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.
L.A.’s mass transit still a hard sell | Los Angeles Times
Transit planners have long argued that the cheap cost of driving vehicles keeps commuters from jumping on a bus or train, said Juan Matute, deputy director of the UCLA Institute of Transportation Studies. “If driving gets 50% more expensive because of the increase in gas prices and you’re not seeing corresponding increase in ridership, maybe there’s something you got to look at about their service, improving it, whether it be reliability, safety or passenger information experience,” he said.
Induction stoves a step toward gasless homes | New York Times
In January, Stanford University researchers published a study that found that gas ranges leak methane even when they’re off. And while we cook, concentrations of carbon monoxide and nitrogen dioxide can exceed national air-quality standards, according to a 2020 report by the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health. Nitrogen dioxide is linked to increased rates of asthma in children.
The latest on the crisis in Ukraine | KNX-FM
McDonalds, Starbucks, Shell, and even Disney are among the many big-name companies pausing business in Russia. But Daniel Treisman, a political science professor at UCLA and Russian politics and economics expert, said some businesses are taking different approaches. “Some of the companies are not so much liquidating their partnerships and their involvement as just putting it on hold,” he told KNX In Depth. “They’re ceasing operations for the moment, and I imagine they could go back quickly if this thing ever gets resolved.” (Treisman was also interviewed by KPCC-FM’s “AirTalk” — approx. 1:40 mark and NPR’s “Morning Edition — approx. 2:00 mark.)
Mandatory school masking comes to an end | Los Angeles Daily News
Dr. Robert J. Kim-Farley, an expert in eliminating communicable diseases at UCLA’s Fielding School of Public Health, said it was an “appropriate” moment in the history of the pandemic to leave to individual school districts the ability to keep a requirement in place. “It’s a matter of time until all schools will no longer have a mask mandate, Kim-Farley said, “but it’s also prudent for individual districts to make their own decision based upon local transmission rates in their districts.”
California can again set strict limits on emissions | LAist
But why does California have special permission to write its own standards? The answer hearkens back to Los Angeles’ own smog-choked history. We explored that history with Cara Horowitz, co-executive director of the Emmett Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at the UCLA School of Law. (Horowitz is interviewed.)
NAACP faults Hollywood for lack of Black executives | Variety
The NAACP called on Hollywood to increase Black representation in its high-level executive ranks, issuing a report Wednesday arguing that Black executives need to have more influence in development and greenlighting of film and TV projects. The report, prepared by UCLA sociologist Darnell Hunt, comes nearly two years after corporate America — including the major Hollywood studios — made commitments to act on diversity and inclusion following the murder of George Floyd. (Also: LAist.)
Barriers to HIV/AIDS care | Orlando Sentinel
Patients of color are also less likely than white patients to talk to their doctors about PrEP — in part because of the stigma around HIV. A study out of UCLA found that HIV stigma prevented at-risk Latinos from participating in a vaccine trial. Many would only participate in a potentially life-saving study if the trial was “secret.”
We’re better at diagnosing depression, but follow-up treatment? | STAT
But many patients who leave a screening in need of more specialized mental health care run into trouble finding it. “There’s a scarcity of those providers in many places,” said Lisa Rubenstein, professor of medicine and public health at the University of California, Los Angeles, and the senior author on the paper. “If a provider sent a patient off and didn’t follow up with them promptly, they might not know that the patient couldn’t find a specialist.”
Could virtual reality replace your next pain pill? | U.S. News & World Report
“Virtual reality has been shown to reduce pain when used within the hospital in a variety of studies,” says [UCLA’s Dr. Brennan] Spiegel, who is also director of health services research at Cedars-Sinai and author of the book, “How Immersive Therapeutics Will Revolutionize Medicine.” “We have also developed a digital pain reduction kit, including virtual reality, used at home to help patients improve quality of life and reduce their need for pain medications.”
Sharks save energy with daytime naps | Science
Not everyone agrees. Jerome Siegel at the University of California, Los Angeles, Center for Sleep Research argues all animals that sleep do so primarily to conserve energy. In recent years, many researchers have argued that mammals’ elaborate sleep cycles — which include deep sleep and rapid eye movement sleep — are important for memory consolidation and removal of toxins from the brain. But Siegel thinks the evidence for these additional functions is weak.
