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.

Could the L.A. River could dry up?  | Los Angeles Times

“Historically, tension has seethed in any attempt to make the Los Angeles River an appealing amenity,” said Jon Christensen, an environmental historian at UCLA, “because it involves precious water.” “Today, there is tension between the goals of cleaning up and storing urban runoff and captured storm water otherwise flushed out to sea,” he said, “and managing that wastewater instead to revitalize the river corridor communities and wildlife habitats.”

Omicron hit Southland harder than Bay Area | Los Angeles Times

Higher vaccination and booster rates also explain the Bay Area’s lower coronavirus case rate in January, said Dr. Robert Kim-Farley, a UCLA epidemiologist and co-author of “Public Health Emergencies.” Southern California’s January coronavirus case rate was 30% higher than the Bay Area’s, according to The Times’ analysis. The Bay Area’s numbers reflect “the impressive reductions in death rates that can be achieved through vaccination and, where eligible, boosting,” Kim-Farley said.

U.S. allocates big money for wildlife crossings | NPR’s “Morning Edition”

Mountain lion researchers Seth Riley and Audra Huffmeyer [of UCLA] started noticing something troubling last year in the cats they were observing in Southern California’s Santa Monica Mountains. “Over the course of one year, our combined efforts identified nine individuals with reproductive abnormalities or physical abnormalities,” said Huffmeyer … The problems Huffmeyer and Riley observed were related to inbreeding.

COVID does not spread through breastfeeding | City News Service

There is no evidence COVID-19 can be transmitted from mothers to infants through breastfeeding, according findings released today by UCLA researchers. The study, led by UCLA Health and published in the journal Pediatric Research, found no evidence of SARS-CoV-2 transmission through breast milk from recently infected mothers. [UCLA’s Dr. Paul Krogstad is quoted. Also: KABC-TV and KCRW-FM.)

Groundhogs emerge from scientific shadows | New York Times

Daniel Blumstein, an evolutionary biologist at the University of California, Los Angeles, who leads a long-term study of yellow-bellied marmots at Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory, said that Dr. Maher’s data was “increasing our understanding of the benefits of having subtle social relationships.” He added, “She is allowing us to appreciate more the nuanced complexity of less in-your-face social relationships.”

Despite labor shortages, workers see few gains in security | New York Times

According to the scholars Chris Tilly of the University of California, Los Angeles, and Françoise Carré of the University of Massachusetts Boston, the initial impetus for the shift to part-time work was the mass entry of women into the work force, including many who preferred part-time positions so they could be home when children returned from school. Before long, however, employers saw an advantage in hiring part-timers and deliberately added more. “A light bulb went on one day,” Dr. Tilly said. “‘If we’re expanding part-time schedules, we don’t have to offer benefits, we can offer a lower wage rate.’”

Spotify and the backlash over Joe Rogan | NBC News

“The reason why this is a problem is that Spotify, like other major online platforms, has become more than just a company,” said Michael Karanicolas, the executive director of the UCLA Institute for Technology, Law and Policy. “It has emerged among the new knowledge institutions that our society increasingly relies on for their information and self-education.”

Are we too attached to old homes? | Marketplace

Another factor could be cultural. M. Nolan Gray, a city planner and housing researcher at the University of California–Los Angeles, wrote a story in The Atlantic looking at how our love for old homes might be holding the housing market back. (Gray is interviewed.)