UCLA In the News lists selected mentions of UCLA in the world’s news media. See more UCLA In the News.
Michelle Obama will visit UCLA in May to celebrate students heading to college | Los Angeles Times
UCLA will be the first West Coast campus to host the May 1 festivities, which previously have been held in New York, San Antonio, Philadelphia and Detroit…. UCLA Chancellor Gene Block said he hopes the events will send a clear message to students that a college education is attainable, regardless of family income or background. “As a first-generation college graduate myself, I am proud that nearly a third of UCLA undergraduates also go on to become first-generation college graduates,” he said in a statement. “Public institutions like UCLA must always strive to make higher education accessible, through outreach efforts that encourage students to apply and resources that support their success while they are here.”
Well-preserved artifacts are found under Mayan ruins | New York Times
Mr. de Anda and the project’s co-director, James Brady, a professor of Maya archaeologist at California State University, Los Angeles, said it was the most significant discovery in the area since the nearby cave of Balamkanché was found in the 1950s. In a phone interview, Dr. Brady said that the artifacts at Balamkanché, many of which are similar to those found at Balamkú, were not closely studied because of a rush to develop the cave into a tourist site. He added that the findings indicated that subterranean spaces were more central to life in Chichén Itzá than previously recognized. “We are just moving very slowly as we approach this, to make sure everything is done correctly,” Dr. Brady said.
Why California’s droughts and floods will only get worse | Popular Science
“We’ve seen a large number of colder [atmospheric rivers]” this winter, says Daniel Swain, climate scientist at the University of California, Los Angeles. Atmospheric rivers are usually associated with warm storms, but this year California had both warm and cold storms. Swain traces these cold storms to the stratospheric polar vortex breakdown, which led to a mass of polar air sitting over Canada, occasionally moving south. Additionally, this winter’s polar vortex disruption led to a wavy jet stream, a bend of which is located the West Coast. Because of the jet stream’s position, “we’ve had this persistent region that favors increased storminess,” says Swain.
Heavy winter precipitation may not impact fire season in California | Pacific Standard
Meanwhile, climate change has created hotter, drier temperatures. Researchers at the University of California–Los Angeles predict climate change will lead to increased whiplash from cool, wet weather to hot, dry weather. With most precipitation concentrated in the winter months, conditions that cause severe fires are expected to increase in the summer. “It’s not either climate change or historical fire management — it’s really a combination of the two that’s creating a perfect storm for catastrophic fires in California,” one of the study's lead researchers, Valerie Trouet, told EurekAlert.
Looking for details on rogue N.Y. cops? This database might help | New York Times
Joanna Schwartz, a professor of law at the University of California, Los Angeles, who studies misconduct suits, said the CapStat database could also be used by the police and city officials to identify problematic officers and units.
Why funders see bolstering local news as a key to rebuilding public trust in the media | Inside Philanthropy
University of California Los Angeles Communication Professor Tim Groeling picked up on this theme speaking to Wamar Wilner in the Columbia Journalism Review, arguing that “one legitimate concern that people who criticize the bias in the news right now have is … the fact that, increasingly, journalists are not living in [the] communities [they cover] and are from a somewhat separate strata of society.”
Julian Castro’s run for president banks on Latinos, but it’s a steep climb to the White House | Los Angeles Times
On Monday, though, Castro tried to make inroads with the students at UCLA. “He has a really strong connection with young Mexican-American students,” said Matt Barreto, a pollster and political science professor who teaches the UCLA class.
L.A. County supervisors challenge Sheriff Villanueva in court over deputy’s reinstatement | Los Angeles Times
Jorja Leap, an adjunct professor at UCLA who studies interactions between law enforcement and the community, said the split between the sheriff and the Board of Supervisors threatens what is normally a more collaborative relationship between officials. “I think this is very sad. This is not where the energy should be expended,” Leap said, adding that she believes it’s up to Villanueva to “admit his mistake and move forward.”
Trump’s trade war is politically motivated, yet hurts consumers and GOP voters, study shows | Los Angeles Times Column
In a newly released study draft, a team of economists find that U.S. consumers have paid the entire price for Trump’s tariffs. Producers in America’s agricultural heartland — largely Republican — have been especially hammered… The authors, Pablo D. Fajgelbaum of UCLA, Pinelopi K. Goldberg of Yale and the World Bank (where she is chief economist), Patrick J. Kennedy of UC Berkeley and Amit K. Khandelwal of Columbia, pegged the annual economic loss from Trump’s tariffs at $68.8 billion, or about 0.37% of gross domestic product, chiefly because of higher-cost imports. Gains to some domestic producers who benefited from protective tariffs cut the overall loss to $6.4 billion, or .03% of GDP. (Also: Bloomberg)
Too few seniors are getting their memory tested | HealthDay
Dr. Zaldy Tan, medical director of the UCLA Alzheimer’s and Dementia Care Program, said that “patients usually aren’t the best person to know they’ve forgotten. Usually a concerned family member or friend brings it up.” Tan explained that “patients do want to know, but they’re also afraid to find out. They don’t want their current status threatened. Children may think you can’t live alone or drive. If one person in a couple has memory impairment, spouses tend to cover the problem. No one wants a threat to their current way of living.”
Lab-grown tumors might help doctors individualize cancer treatment | Healthline
But right now there’s limited information on which drugs work for which cancer mutations. “We have lots of drugs available, but we have a hard time knowing who’s going to respond to which drug or to which drug combination,” said Alice Soragni, PhD, the senior author of a new study and scientist at the UCLA Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center.
