UCLA In the News lists selected mentions of UCLA in the world’s news media. See more UCLA In the News.
UCLA announces plans for $35 million academic center to benefit athletes | Los Angeles Times
UCLA announced plans on Wednesday for a $35-million academic facility on campus to support its athletes that will be named after principal donor Mo Ostin…. “UCLA has a deep commitment to academic success for all of our students, particularly those with demanding schedules, like our student-athletes,” UCLA Chancellor Gene Block said in a statement. “Their dedication to success both on the field and in the classroom will only be enhanced by this new center. We remain grateful for Mo Ostin’s wonderful support and our shared vision as UCLA begins its second century.” … “It is my hope this academic center for student-athletes will serve as a resource for the most elite student-athletes in the country, at the country’s No. 1 public institution, to excel not only athletically, but also academically,” Ostin said in a statement. (Also: Associated Press, Fox Sports)
Use of videoconferencing in immigration courts draws scrutiny | New York Times
A 2015 study by UCLA law professor Ingrid Eagly found that deportation proceedings of detained immigrants heard by videoconference were adjudicated more quickly, in fewer days and with fewer trials, than those heard in person. But detained immigrants whose cases were heard through videoconferencing were also more likely to be deported.
The secret history of women in coding | New York Times Magazine
One researcher was Allan Fisher, then the associate dean of the computer-science school at Carnegie Mellon University. The school established an undergraduate program in computer science in 1988, and after a few years of operation, Fisher noticed that the proportion of women in the major was consistently below 10 percent. In 1994, he hired Jane Margolis, a social scientist who is now a senior researcher in the UCLA School of Education and Information Studies, to figure out why. Over four years, from 1995 to 1999, she and her colleagues interviewed and tracked roughly 100 undergraduates, male and female, in Carnegie Mellon’s computer-science department; she and Fisher later published the findings in their 2002 book “Unlocking the Clubhouse: Women in Computing.”
Can city life help some endangered animals? | VOA
“They [red-crowned parrots] are good at making a habitat for themselves in major cities, and this is what happened in Pasadena and East L.A. So, these are birds that live pretty much exclusively off of trees that are also not native to our area,” said Ursula Heise. She teaches at the University of California Los Angeles Department of English and at the Institute of the Environment and Sustainability…. “They’ve been naturalized as California citizens,” said Heise. (UCLA’s Brad Shaffer also quoted)
UCLA’s women’s gymnastics team makes it a special day for 6-year-old girl | Los Angeles Times
Partnering with the Make-A-Wish Foundation, the Bruins hosted Joselin at practice Wednesday morning, marking what the organization says was its 10,000th wish granted in Greater Los Angeles. Joselin danced with the team, beat coach Valorie Kondos Field in a pull-up contest on the uneven bars and climbed a rope hanging from the ceiling, with Kocian and junior Kyla Ross supporting her feet…. “I think it was really inspiring, just for everyone to see her making the best out of the conditions that she lives in,” [UCLA] senior Katelyn Ohashi said. (Also: KTLA-TV)
Will Harvard continue to fail Asian Americans — or will it learn from the past? | Washington Post Opinion
(Commentary by UCLA’s Renee Tajima-Peña) I was a sixth-grader in Altadena, Calif., in 1969 when my teacher called my mother and grandmother liars. As I delivered a report to the class about my family’s World War II imprisonment at the Heart Mountain, Wyo., concentration camp for U.S. citizens and noncitizens of Japanese descent, Mrs. Counts bellowed that my family had fabricated the whole thing — because nothing like that could ever happen in the United States. That was the day I learned the awesome power, and danger, of who controls the truth.
Gov. Newsom abandoning a $77 billion plan to build a high-speed rail line between Los Angeles and San Francisco | KPCC-FM’s “AirTalk”
“I do not believe that it’s viable,” said UCLA’s Anastasia Loukaitou-Sideris. “ I think that the governor is trying to address a project that has become problematic finding some middle way. But in this case, the middle way… doesn’t work, because every transportation planner would tell you that it means transit, and especially high-speed rail transit, needs to connect high concentrations of people in centers at the origin and destination.” (Approx. 12:50 mark)
In Pasadena, the fight for a higher minimum wage got an assist from the Rose Queen | Los Angeles Times
UCLA’s Ed Leamer concluded the city could lose jobs if employers are forced to pay $15 an hour 18 months before the state requires that pay scale.
