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.
The case for ending free parking | New York Times
To learn more about the latest thinking, I interviewed Donald Shoup, an urban planning professor at [UCLA] and the unofficial national dean of parking … A 2005 book by Shoup, “The High Cost of Free Parking,” recommended using parking meter revenue to improve public services on the blocks where the meters are as a way to build local support for them. It also recommended removing requirements for new residential or commercial buildings to supply certain amounts of off-street parking. Those legal minimums have the unintended — or sometimes intended — effect of discouraging the construction of affordable housing.
Schools start hatching heat plans as planet warms | California Healthline
A policy brief published last month by the UCLA Luskin Center for Innovation offers a series of recommendations on how education and building codes can help schools become more heat-resilient in the face of global warming. … “Obviously, the California Education Board wasn’t set up to think about climate change. But now that climate change is a reality, virtually every sector is going to have to think about it,” said V. Kelly Turner, an urban planning associate professor and the director of [the center].
Wildfire burn areas in California are growing ever larger | Los Angeles Times
Even when considering limitations from that so-called “fire-fuel feedback,” average annual burn areas could see a 3% to 52% increase from 2031 to 2050 depending on future emissions and other variables, the study found. That’s largely because overall temperature increases will continue to prime the landscape for fire, said study co-author Yizhou Zhuang, a postdoctoral researcher at UCLA who studies fire weather and drought.
How culture wars are impacting higher education | LAist 89.3 FM’s ‘AirTalk’
“It’s an important contrast, where he is in Florida and other states like Texas that are really pushing these bans and this control over what we can research or teach, and where we are, here at UCLA. For the most part in the state of California we have a very open-minded and progressive and welcoming administration in the governor, as well as the president and chancellor of the UC System,” said UCLA’s Matt Barreto (approx. 8:05 mark).
Gentle brain stimulation can improve memory during sleep | Wired
“During sleep, a magical process happens,” says Itzhak Fried, a neurosurgeon at the University of California at Los Angeles. In a study recently published in Nature Neuroscience, Fried and his team have discovered that this process can be hacked. By gently stimulating the brain’s frontal lobe (part of the neocortex) in sync with the electrical waves of the hippocampus during sleep, the team improved the accuracy of recognition memory — the ability to recognize things previously encountered—in patients with epilepsy. They hope that this sort of stimulation might one day help improve memory for people with other brain disorders — like Parkinson’s or Alzheimer’s.
Hybrid AI-powered technology combines physics, big data | Scienmag
Researchers from UCLA and the United States Army Research Laboratory have laid out a new approach to enhance artificial intelligence-powered computer vision technologies by adding physics-based awareness to data-driven techniques. … “Visual machines — cars, robots, or health instruments that use images to perceive the world — are ultimately doing tasks in our physical world,” said the study’s corresponding author Achuta Kadambi, an assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering at the UCLA Samueli School of Engineering. “Physics-aware forms of inference can enable cars to drive more safely or surgical robots to be more precise.”
Streaming’s future probably won’t look like TikTok | Los Angeles Times
“I still don’t believe short-form content is the type of content that would engage you as a subscriber,” said Susanne Daniels, YouTube’s former global head of original content who now teaches about the streaming industry at UCLA. “With subscription, you want to feel like you’re getting premium content, star-driven content — and short-form is something that you feel like you can do yourself.”
Proposed gun-control move may have opposite effect | Los Angeles Times
UCLA law professor Adam Winkler, who specializes in gun law, also says, “I don’t like the idea of a constitutional convention. I wouldn’t trust Americans to rewrite their Constitution right now. It could lead to a worse constitution than we have. “About 40 states are very pro-gun. You’re more likely to get an amendment to expand gun rights.”
Paralyzed man beats the odds and welcomes miracle baby | KABC-TV
That wasn’t until he met Dr. Jesse Mills, director of Male Reproductive Medicine at UCLA Health. “There’s no other reason why a man with a spinal cord injury cannot be a biological father as long as we’re able to retrieve sperm successfully,” Mills said. Mills specializes in surgical sperm retrieval, a technique that allowed the Purcells to undergo successful in vitro fertilization.
Sundance gets $4 million to support Indigenous filmmakers | Los Angeles Times
Indigenous filmmakers remain underrepresented in Hollywood. In 2022, 0.4% of theatrical film roles were portrayed by Native actors, while 64% were played by white actors, according to a report by the UCLA Entertainment and Media Research Initiative, which examined the top 89 English-language movies in theaters based on box office data. Native actors did not receive any lead roles in major theatrical films in 2022, the report said.
Trans adults scramble for care under new Florida law | The Hill
There are an estimated 94,900 transgender adults living in Florida, the second-highest number in the country, according to the Williams Institute at the University of California-Los Angeles School of Law.