When the VA misrepresents performance, veterans suffer | The Hill Opinion
(Commentary co-written by UCLA’s David Marcus) Our research teams at Stanford and UCLA unearthed data on nearly 600,000 cases never before studied by outside researchers, as well as hundreds of pages of agency documents. Drawing on this information and in-depth interviews with agency officials, our research shows that the BVA is seriously misrepresenting its performance. Veterans suffer from this misrepresentation.
Man sues Bird, city for injuries caused by scooter riders | KNBC-TV
Scooter injuries have risen in recent years due, in part, to the popularity of dockless scooters rentals. A recent study by UCLA researches, which looked through medical records at two hospitals in Los Angeles, found that injuries associated with scooters were common and ranged in severity.
Charter schools, long divisive among Democrats, could shadow presidential hopefuls | Los Angeles Times
The frustration is echoed by Pedro Noguera, who ran an effort in Newark to boost public schools by bringing in social and medical service providers to address crucial nonacademic student needs. Noguera’s “Global Village” program, which Baraka warmly embraced at the school he headed as principal, was abandoned soon after the Booker-Christie plan was put in motion. “It became very clear Mayor Booker wasn’t interested,” said Noguera, now an education professor at UCLA. “He was only interested in charter schools. There was this antipathy toward public schools.”
Researchers discover an unexpected organization of antimicrobial molecules that amplifies immune response | Medical Xpress
“Sometimes, your immune system is turned up when you don’t need it to be,” said Gerard Wong, the study’s senior author, a UCLA professor of bioengineering, and of chemistry and biochemistry, and a member of the California NanoSystems Institute at UCLA. “Just imagine if we were somehow able to dial up or dial down the immune system like a thermostat.”
Volunteers jumped out of a plane without a parachute to test the efficacy of parachutes | Vice
Researchers from Harvard, the University of Michigan, and UCLA have conducted the first ever randomized controlled trial on the efficacy of parachutes. As detailed in a study published late last year in the prestigious British Medical Journal, the researchers enlisted 23 volunteers to jump out of a plane or helicopter to test whether the use of parachutes reduced risk of injury or death.
Snacking can be good for you if you make healthy choices | Consumer Reports
Crucial for bone health, your body needs sunlight to make this nutrient, and older people tend to spend less time outdoors. “It also becomes harder for the body to synthesize and absorb vitamin D as you age,” says Erin Morse, the chief clinical dietitian at UCLA Health’s department of nutrition. Salmon is a vitamin D powerhouse, and milk yogurt, and eggs are also good sources.
Michael Cohen follow-up | KPCC-FM’s “AirTalk”
“I think this is a direct follow-up to a line of questioning during the Cohen testimony when they directly asked Mr. Cohen, ‘who else should we be talking to? Who else can corroborate any of this information and has records?’ And a couple of the names that were mentioned there were Allen Weisselberg and Felix Sater. And I think from there they’ve just started growing the list of what other people were involved in any sort of efforts to cover up documents or were involved in signing off on documents, attending meetings. And so now you’re seeing that Democrats have the power of investigation and the power of subpoena. They’re looking into those,” said UCLA’s Matt Barreto. (Approx. 2:42 mark)
A lawsuit filed on behalf of 21 children claims the government knowingly failed to protect them from climate change | KCBS-TV
“I think that Judge Aiken actually does a very good job of saying it’s not radical to ask the government to protect the health and the lives and the property of this current generation of kids. Look, if you can’t have your life protected by government policies that save the planet, then what’s the point of having a Constitution?” said UCLA’s Ann Carlson. (Approx. 0:54 mark – video download)
Potential vaccine for peanut allergies does well in initial clinical trial | Healthline
Dr. Maria Garcia-Lloret, a pediatric allergist at the University of California, Los Angeles, says there have been significant advances in food allergy research in recent years. “For people with peanut allergy, I say you’re in luck, because I think between the two or three approaches… there are options now that weren’t there five years ago. The oral immunotherapy works, but people do have reactions here and there, and it’s not ideal. The vaccine is what everyone wants,” she told Healthline.
For Europe to lead in blockchain, it needs to focus on education | Entrepreneur
Earlier this year, New York University became the first university in the United States to offer students the chance to major in blockchain, and the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), just announced the launch of its first blockchain engineering course, set to run from January 2019.
HIV self-test kits improve testing rates among sexual partners | Healio
“In the HIV epidemic, we struggle to get sexual partners tested, and this is an important gap because sexual partners of HIV-positive clients are at higher risk of infection,” Kathryn L. Dovel, PhD, MPH, an adjunct assistant professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, said during a press conference. “Actually, it’s one of the most high-risk groups in the epidemic.”
Latest developments in gene editing saga raise more questions than answers | Vox
“The simplest interpretation is that those mutations will probably have an impact on cognitive function in the twins,” Alcino J. Silva, a University of California Los Angeles neurobiologist who helped discover CCR5’s effect on memory, told Regalado.
Festival prices double | KNBC-TV
“That suggests that that was an introductory price to get people interested, but that also suggests that there was a limit of available tickets,” said UCLA’s Dominique Hanssens. (Approx 1:15 mark – video download)
UCLA and Native Americans | KPCC-FM’s “Take Two”
“I’m hoping as I move forward to try to figure out ways to establish more scholarships and more ways to help graduate students come along, because graduate students in these programs can really change the ways that undergrads experience it.… This special advisor to the chancellor is a new way of recognizing that we’re a land grant institute and that the land comes from dispossession of the Gabrielino-Tongva peoples,” said UCLA’s Mishuana Goeman. (Approx 26:45 mark)
UCLA Health wins award for innovations in depression treatment | Healthcare IT News
In addition to its work on depression, UCLA also was recognized for other innovative applications of IT. It made adjustments to its electronic health record to save two million each year in denials, for instance, and improved appropriate red blood cell utilization thanks to a collaborative project among its hospitalists, nurses, transfusion staff and the IT department.