A ketamine-based nasal spray for depression could soon be approved by the FDA | Gizmodo
Ultimately, however, the 17-member panel overwhelmingly voted for approval, with 14 voting yes, two no, and one abstaining. In explaining his rationale, panel member Walter Dunn, a professor of psychiatry at the University of California, Los Angeles, and psychiatrist at the VA, went as far to call the drug a “game-changer” for depression treatment.
New L.A. City ordinance requiring contractors to disclose NRA business ties raises First Amendment questions | KPCC-FM’s “AirTalk”
“Yes, it does. And the Supreme Court has told us something very close to that, in two cases — one in the mid-1990s and one in 1960. So, in the mid-1990s the Supreme Court made clear that the government may not discriminate against contractors, based on their political affiliation and their political association,” said UCLA’s Eugene Volokh (Approx. 2:30 mark)
‘Editing’ of RNA may play sizable role in autism | Spectrum
“We knew some examples of RNA editing sites that are very different in autism, but we didn’t know the global landscape of editing changes,” says study co-leader Xinshu (Grace) Xiao, professor of integrative biology and physiology at the University of California, Los Angeles. “Our study is the first to examine RNA editing patterns on a global scale using a large number of patient samples.” (UCLA’s Daniel Geschwind also quoted)
Another looming climate disaster: dam collapses | BuzzFeed
In June, an analysis led by UCLA researchers concluded the Oroville Dam spillway overflow was worsened by climate change. The results of the new Geophysical Research Letters study suggest that there are at least six other major dams in California that have an even higher potential flood risk than the Oroville Dam did, study author Amir AghaKouchak of the University of California, Irvine, told BuzzFeed News.
Biological sex shapes tumor evolution across cancer types | Nature
Geneticist Paul Boutros of the University of California, Los Angeles, and his colleagues analyzed full genome sequences gathered by the International Cancer Genome Consortium. They looked at differences in the frequency of 174 mutations known to drive cancer, and found that some of these mutations occurred more frequently in men than in women, and vice versa.
Georgia moves game-based assessment beyond pilot phase | Education Dive
Influenced by the popularity of video games, most games for measuring what students know and can do in an academic setting are integrated into an online learning activity instead of being a standalone assessment at the end of a unit or lesson, explained Eva Baker, a research professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, and the director of the Center for Research on Evaluation, Standards and Student Testing (CRESST). The students “get the benefits of the fun and games” and the “assessment is something that happens underneath,” Baker said in an interview.
High school employee critically injured after being run over by teenager | KABC-TV
Authorities arrested the teen, but are not releasing his identity because he is underage. [UCLA’s Doug] Ridley explained that it will be up to prosecutors to decide whether to try the boy in juvenile court or as an adult, which could lead to prison time. “They’ll look to see whether he’s had trouble at school, they’ll look to see how his grades are, they’ll look to see what his home situation is like. When they’re trying to figure out how best to rehabilitate a juvenile, those are the things that they look at. In adult court, they’re looking to punish someone for what they did,” Ridley said.
Santa Monica’s Broad Stage hosts artist panel on punk aesthetic | Hollywood Reporter
[Catherine] Opie — the photographer, filmmaker, UCLA professor and MOCA board member who was honored alongside Guillermo del Toro at LACMA’s Art + Film Gala last year — spoke about “the aesthetics of resistance” as part of her efforts to shape ideas of representation, both as an artist and a pioneer in LGBTQ culture. With the increasingly toxic climate that prevails across a wide spectrum of social media platforms, she said, it’s “important to examine language right now.” ”There is an intolerance of human beings on social media,” added Opie, who trotted out her nerd creds, telling the crowd that unlike her co-panelists she had been raised listening to The Kingston Trio and hanging out with people who “performed in a capella groups.”
