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.
Improving tap water and convincing the public it’s safe | Associated Press
Defective plumbing that tinges water brown or creates an odd taste can also turn people away from the faucet. Immigrants from countries with unsafe water might transfer that distrust to water that might be safer in the U.S. and pass that uneasiness on to their children, said Silvia R. González, who works on environmental equity and water issues at UCLA’s Latino Policy and Politics Initiative.
U.S. diabetes deaths top 100,000 for second year | Reuters
“The large number of diabetes deaths for a second year in a row is certainly a cause for alarm,” said Dr. Paul Hsu, an epidemiologist at UCLA’s Fielding School of Public Health. “Type 2 diabetes itself is relatively preventable, so it’s even more tragic that so many deaths are occurring.”
The rising human cost of sports betting | New York Times
Wagering on sports is “endemic and acceptable and so mainstream that it is now a major pillar of American entertainment,” said Timothy Fong, one of the directors of the gambling studies program at U.C.L.A. “The question,” he continued, “is what kind of impact is this going to have on our mental health, on our public health?”
Black immigrants to U.S. earn less than other immigrants | Insider
Experiments on hiring discrimination stretching back to the 1970s show it happens from entry-level positions to jobs requiring a college degree, S. Michael Gaddis, a UCLA sociologist who studies employment discrimination, told Insider. “Black job-seekers face discrimination even when they have an elite college degree, such as one from Harvard or Stanford,” Gaddis said.
Should my teen get a COVID booster? | NBC’s “Today”
Data suggests that protection from the original COVID-19 vaccine series wanes after about six months, Dr. Jaime Deville, clinical professor of pediatrics in the division of infectious diseases at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA and UCLA Mattel Children’s Hospital, told TODAY. That, plus evidence showing that omicron can evade some of the protection from vaccines, makes boosters an important tool to stay as safe as possible while the pandemic continues, Deville said.
3 steps Biden can take to shore up supply chains | Barron’s
(Commentary co-written by UCLA’s Christopher Tang) The Biden administration took comprehensive actions to reduce supply chain snarls to help American consumers get what they wanted for Christmas. However, as U.S. inflation hit 7% at a 40-year high, the public is now worried about higher prices of essential goods such as food and gas. What can the Biden administration do to reduce price increases and improve supply chain resiliency at the same time?
Supreme Court to hear affirmative action cases | MSNBC
As Eddie Cole, an associate professor of higher education and history at UCLA, and the author of “The Campus Color Line: College Presidents and the Struggle for Black Freedom” explains, “Affirmative action originated as a series of programs and initiatives — not just race-conscious admissions — aimed at systemwide change across all of higher education.” These programs, Cole adds, “called for investment in more colleges and universities to address racial disparities in the broader society.”
Merck’s molnupiravir COVID pill is last choice, doctors say | Reuters
Dr. Tara Vijayan, infectious disease specialist at UCLA Health, said Los Angeles County authorities have prioritized underserved communities for [non-Merck] pills, limiting the hospital’s access. Last weekend, the over 400,000-member health system temporarily ran out of sotrovimab and started scaling up to use remdesivir for outpatients. “We found one pharmacy in all of L.A. County that had Paxlovid. The rest had molnupiravir, which for us we consider not as effective,” she said.
Mathematicians outwit hidden number ‘conspiracy’ | Wired
That seemingly straightforward inquiry is intertwined with some of math’s deepest unsolved questions about the primes themselves. Proving the Chowla conjecture is a “sort of warmup or stepping-stone” to answering those more intractable problems, said Terence Tao of the University of California, Los Angeles. And yet for decades, that warmup was a nearly impossible task itself. It was only a few years ago that mathematicians made any progress, when Tao proved an easier version of the problem called the logarithmic Chowla conjecture.
What does ‘Medicare for all’ mean for state health workers? | Fresno Bee
If the California Assembly bill promising government-run health insurance coverage for all becomes law, it would radically change the pecking order for health care workers, the companies that employ them and the patients they serve, according to health policy expert Jack Needleman. Primary care physicians would command better pay, for instance, while specialists would likely see the so-called single-payer system created by the proposed law push back on their rates, said Needleman, chair of the Department of Health Policy and Management at University of California, Los Angeles.
