UCLA In the News lists selected mentions of UCLA in the world’s news media. See more UCLA In the News.
What will it take you to give up the car? | KCRW-FM’s “Design and Architecture”
“It’s not enough to just have a rail stop or a bus stop,” says UCLA transportation expert Michael Manville. “Virtually every transit trip that’s taken is a walk trip before that and if you don’t make it appealing or safe to walk to the transit stop, then people are not going to ride transit.”
Why it’s been snowing in the West, even when temps were above freezing | Discover
“It just requires a good blast of polar air coming down in Southern California,” explained James Murakami, the staff meteorologist at the University of California, Los Angeles. But it needs to travel mostly over land, not water, he says. “That way it warms up the least amount.” … He did note that one predicted effect of climate change is more undulating air flow. Undulation is when the jet stream, which meanders north and south as it moves eastward across the U.S., wanders even more. It raises the possibility of more of these types of polar air excursions in the future.
Three ways to make sustainability a part of your business | Forbes
A recent study conducted by researchers at UCLA found that employees of companies that adopt sustainable practices are 16 percent more productive. Part of that could be in the cultural DNA of these companies — forward-thinking business practices and productivity at work are likely at least somewhat correlated. But some “green” practices do directly impact employees.
Facebook says it fired leaker for participating in conservative bias ‘stunt’ | The Verge
Sarah T. Roberts, a professor at the University of California, Los Angeles who studies platform moderation, says “trolling behavior can happen irrespective of a political bent.” The idea that any actions in the documents represented a bias against conservatives in general “is where the analysis really falls short,” she says. There is, she adds, a “conflation between behavior and political position.”
It’s not all in your head — there’s a scientific reason why marijuana causes the munchies | Insider
Jeff Chen, director of UCLA’s Cannabis Research Initiative, said the endocannabinoid system can be thought of like a series of keyholes. THC, the main chemical compound in marijuana that causes the sensation of being high, is like a key. When a person consumes marijuana, the THC “turns on the engine of our cells and tells it to do certain things,” Chen told Insider. One of those things is building an increased appetite…. “We don’t know the threshold for increased appetite, but I suspect it comes down to our bodies and tolerance,” Chen said. “Some folks consume hundreds of milligrams of THC a day and can walk around, and others are bedridden for 24 hours.”
Today’s floods in California may be a preview of a more extreme future | The Verge
That’s because the atmospheric river stalled, lingering over already wet soil and swollen rivers and increasing flooding in the process. “That firehose just got stuck on Sonoma county and sat there,” says Daniel Swain, a climate scientist at UCLA’s Institute of the Environment and Sustainability.
How intergenerational programs benefit everyone | Los Angeles Sentinel Opinion
The Los Angeles Generation Xchange (GenX) program is an intergenerational, academic-community partnership between the Division of Geriatrics in the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA and the Los Angeles Unified School District. The Gen X program is currently in four elementary schools in the Los Angeles Unified School District.
Possible soda tax returns for statewide discussion | Santa Monica Daily Press
Soda and sugary drinks are the largest source of added sugar in the American diet and added sugar contributes to diabetes, obesity and heart disease, said Susan Babey, co-director of the Chronic Disease Program at UCLA.
What you need to know about measles | L.A. Parent
“When you have a disease that is infectious, and you have a population that doesn’t have at least 90-95 percent vaccination coverage, then you run into a problem. It’s exactly what’s happening in Washington state. There are some communities in that state where the coverage is closer to 75 percent. The virus is smart, and it finds little pockets in the population that are vulnerable,” said UCLA’s Deborah Lehman.
Mini tumors could help identify personalized treatments for people with rare cancers | R&D
“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.”
Researchers modify microbe to manufacture cannabis compounds | Nature
Earlier this month, biochemist Jim Bowie of the University of California, Los Angeles, described5 a process for turning sugar into CBD without the need for the reactions to occur inside a cell. His team managed to produce a precursor to the inactive forms of THC and CBD in commercially viable amounts, and the researchers are aiming to develop the approach through a start-up called Invizyne Technologies. “Cells are a useful vehicle for producing that pathway, but we don’t want the cells,” says Bowie. “We want the damn pathway.”
Scooter companies hope to be street legal in Pennsylvania by summer | Philadelphia Inquirer
A separate study, by University of California-Los Angeles researchers, found 249 emergency-room visits just at two hospitals in Los Angeles by scooter riders or people who were hit by or tripped over scooters.
No, undocumented immigrants don’t get Medicare for free | PolitiFact
Steven Wallace, a community health sciences professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, told PolitiFact in an email that undocumented immigrants aren’t eligible for either Medicare or Social Security. “You have pay into those systems for 10 years to be eligible and need a valid social security number to do so,” Wallace wrote. “When undocumented immigrants work with a SS number, it is either fake or someone else’s. So they pay into the system but are unable to claim benefits.”
Detecting earthquakes with fiber optics | BBC Radio’s “Science in Action”
“As the waves came from the north, traveling south into the L.A. Basin, they came up through the soft soils. As the wave travels from hard rock into the softer soils, the amplitude of the waves go up,” said UCLA’s Jonathan Stewart. (Approx. 1:45 mark)
What is a water flosser and should you be using one? | Self
“Which is better? Whichever one you are more likely to use every day,” Edmond R. Hewlett, D.D.S., a professor at the UCLA School of Dentistry, tells Self.