UCLA In the News lists selected mentions of UCLA in the world’s news media. See more UCLA In the News.

Here it is: the first image of a black hole | Los Angeles Times

Andrea Ghez, an astrophysicist at UCLA who has been studying Sagittarius A* for two decades, said she was a little disappointed that the first image wasn’t of our local supermassive black hole. But that feeling didn’t last long. “I was delighted to see that they saw the ring so clearly,” she said. “There was a lot of concern that they would only see a partial ring.” (Also: Nature, Associated Press)

Guggenheim fellowship 2019: 4 UCLA professors among winners | Los Angeles Times

Southern California is represented by 20 fellows, including [UCLA’s] fine art photographer Catherine Opie.… Other UCLA recipients are Sylvan Oswald (drama and performance art); Lothar Alexander von Falkenhausen (East Asian studies); and Elisabeth Le Guin (music research).  

Why ‘Star Wars’ is a global phenomenon in just about every country — except China | CNBC

“In 1977, when the first ‘Star Wars’ was released, China was still at the tail end of the Cultural Revolution,” said Michael Berry, UCLA professor of contemporary Chinese literature, Chinese cinema and popular culture in modern China. “So, they were watching model operas and propagandist films about socialism and workers and peasants and soldiers. And so, it was a very, very different universe. If you want to talk about a galaxy far, far away, that was it,” he said.

Floating cities aren’t the answer to climate change | CityLab

Kian Goh, an assistant professor of planning at UCLA, researches urban politics and climate-change adaptation. Projects like Oceanix City “are oftentimes posed as solving some big problem, when in many ways [they’re] an attempt to get away from the kinds of social and political realities of other places,” she said…. Floating infrastructure and neighborhoods may work well in some parts of the world, like the Netherlands. But in many other places, “it’s not clear at all that retreating to these pod cities of 10,000 people each is going to solve anything,” Goh said.

UCLA professor clears the air on how to breathe easier indoors | Los Angeles Magazine

According to Yifang Zhu, a professor in the Department of Environmental Health Sciences at UCLA’s Fielding School of Public Health, when outdoor air quality is bad, chances are, the air quality indoors is worse — but there are ways to improve it…. Pretty much everything we do indoors, except sitting around, produces contaminants in our homes. Zhu says the main factors that affect indoor air quality are activities that come from combustion sources and mechanical processes, like cooking, smoking (and vaping), burning candles, and vacuuming. “They all generate pollutants inside your house, so that will impact air quality,” Zhu says.

Kellyanne and George Conway: the marriage that bridges the divide | BBC

Being part of a politically mixed marriage has gotten harder, according to a political science professor, Lynn Vavreck, at the University of California, Los Angeles. The number of Republicans who do not want a family member to marry a Democrat — and the other way around — has gone up in recent years.

President Trump likes acting cabinet members. Research shows they may hurt him | Time

“All of this is very troubling,” says Jon Michaels, a professor at the UCLA School of Law. “This is a shocking level of turnover. It is, to some extent, sidelining the Senate. In the normal course of things, there’s a more regular period of transition.”

New study finds countries with more rights for LGB people enjoy higher GDP per capita | Phys.org

“All over the world LGBT people face discrimination in the labor market, harassment and bullying in education and stresses that harm their health. This treatment diminishes their ability to contribute to the economy, and the economy suffers when countries fail to recognize their rights,” says lead author M.V. Lee Badgett, professor of economics and public policy at UMass Amherst and distinguished scholar at the UCLA Williams Institute on Sexual Orientation Law and Public Policy.

Senate Democrats have coalesced around a big plan to expand tax credits | Vox

Cash subsidies can even extend lives. Brown’s Anna Aizer, University of Toronto’s Shari Eli, Northwestern’s Joseph Ferrie, and UCLA’s Adriana Lleras-Muney looked at the Mothers’ Pension program, the first federal welfare program in American history, which ran from 1911 to 1935. They found that male children of mothers who were accepted for the program lived one year longer, got more schooling, and had incomes 14 percent greater than children of mothers who were rejected.

LACMA redesign draws criticism as it moves forward | KCRW-FM’s “Design and Architecture”

Roger Sherman, design director at Gensler and adjunct professor at UCLA’s School of Architecture, told DnA that working in L.A. means understanding the dynamics of this region. “Those basically fall into three categories: patronage, real estate, and regulation,” Sherman said, adding that architects have to “find a means of actually navigating through a kind of process of these different adaptations ... that if not conceived strategically from the get-go ends up becoming a death by a thousand cuts.”

Could very low ‘bad’ cholesterol bring stroke danger? | HealthDay

Dr. Gregg Fonarow is co-director of the preventative cardiology program at the University of California, Los Angeles. He stressed that the increased risks “are small in absolute terms,” and there is a far greater risk that a patient with high LDL levels might experience a blood clot, an “ischemic” (clot-caused) stroke or a heart attack. Prior research indicates that “there is not significant increases in hemorrhagic stroke, and the risk of ischemic stroke is significantly reduced [with low LDL levels],” Fonarow noted.

MRIs not always necessary for lower back pain, UCLA doctor says | Healio

“A study showed 93% of patients who got an early-stage MRI for low back pain received little useful information,” Obidiugwu Kenrik Duru, MD, MSHS, professor of the department of medicine, David Geffen School of Medicine at the University of California Los Angeles, told attendees. This is likely due to an MRI only showing a limited part of the low back pain picture, he said. “Biomechanical factors are only one factor that makes up low back pain. The condition is also caused by medical comorbidities, genetic factors, psychological factors like depression and anxiety, work history, and socioeconomic status,” Duru said.

How your gut might modify your mind | Chemical & Engineering News

Elaine Hsiao, a microbiologist at the University of California, Los Angeles, suspected that the answer might lie in the gut microbiome. In 2018, she showed that two particular types of gut bacteria thrive in mice feasting on a ketogenic diet. Hsiao and her team think these bugs might be providing their hosts with building blocks for neurotransmitters such as GABA. In the brain, GABA acts like a sort of brake for brain cells, reducing the activity of neurons and keeping networks properly balanced.