What would the end of the COVID crisis look like? | ABC News
“We really need to be shifting our thinking to how do we live with this virus rather than can we make it completely go away,” Dr. Timothy Brewer, a professor of epidemiology at UCLA Fielding School of Public Health, told ABC News. “So I think we need to sort of move into the mode of minimizing the impact of the virus as much as possible in terms of health, economic and social disruption — recognizing this virus is going to be there.”
L.A. County is past the omicron peak | LAist
“We are still on the backend of a very steep slope; [during this surge] our case numbers are higher than they have ever been during the pandemic,” said Anne Rimoin, a professor of epidemiology at the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health, in an interview with LAist. Rimoin says the next phase of the pandemic will be complicated, as cases continue to drop. (Rimoin was also interviewed about omicron by CNN.)
Republicans are trying to suppress more than votes | Atlantic
Prentiss Haney … told me that the most heated local disputes over race and the curriculum are arising in suburban communities that historically have been predominantly white but are now racially diversifying. A nationwide study released this month by the Institute for Democracy, Education, and Access at UCLA supports his perception. It found that districts where the white share of students had significantly declined were more than three times as likely as districts with stable demographics to face public backlash over the teaching of race.
Forecast shows no rain in California for next two weeks | SFGate
UCLA climate scientist Daniel Swain posted to Twitter on Thursday that the Global Ensemble Forecast System, a weather model that generates long-term weather predictions based on 21 separate forecasts, is showing what he says is the single driest precipitation forecast he has personally ever seen during peak California wet season.
L.A.’s legacy of Black filmmaking | KCET-TV’s “Artbound”
Davis established herself as a filmmaker at the tail end of the Black filmmaking movement that took place at UCLA, known as The L.A. Rebellion. Following the Watts Uprising in 1965, UCLA and many other institutions implemented changes that spurred an influx of students of color at the university. In the 1980s, Davis enrolled in a master’s program at UCLA and became a part of the movement.
New laws encourage citizens to sue each other | Insider
Jon D. Michaels, a professor of law at the University of California, Los Angeles, told Insider the laws are “creating this world in which people are surveying one another” and “trying to play gotcha with one another.” “It’s one thing for the state to tell you to behave, it’s another for your neighbor to tell you,” he said, adding they would create a hierarchy within communities.
Big dog, little dog: Mutations explain canine sizes | Nature
The prevailing view among scientists used to be that small body size was probably linked to relatively new genetic changes, potentially unique to domestic dogs, says Robert Wayne, an evolutionary biologist at the University of California, Los Angeles. “This turns the whole story on its head. That’s what’s marvelous about the whole thing.”
California to launch $3b multiyear transition to community schools | EdSource
In well-functioning community schools, teachers will take the lead, and parents will be involved in planning; before- and after-school enrichment and tutoring programs will mesh with in-school learning. Health and family services will be treated as integral, not as discrete add-ons, for children’s well-being, said Karen Hunter Quartz, director of the UCLA Center for Community Schooling.
What is a calorie deficit diet? | Prevention
“A calorie deficit is when we consume fewer calories than our bodies burn in a day, both in terms of our natural resting energy expenditure — your natural metabolic rate — and any exercise or physical activity we engage in on top of that,” says Dana Ellis Hunnes, Ph.D., MPH, R.D., adjunct assistant professor at the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health and author of the upcoming “Recipe for Survival: What You Can Do to Live a Healthier and More Environmentally Friendly Life.”
UCLA LGBTQ+ research and health center marks first year | Los Angeles Blade
Opening the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health’s newest research center, dedicated to the mission of improving the health and social well-being of sexual and gender minorities, would be a challenging task at any time. For Dr. Matthew Mimiaga, UCLA Fielding School of Public Health professor of epidemiology, founding, organizing and leading the new UCLA Center for LGBTQ+ Advocacy, Research & Health (C-LARAH), which officially opened its doors in December of 2020, opening the center in the middle of a global pandemic was just part of the job. (Mimiaga is quoted.)
Cities updating infrastructure to combat extreme weather | NBC News Now
“There’s two major factors that are increasing the heat in cities like Phoenix. One, of course, is global heating, which is caused primarily by burning fossil fuels. And the second one is something called the urban heat island effect, which comes about from having lots of black surfaces: rooftops, pavement and fewer green spaces in cities like trees, which help keep things cooler,” said UCLA’s Peter Kalmus (approx. 0:50 mark).
