UCLA In the News lists selected mentions of UCLA in the world’s news media. See more UCLA In the News.
Einstein’s theory of gravity is about to get a test | Popular Mechanics
“It will be the first measurement of its kind,” said co-author Tuan Do, deputy director of the Galactic Center Group at UCLA, in a press release. “Gravity is the least well-tested of the forces of nature. Einstein’s theory has passed all other tests with flying colors so far, so if there are deviations measured, it would certainly raise lots of questions about the nature of gravity!” Tuan Do and a team of astronomers using the Keck Observatory on the volcano Mauna Kea in Hawaii recently conducted observations to confirm that S0-2 does not have a binary partner star, as many of the S-stars that orbit Sagittarius A* do.
Is ‘Get Out’ too popular to win Best Picture? | New York Post
“I think it’s got as strong of a chance as any of the other [underdog] contenders, if not more so,” says Tom Nunan, who was executive producer on “Crash,” the 2005 film that pulled off a major upset of its own on Oscar night against “Brokeback Mountain.” “Ten or 15 years from now, people will look back and think ‘Get Out’ is the movie that moved the needle in 2017. Academy members know this is a historically important film, not only a great movie,” says Nunan, a lecturer at the UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television.
Study shows how other countries are making paid leave work | Slate
On Wednesday, the WORLD Policy Analysis Center and UCLA School of Public Health released the most comprehensive report of paid family and medical leave research around the world. Based on review of over 5,500 studies, medical analysis, and economic analysis of individual countries, Jody Heymann, the study’s senior author, says it’s clear that if the U.S. implemented a program aligning with the study’s findings, “families would be less likely to fall into poverty, women would have better economic outcomes in terms of their earnings, which contributes to family earnings, and the U.S. would be every bit as able to compete and have as low an unemployment rate.”
Crime-predicting AI may be prone to bias | Futurism
While an AI able to predict gang crime may be an interesting idea, not even the app’s developers are completely confident about its potential applications. ”It’s kind of hard to say at the moment,” University of California, Los Angeles anthropologist Jeffrey Brantingham, one of the researchers, acknowledged in an interview with Science. Given how similar AI have ended up reinforcing biases — racial or social — and promoting discriminatory behavior, this work could benefit from more research before being employed in real life. At the moment, the ethical considerations seem to outweigh this AI’s practical applications.
Green space does a child’s brain good | KCET-TV’s “SoCal Connected”
There is more evidence green does a brain good. School-aged children who have long-term exposure to green space are less distracted and experience improved memory, according a recently published study co-authored by UCLA researchers. The new research links for the first time the improved cognitive function of a child exposed to nature to structural changes in the developing brain. The study’s results could have global implications, as half of the world’s population live in urban areas where access to nature can be scarce.
Corporations claim ‘We the People’ rights | Los Angeles Times Opinion
(Commentary written by UCLA’s Adam Winkler) The most high-profile case the Supreme Court will decide this term involves a Colorado bakery that refused to sell a wedding cake to a same-sex couple. Masterpiece Cakeshop Ltd. is hardly the first for-profit corporation to claim a constitutional right to refuse to do business with unwanted customers. But in the era of Citizens United, with the Supreme Court increasingly sympathetic to claims of corporate “personhood,” the bakery has a much better chance of winning than it would have had in the past. (Also: KPCC-FM’s “AirTalk”)
These harsh FBI critics might surprise: they’re ex-agents | Miami Herald
“The Broward Sheriff’s office did an incredibly poor job following up on numerous reports of the shooter’s violence and instability,” [UCLA’s Adam] Winkler said in response to emailed questions from McClatchy. “Of course, mass shootings do not typically involve a failure of law enforcement. Even if law enforcement were better, we would still have mass shootings. In this incident, it is appropriate to focus on both the failure of law enforcement and the failure of our gun laws.”
Puberty to menopause, women’s hormones serve them well | Medical Xpress
Women’s hormones contain a hidden “intelligence” that women can use to make the best decisions in their lives — decisions that will help them to choose mates, avoid danger, compete with female rivals and produce healthy children, said [Martie] Haselton, a UCLA professor of psychology and communication studies. (Also: Scienmag)
Merck turns to tumor-killing viruses to boost immune cancer drugs | Bloomberg
“I think there is going to be a resurgence of the oncolytic virus field,” said Antoni Ribas, a professor of medicine at the University of California, Los Angeles, who has worked in cancer immunotherapy for 20 years. Enthusiasm for the approach has been bolstered by the potential of viruses to amplify the activity of the checkpoint inhibitors, he said, adding that other strategies for stimulating the immune response also look promising.
Concerns about radiation from WiFi, Bluetooth devices | Consumer Reports
But researchers can make some judgments about the potential for harm based on how WiFi and similar technologies work, as well as on how people tend to use their devices. Those factors do provide some reasons to think that WiFi and Bluetooth devices may be less of a concern, says Leeka Kheifets, Ph.D., a professor of epidemiology at the UCLA School of Public Health who has studied the potential health effects of low-level radiation.
The educational crisis among children of immigrants | CityLab
[UCLA’s Patricia] Gándara co-authored a new report to study this problem and identify how the immigration policies of the Trump administration have affected students in the past year. Surveying 5,400 teachers and administrators in 730 schools across the United States, they found clear effects on students’ behavior and emotional well-being.
UCLA report highlights ‘disturbing’ inequalities in South L.A. | City News Service
South Los Angeles has made little economic progress in the last five decades and by some measures has seen a decline, according to a new report released Wednesday. The report from the Center for Neighborhood Knowledge, which is part of the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs, found that earning power, homeownership rates and other important benchmarks remain significantly lower in South Los Angeles than the rest of the county.
‘Waterschool’ documentary premieres in L.A. | Hollywood Reporter
The UCLA School of Theater Film and Television teamed with the Swarovski Group to produce a film that showcased the work of the Swarovski Waterschool, a foundation dedicated to educating children all over the world about the importance of clean water. At a panel discussion Tuesday, UCLA TFT Dean Teri Schwartz told the audience why Waterschool marked a major milestone for the storied film school. “This is the first feature film and feature documentary that our UCLA TFT has made in the history of our school.... It’s all about the power of education and specifically water education, to empower young people and to transform their lives, the lives of their families and their communities,” Schwartz said.