co-author Yusuke Tsugawa, assistant professor of medicine at UCLA, told UPI, adding that state governments were particularly worried, given that they would need to find room in their budgets to cover the related costs.
Biggest classical music stories of 2019: Mark Swed on how the limelight tilts toward L.A., again | Los Angeles Times
It was a great year for locals. Ellen Reid nabbed a Pulitzer Prize for “prism,” given its world premiere by Los Angeles Opera.… Wadada Leo Smith was honored with a centennial UCLA Medal.
Head cones in Ancient Egyptian graves cap archaeological debate | New York Times
Robyn Price, a doctoral student at the University of California, Los Angeles, who also researches scents from ancient Egypt, agreed, adding that the two cones the team found might have also acted as the visible representation of scent in the afterlife, long after the smells dissipated. “In doing so, they would preserve that deceased individual’s connection to divinity,” she said, “because if you smell like a god then you will be accepted as one who belongs among them.”
Nine years after Guatemalan man’s shooting, LAPD officers get help to identify indigenous languages | Los Angeles Times
During the police training sessions, presenters discussed prejudice toward indigenous people within Latin American culture. Gaspar Rivera-Salgado, a labor studies professor at UCLA, told officers, including many from Mexico, that in 2012 the Oxnard School District banned the racial epithet Oaxaquita, or little Oaxacan.
Catherine Opie to hold newly endowed chair in art position at UCLA | Artforum
The University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) announced that photographer Catherine Opie has been named its new chair in art. The endowed position was established with a $2 million gift from philanthropists and entrepreneurs Lynda and Stewart Resnick, co-owners of the Wonderful Company. In addition to funding the chair, the Resnicks also gifted $500,000 to the institution for the renovation and upgrade of the undergraduate photography suite, which was founded in 1962 by Robert Heinecken. (Also: ARTnews)
Promising new drug acts like a ‘guided missile’ to target cancer cells | CBS Evening News
Last year, her doctors at UCLA Cancer Center suggested she join a trial of a new therapy targeted specifically at Benzeevi’s disease: HER2 breast cancer, that’s metastatic, meaning it’s widely spread. “At least ninety-eight percent of patients will have their disease get worse, or grow, in spite of having effective targeted therapies for this disease,” said UCLA’s Dr. Sara Hurvitz. (Also: KCAL-TV)
What’s next for psychology’s embattled field of social priming | Nature
Psychologist Eugene Caruso reported in 2013 that reminding people of the concept of money made them more likely to endorse free-market capitalism. Now at the University of California, Los Angeles, Caruso says that having tried bigger and more systematic tests of the effects, “there does not seem to be robust support for them.”
‘Schmoozing’ fuels pay gap between men and women, study finds | New York Post
“When male employees are assigned to male managers, they are promoted faster in the following years than they would have been if they were assigned to female managers,” according to the study by Harvard University and the University of California, Los Angeles. “Female employees, on the contrary, have the same career progression regardless of the manager’s gender.”
Hammer Museum announces trio of Board appointments | The Hollywood Reporter
The Hammer Museum at UCLA announced Wednesday three new board members: Apple Music’s Larry Jackson joins the board of directors, while philanthropist and collector Carla Emil and CAA’s Joel Lubin will serve on the board of overseers… Added Hammer Museum director Ann Philbin: “Larry, Carla and Joel are forward-thinking leaders in their respective worlds of music, art and entertainment, and I’m thrilled that their ideas and talent will be helping to shape the Hammer’s future.”
Instant celebrity has a cost, and we as a society are paying for that false reality | Salon
“Fame has completely changed in the last 20 or 30 years, primarily because of reality TV and also the internet and social media,” said Yalda T. Uhls, professor of psychology at the University of California, Los Angeles in an interview. “There are so many different pathways for getting your name out there, so you can be famous just for being famous or for any kind of behavior.”
Only a quarter of U.S. child care centers require kids to have flu shots | Reuters Health
Dr. Deborah Lehman, a professor of clinical pediatrics at the David Geffen School of Medicine at the University of California, Los Angeles, and an infectious disease expert who was not involved in the study, agreed. “Young children are the shedders and the spreaders,” Lehman said in a telephone interview. “They don’t always have the best personal hygiene. Flu is spread through secretions and touches of hands. As you can imagine, in a daycare setting, it allows the virus to spread.”
