UCLA In the News lists selected mentions of UCLA in the world’s news media. Some articles may require registration or a subscription to view. See more UCLA In the News.
The Internet at 50: ‘We didn’t see the dark side emerging’ | New York Times
On Oct. 29, 1969, in a windowless room at U.C.L.A. a message was sent to the Stanford Research Center from a very large machine. It was supposed to be “login,” but only the first two letters transmitted. So, the message was, simply, “lo.” “We had no idea — we had nothing ready, because all we wanted to do was to log in,” Leonard Kleinrock, one of the men who sent that message, told me last week. “But we couldn’t have asked for a more succinct, more prophetic, more powerful message than, ‘lo.’” (Also: Wall Street Journal, ZDNet, Canada 24 News)
Why everyone needs a Day of the Dead | Los Angeles Times Opinion
The holiday has roots dating back 3,000 years, said artist and scholar Martha Ramirez-Oropeza, who teaches a sought-after course on Día de los Muertos in the Chicano studies program at UCLA. “You can feel it as a deeper layer, that goes from pre-Hispanic times, to contemporary times, because when you see an ofrenda, you see parts of the history of Mexico.”
As wildfires burn across California, President Trump lashes out at the state on Twitter | Los Angeles Times
“These fires are not burning in forested landscapes where you could go in and do anything to alter the forest,” said Glen MacDonald, a geography professor at the University of California, Los Angeles and expert on climate change and wildfire. “These are scrublands and grasslands and a discussion of forest management is completely not applicable.”
Universities get creative to avoid patent litigation pitfalls | Bloomberg
“With more and more universities having huge revenue streams from licensing and with the cut in funding, especially in state institutions from government, universities are looking more and more to their tech transfer offices as a revenue source,” Edward Hsieh, a patent attorney at Lowenstein & Weatherwax LLP and a former technology transfer officer for the University of California at Los Angeles, said.
Motor problems in autistic people may be grossly underestimated | Spectrum
Researchers should collect detailed, objective data on motor skills in autistic children to determine which types are most prevalent and pose the greatest challenges, says Rujuta Wilson, assistant professor in pediatrics and psychiatry at the University of California, Los Angeles, who was not involved in the study. “We need to start thinking about ways to evaluate certain types of motor impairments — balance difficulties, gait difficulties, coordination, low tone — and screen for them more routinely,” Wilson says.
Economist says rise in number of very hot days will cut productivity and hike health risks | Phys.org
With the support of a grant from Harvard’s Climate Change Solutions Fund, Behrer and colleague Jisung Park, an assistant professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, who earned his Ph.D. at Harvard, are tracking the health effects of working in a hot environment and the ripple effects on the economy, including reduced productivity and pay.
My extreme form of morning sickness was terrible. Not being believed by my doctors was worse | Slate Commentary
“Despite the fact that HG was a major contributing factor to maternal death before the middle of the 20th century, it continues to be dismissed as psychological, leading to poor patient-provider relationships and undertreatment,” explains Marlena Fejzo, a geneticist at the University of California, Los Angeles. “The problem stems from not knowing the real cause of the condition, and the stigma of the ‘hysterical’ pregnant woman perpetuates this misogynistic psychological theory.”
Miami is booming with skyscrapers. What about the people who clean them? | Miami Herald
According to a new report from the University of California-Los Angeles’ Center for Neighborhood Knowledge, the median wage for contracted office janitors in South Florida is approximately $8.50 per hour. The Bureau of Labor Statistics puts the median local wage at $10.89, a figure that includes full-time janitors and ones covered by living-wage statutes.
How green are dockless e-scooters? | San Diego Union-Tribune
“It could be huge for sustainable travel,” said Juan Matute, deputy director of UCLA’s Institute of Transportation Studies, who is scheduled to testify before the Legislature on Monday regarding the state of the micro-mobility industry. “When they launched, things were relatively inefficient and messy,” he added. “Now they’re trying to work out some of those kinks, like having vehicles that last longer, but also expanding the vehicle types they offer.”
New rule would allow faith-based adoption organizations to deny service to LGBTQ couples | CBS
A 2018 study from UCLA found an estimated 114,000 same-sex couples were raising children in the U.S. in 2016. The report showed that same-sex couples are more likely than different-sex couples to be raising adopted children (21.4% vs. 3%).
California fire danger continues to worsen, experts say | Wall Street Journal
A study published earlier this year by professors from schools including the University of California, Los Angeles found the annual area burned in the state quintupled between 1972 and 2018. The expansion came at the same time warm weather temperatures rose almost three degrees Fahrenheit, melting mountain snowpacks earlier. That results in soil losing moisture faster, which causes trees and brush to dry up, making them more susceptible to burning, experts say.
Why we can’t tell the truth about aging | The New Yorker Column
[Alan] Castel, a professor of psychology at U.C.L.A., believes in “successful aging” and seeks to show us how it can be achieved.
The 60-year legacy of ‘The Twilight Zone’ | KCRW-FM’s “Greater LA”
“The idea was if he could move into allegory, he could have robots and aliens say things that a senator or a sheriff couldn’t say. And that was kind of his way of being able to tell stories of substance, cloaked in the science fiction or fantasy trappings that would let messages (of race relations or politics or McCarthyism) be assimilated a little easier,” says Mark Quigley, film and TV archivist at UCLA.
Measles virus could wipe out the immune system’s ‘memory,’ new research suggests | NBC News
Dr. James Cherry, a professor of pediatrics at UCLA’s David Geffen School of Medicine, said the new papers are “superb studies” that offer helpful insights into what doctors and researchers have been observing with measles. Knowing how devastating measles can be — not only for its direct health effects but also that those infected are more vulnerable to other infectious diseases — the hope is that more people will get their children vaccinated against measles, Cherry said. UCLA is one of the sites that dealt with a measles outbreak earlier this year.
