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.
What’s living beneath our waves? | Santa Monica Daily Press
A UCLA-led study published in the journal PLOS One has identified 80 species of fish and rays living within southern California surf zones — the areas where ocean waves break onto the beach. “Environmental DNA opens up a wealth of possibilities to monitor our local beach ecosystems,” said Paul Barber, a UCLA professor of ecology and evolutionary biology, and the paper’s senior author. (UCLA’s Zack Gold and McKenzie Koch were also quoted.)
‘Forever chemicals’ are in our water, but the impact isn’t yet clear | LAist
A few PFAS chemicals have been linked to serious health problems, including some types of cancer and fertility issues, according to the Environmental Protection Agency, or EPA. But more research is needed to determine how dangerous they are and what specific health issues they may cause. “There is growing evidence of health effects, but I still think in terms of relative risk, it’s pretty clear it’s not up there with your arsenic, nitrate, disinfection byproducts,” said Greg Pierce, the director of the Human Right to Water Solutions Lab at UCLA.
Cities have long made plans for extreme heat | Associated Press
But what works in one city might not be as effective in another. That’s because each has its own unique architecture, transportation, layout and inequities, said Bharat Venkat, an associate professor at UCLA who directs the university’s Heat Lab, aimed at tackling what he calls “thermal inequality.”
Legacy admissions challenged after affirmative action ruling | CNN
“I do have three grandchildren and I would love for them to be considered. But in a short answer to your question, I would say that if you asked me this question a week ago, I would probably, wholeheartedly be where you are. But now, given the paradigm with the current affirmative action decision by the Supreme Court, I have to say, looking for what’s best for me, I would love to have them benefit. But looking for what’s just right for everyone, I don’t see how I could advocate for legacy admissions when 70 percent of the folks roughly who benefit from legacy admissions are white. And we’ve now taken out of the equation race, in terms of looking at affirmative action,” said UCLA’s Sanford Williams.
Amid a reckoning, Native Americans call for reparations | Washington Post
But so far, Native advocates said, colleges have fallen short of providing real reparations. The restitution colleges have offered benefits “a small collection of people,” said Kyle Mays, an associate professor of African American studies and American Indian studies at UCLA. “I am not upset at any individual who gets the tuition paid for,” he said. “But that’s not real structural change at all.”
Election official challenges mail ballot counting law | Associated Press
University of California Los Angeles law professor and election law expert Rick Hasen in an interview said the lawsuit is “kind of a roundabout way of attacking not having full results on Election Day, so it very much ties into Trump’s unsupported claims about the (2020) election.”
Web designer ruling against views of most Americans | USA Today
Most American adults – including two-thirds of those identifying as Catholics or Christians – disagree with religious-based denial of medical care, employment or other services to LGBTQ individuals, according to a September 2022 survey conducted by the University of Chicago in partnership with the Williams Institute, a think tank dedicated to gender identity and sexual orientation research at the University of California Los Angeles School of Law.
The mindfulness hack for family vacations | NPR’s ‘Morning Edition’
“Vacations and holidays are challenging,” says Dr. Michael Irwin, of the Mindful Awareness Research Center at UCLA. “I have firsthand knowledge,” as do many of us, he says. Whether it’s tension over where to go, what to do, or who’s cooking – personalities and agendas can collide to create strife. “Mindfulness has helped incredibly,” Irwin says about his own personal experiences.
How to make a staycation feel like an actual break | New York Times
Cassie Mogilner Holmes, a professor of marketing at the Anderson School of Management at the University of California, Los Angeles, and author of “Happier Hour: How to Beat Distraction, Expand Your Time, and Focus on What Matters Most,” has studied how people can get the benefits of a vacation from a typical weekend.
Old memories can prime brains to make new ones | Wired
The researchers took the phenomenon of how past learning influences future learning “down to a single cell,” said David Glanzman, a cell biologist at the University of California, Los Angeles who was not involved in the study. He called it an attractive example “of using a simple organism to try to get understanding of behavioral phenomena that are fairly complex.”
Why you shouldn’t replace journalists with AI | LAist
[UCLA’s Eugene] Volokh says this can apply to intentional deception, too. “It’s just too dangerous to have the government put people on trial for, say, conspiracy theories,” he says. “We leave it for public discussion.”
The famous mini-sub exploring San Diego basin| Los Angeles Times
Alvin, the famous research submarine that revolutionized science’s understanding of the deep oceans and took the first human explorers to the wreckage of the Titanic, has a temporary new home: San Diego. … Scientists from UCLA and UC Santa Barbara are currently using Alvin to do seafloor sampling in the Santa Barbara Basin, where there is a rich mix of marine life despite a constant and natural seepage of oil from the bottom.
Fentanyl-laced pills are deadly tourist traps in Mexico | Los Angeles Times
Nor was the notice updated after a Times investigation in February revealed that independent Mexican pharmacies catering to tourists are selling pills that are labeled as oxycodone, hydrocodone and Adderall but are fake and contain fentanyl or methamphetamine. A UCLA study of pharmacies in northern Mexico had similar findings. The investigation confirmed half a dozen cases of people dying from these tainted pills, but the actual death toll is unknown.