The moral philosophy of The Good Place | Vox
Soon into the show’s writing, Schur realized he was in way over his head. The question of human morality is one of the most complicated and hotly contested subjects of all time. He needed someone to help him out. So, he recruited Pamela Hieronymi, a professor at UCLA specializing in the subjects of moral responsibility, psychology, and free will, to join the show as a “consulting philosopher” — surely a first in sitcom history.
Mysterious stripes on Saturn’s moon Enceladus may have a new origin story | Popular Science
It’s a tidy tale that builds upon previous work to explain why the stripes occurred at a pole, and why they run side by side, but some geologists wonder if it asks for too many miracles. “They need so many assumptions to line up,” says An Yin, a planetary scientist at the University of California, Los Angeles who was not involved with the study. “It’s like three or four perfect [scenarios] that have to come together.”
B/Victoria is the virus mostly to blame this flu season — and it’s showing up early | LAist
Influenza B shows up a little differently in kids, according to Dr. James Cherry, a professor of pediatrics at UCLA’s David Geffen School of Medicine. “It doesn’t come on as fast with fever and chills,” Cherry said. “But we were surprised in the study we did how long it lasted.” Fortunately, B/Victoria is included in this year’s flu shot. Cherry says more people need to get vaccinated, especially children over the age of 6 months. “The earlier the flu comes, the likelihood the season will be worse, with more deaths,” Cherry said. But, he added, it’s still too early to predict how severe this flu season might be.
Why I believe Bernie Sanders should be the next president | Out Magazine Commentary
The Williams Institute, a pro-LGBTQ+ think tank at the University of California Los Angeles, additionally estimates that over one in five LGBTQ+ people live in poverty, with the figure being one in three for transgender people.
Accurate model of organ scarring using stem cells in a lab | Science Daily
“Millions of people living with fibrosis have very limited treatment options,” said Dr. Brigitte Gomperts, a member of the Eli and Edythe Broad Center of Regenerative Medicine and Stem Cell Research at UCLA. “Once scarring gets out of control, we don’t have any treatments that can stop it, except for whole-organ transplant.”
Underpaid janitors use Basel banana in protest: ‘A banana is worth more than us’ | Miami New Times
Nearly 60 percent of subcontracted janitors in the Miami area live near or below the federal poverty level, and roughly 70 percent of them spend more than a third of their paychecks on rent, according to a recent report from the University of California-Los Angeles’ Center for Neighborhood Knowledge.
Economy and housing check-in | KPCC-FM’s “AirTalk”
“I think ‘boom’ is the wrong word to describe the macro environment. The way I’d describe it is sort of moderate growth,” said UCLA’s Stuart Gabriel. (Approx. 7:00 mark)
UCLA Extension shows off new, high-tech Woodland Hills campus | Spring Hill Insider
Six weeks before classes start at the UCLA Extension’s new Woodland Hills Warner Center campus, university officials opened the doors of its dozen classrooms Thursday for a walk-through by the general public. “This looks great,” said Wayne Smutz, dean of Continuing Education and UCLA Extension for the University of California, Los Angeles. “We’re anxious to serve the people in the Valley. We have started with a broad array of courses and will later tailor the program to what the students need.”
STD rates continue to alarm public health advocates | South Florida Gay News
Jeffrey D. Klausner, Professor of Medicine and Public Health at UCLA agreed saying “this is a continuation and long standing trend since the great recession.” Klausner said the federal government has no plan to combat the STD epidemic. ”They told us a plan was underway,” he said. “Where is this plan? This is a great time to release the plan.”
UCLA: California health insurance making strides | KCBS-TV
“This report used data from 2016 and 2015, which means that it was really the height of the Affordable Care Act, which most people call Obama Care, so they know it as that. Here in California, it’s Covered California. We got all the way down to only eight and a half percent of our state still uninsured,” said UCLA’s Shana Alex Charles.
