UCLA In the News lists selected mentions of UCLA in the world’s news media. See more UCLA In the News.
UCLA researchers find that happiness may be linked to immune cells’ function | Thrive Global
[Steven] Cole, a professor of medicine and psychiatry at the University of California, Los Angeles, has spent several decades investigating the connection between our emotional and biological selves. “The old thinking was that our bodies were stable biological entities, fundamentally separate from the external world,” he writes in an email. “But at the molecular level, our bodies turn out to be much more fluid and permeable to external influence than we realize.” His latest project is the examination of happiness in biological terms. “There’s an intrinsic connection between our experience of life and the molecular function of our bodies,” he explains. Specifically, Cole and his team of researchers at UCLA have found that happiness may be linked to the function of immune cells.
‘Sharenting’: Why parents do it and how it affects children | KPCC-FM’s “AirTalk”
Have you ever shared a photo of your child online? Maybe you uploaded their sonogram online before they were even born? It’s all in good faith, but some experts say it may be wiser to be more protective of your kids’ privacy…. “Yes, there’s absolutely a significant downside,” said UCLA’s Yalda T. Uhls. “And this is something I’ve been concerned about for many years and I often speak to parents about it, wrote about it in my book. I’m a parent myself. I’ve actually posted something that my daughter, when she became a teenager, asked me to take down. Because ultimately it’s all about parental role-modeling. What do you want your child to learn about posting, about their digital footprint? Children don’t have the choice; there’s no opt-out for them.” (Approx. 2:45 mark)
UCLA is wooing Native American students and faculty | LAist
It may not seem like a lot compared with centuries of genocide, displacement from their land and separation of their families, but some Southern California Native Americans say they appreciate how local public universities are moving to recruit more American Indian students and faculty and generally improve relations. UCLA is the most recent campus to reach out to Native Americans. Last fall, Chancellor Gene Block created the position of Special Advisor to the Chancellor on Native American and Indigenous Affairs. The position “is a new way of recognizing that we’re a land grant institute, and that the land grant comes from the dispossession of the Gabrielino Tongva peoples,” said Mishuana Goeman, a UCLA Native American studies professor who was appointed to the position in October.
Mini tumors could help identify personalized treatments for people with rare cancers | Medical Xpress
“We always focus on how we need new and better drugs to treat cancer,” said Alice Soragni, the senior author of the study and a scientist at the UCLA Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center. “While that’s true, we also have many drugs currently available — we just haven’t been able to figure out who is going to respond to which ones for most of them.”
Pennsylvania the first state to mandate schools have a tip line for threats; 6,200 reports so far | USA Today
“Students don’t want to be considered a snitch or ratting on their friends,” said Frank Quiambao, founder and director of the National Education Safety and Security Institute at the University of California-Los Angeles. “The fact that it’s anonymous is very important because a lot of people won’t do it if it’s not.”
‘Medicare-for-all’ is no longer theoretical | Roll Call
Mark Peterson, a political science professor at the University of California Los Angeles, said support for single-payer type plans has slowly grown in recent decades, but an important indicator would be whether supporters span the ideological spectrum within the Democratic Party. If more centrists were to join the bill, that would be a more clear sign of a shift…. “The important symbolism of how it’s risen is how many Democratic presidential candidates are at least signing on thematically, even if it’s only because they support universal coverage, but that’s where you have to start,” Peterson said.
U.S. consumers are souring on the housing market | Barron’s
In August 2007, right at the beginning of the global financial crisis, economist Edward Leamer of the University of California, Los Angeles, presented a paper titled “Housing Is the Business Cycle.” His point was that changes in residential construction explain much of the historical volatility in U.S. business cycles, even though home building accounts for a tiny share of overall economic activity.
LinkedIn now shows top-paying jobs in the U.S., U.K. and Canada | VentureBeat
A University of California Los Angeles study published in 2013 found that workers are more productive when salary is transparent, and researchers at the University of Massachusetts report that women with higher education levels who live in states that have outlawed pay secrecy tend to have higher earnings.
CRISPR babies trial may have been government funded | The Scientist
The effects of the trial’s genetic change may extend beyond immunity in the twins, news reports suggested last week after the publication of a paper in Cell linking naturally occurring mutations in CCR5 to improved recovery from stroke and better cognition. “The answer is likely yes, it did affect [the CRISPR babies’] brains,” Alcino Silva, a neurobiologist at the University of California, Los Angeles, and one of the study’s authors, tells MIT Technology Review.
Did a world-famous science journal become a shill for a questionable stem cell claim? | Los Angeles Times Column
Questions persist over whether MUSE cells are for real or whether they can fulfill their discoverers’ ambitions for them. They have supporters and skeptics. Among the former are researchers at UCLA, who also found them in adipose, or fat, tissue. Among the virtues of MUSE cells, it’s said, is that they’re less likely than other forms of stem cells to produce tumors when they’re transplanted.
Celebrating 10 African-American medical pioneers | Association of American Medical Colleges News
[UCLA’s Patricia Era] Bath was also the first woman appointed chair of ophthalmology at a U.S. medical school, at the University of California, Los Angeles, David Geffen School of Medicine in 1983. And she was the first black female physician to receive a medical patent in 1988 for the Laserphaco Probe, a device used in cataract surgery.
Oscar winners were more diverse than usual. Here’s what we have to thank | The Lily
(Commentary by UCLA’s Maya Montañez Smukler) To use the Oscars as a litmus test for “progress” in an industry that historically operates with longstanding traditions of exclusion, both on- and off-screen, is a lesson in balancing lofty words with indicators of real change. The numbers tells us that progress creeps along at a snail’s pace and in many cases stays stagnant (for example, the number of women directing the 250 highest-grossing films has hovered between 8 and 11 percent for the last 20 years). But we cannot dismiss the achievements of diverse artists and what their appearance during Hollywood’s most precious night means.
What to do if your friend is passed out drunk | Self
“If you have to look for more than a few seconds to tell if someone is breathing or not, and they do not wake up when you shake or shout at them, call 911,” nationally registered paramedic Heather Davis, associate director of the UCLA Center for Prehospital Care and program director for the UCLA Paramedic Education Program, tells Self. If your friend is vomiting while unconscious, Davis recommends placing them on their side to lower their likelihood of choking.