Do ‘weedout’ classes dump good doctors? | MedPage Today
No one is more famous for turning the concept of the “weedout” course on its head than Neil Garg, PhD, a chemistry professor at the University of California Los Angeles. Under his direction, the dreaded organic chemistry class that has long struck fear into the hearts of students has become one of the most popular on campus. “Part of the problem is that the ‘weedout’ reputation has been around for many decades,” Garg told MedPage Today. “Our goal should be to teach and inspire, and never to intimidate our students.”
As wild-caught species vanish, are lab-grown fish the future? | Los Angeles Magazine
Dr. Amy Rowat, an associate professor of integrated biology at UCLA, doesn’t accept the fake-food rhetoric. After conducting clinical research on plant-based cell scaffolds and cell culturing, she’s come to the conclusion that clean meat fish products will hit the market within five years, and people will buy them. “The public perception to lab-grown meat is changing pretty rapidly,” she says. “You can see this with the Impossible Burger, which has a genetically engineered component in it [the burger’s blood-like heme is produced by a GMO]. This mind-set is pervasive and is spreading across the country.”
It’s nearly impossible to sue a cop for shooting someone. These Democratic candidates are trying to change that | Vice
“Civil rights cases will be significantly less complex and time-consuming to bring,” said Joanna Schwartz, a law professor at the UCLA School of Law.
Health care is on the ballot in state elections starting next week | Vox
The stakes are very real. A recent study from four researchers — University of Michigan economist Sarah Miller; University of California, Los Angeles public health scholar Laura Wherry; National Institutes of Health’s Sean Altekruse; and Norman Johnson with the U.S. Census Bureau — estimates that failure to expand Medicaid leads to about 15,600 extra deaths per year just among people ages 55-64.
The cities designing playgrounds for the elderly | BBC
Yet Professor Anastasia Loukaitou-Sideris, a professor of urban planning at University of California Los Angeles who has studied park use among the elderly across different countries, says that although culture does play a role, it is park location, design and amenities that most influence use among senior citizens. “Often older adults feel not welcome in parks that are primarily designed for younger populations,” she says. “In other words, parks are not psychologically accessible to them.”
Quibi: the new mobile-centric short-form streaming service | Japan Today
“Candidly, I think there’s already proof with YouTube Red that that business model doesn’t work,” said Tom Nunan, lecturer at UCLA’s School of Theater, Film and Television, referring to YouTube’s paid service. “So to me, of all of the new streamers, Quibi is the one that carries the highest risk because they’ve made this commitment to short form content when there’s really no proof that people are willing to subscribe for that content.”
Fear in an age of real-life horror | NPR’s “Code Switch”
“As a kid watching horror, for me, it was like a roller coaster ride; like, wee (ph), because I hadn’t been through anything. I hadn’t lost anything or anyone. But for my mother, who had felt unsafe in her own nation, who had been targeted by state violence during the civil rights era — I really now believe that she found a kind of solace in the fake monsters,” said UCLA’s Tananarive Due.
Teens on TikTok have no clue they’re perpetuating racist stereotypes | Quartz
According to a report from UCLA’s Civil Rights Project, in 2016, 40% of African American students in the US were in schools with 90% or more students of color. This isn’t just the legacy of racism in the U.S. South; the UCLA group finds that New York is consistently one of the most segregated states in the nation.
Trump eyes compromise with Newsom on climate, cars. California says it isn’t enough | Fresno Bee
Why would the White House compromise at all? Julia Stein, a UCLA environmental-law expert, said the administration’s original plan — to freeze the rules in place in 2025 — probably wouldn’t fly in court. “Maybe the administration believes that (compromise) is more legally defensible than a full freeze,” she said.
Milken Institute releases major dementia report | AARP
Gary Small, a geriatric psychiatrist and director of the UCLA Longevity Center, notes that healthy habits can even trump genetic risk for Alzheimer’s, and that brain-scan research has shown that memory centers of the brain can “actually grow” when middle-aged and older study participants followed a walking regimen. The report also notes that progress in cardiovascular disease (involving many of the same healthy habits needed for brain health) has led to a small decrease in the rate of dementia cases.
Women are more likely than men to leave politics after an early loss | Quartz
UCLA Anderson’s Melanie Wasserman was interested in a less-understood piece of the puzzle: Do women breaking into politics react differently to an electoral loss than men? If so, does this contribute to the low percentage of women who hold office? Her analysis of 11,466 candidates in closely won local races in California between 1995 and 2014 (including city, county, and school districts) finds women new to politics were less likely than men to run again within four years of losing a close race.
The streaming war’s first victim: your wallet | Agence France-Presse
“It’s going to have a huge impact on people’s budgets,” said Tom Nunan, an Oscar-winning film producer and professor at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) School of Theater, Film and Television. “I don’t think that there is enough room for subscription relationships with all of these streamers for a typical American.”
Three UCLA scientists receive grants totaling more than $18 million | Scienmag
Three researchers at the Eli and Edythe Broad Center of Regenerative Medicine and Stem Cell Research at UCLA have received awards totaling more than $18 million from the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine, the state’s stem cell agency. The recipients are Dr. Sophie Deng, professor of ophthalmology at the UCLA Stein Eye Institute; Yvonne Chen, a UCLA associate professor of microbiology, immunology and molecular genetics; and Dr. Caroline Kuo, a UCLA assistant clinical professor of pediatrics.
Bill Ford is a hero in clean car battle with Trump, but not Mary Barra | Forbes Column
“We’re experiencing climate change in the here and now and it’s apocalyptic,’’ said Ann Carlson, a UCLA law professor. “It’s only going to get worse, and so it’s completely unreal that the federal government won’t do anything to help.’’
