UCLA In the News lists selected mentions of UCLA in the world’s news media. Some articles may require registration or a subscription to view. See more UCLA In the News.
Behind every film production is a mess of environmental wreckage | Vice
A 2006 UCLA study found that the California film and television industry created 8.4 million metric tons of carbon dioxide; the number for the U.S. film and TV industry as a whole was 15 million tons…. The 2006 UCLA study quoted the actor and environmental activist Ed Begley Jr., who noted that a single sound stage can be responsible for destroying 4,000 hectares of rainforest.
Columbus Day or Indigenous Peoples’ Day? | NPR
“Today we understand that while [Columbus] was an explorer and is credited with being one of the first Europeans to arrive in the Americas, we now know a great deal about the history and the way that he and his people behaved when they came to this continent,” said Shannon Speed, a citizen of the Chickasaw Nation and director of the UCLA American Indian Studies Center. “Which included pillaging, raping and generally setting in motion a genocide of the people who were already here. That’s not something we want to celebrate. That’s not something anyone wants to celebrate.”
What is the role of an all-boys school in 2019? Elite institutions try to adapt | Time
Research has shown that all-boys schools can be more sexist environments than all-girls schools or co-ed schools, and that students at boys’ schools display more traditional forms of masculinity and tend to show more respect to male than female teachers. “What we know in practice is that when you segregate people, they tend to develop stereotypical views of their own group and the excluded group,” says Juliet Williams, a professor of gender studies at the University of California, Los Angeles, and the author of “The Separation Solution?: Single-Sex Education and the New Politics of Gender Equality.” But proponents of single-sex schools say they bring out the best in their students, encouraging boys to be vulnerable and to build deeper relationships, while empowering girls to speak up in class and step into leadership roles that might be dominated by boys in a co-ed school.
Let’s talk about Medicare for all — for pets | Los Angeles Times Opinion
It’s also the most cost-effective way of covering preexisting conditions, which otherwise can be too expensive to insure. “Pet insurance excludes these conditions because otherwise people wait until their pet is sick to buy the insurance,” said Gerald Kominski, a professor of health policy and management at UCLA. “Making insurance mandatory is the best mechanism for keeping premiums low.”
Fake videos could be the next big problem in the 2020 elections | CNBC
“Deepfakes can be made by anyone with a computer, internet access, and interest in influencing an election,” said John Villasenor, a professor at UCLA focusing on artificial intelligence and cybersecurity. He explained that “they are a powerful new tool for those who might want to (use) misinformation to influence an election.”
How to beat Trump, according to experts on middle-school bullies | New Yorker Opinion
Unlike in the workplace — or even high school — middle school is a free-for-all, with no established social hierarchy. People are anxious about where they fit in. A scramble ensues. “There’s a lot of norm-building, a lot of cliquishness, a lot of jockeying for status,” Jaana Juvonen, a developmental psychologist at U.C.L.A., explained. “What’s created are dynamics where people want to side with the powerful.” Bullies rise to the top because they’re able to demonstrate their power in clear, understandable ways. “Unfortunately, for young adolescents, one of the most concrete ways to show your power is to put other kids down,” Juvonen said. “To be mean, laugh at others. Typical Trump behaviors, I’m sorry to say.” What does Trump’s ascension to the presidency say about the state of American grownup society? “It’s awful!” Juvonen, who gives presentations and workshops to public-school administrators and teachers, said.
NASA’s Hubble telescope snaps best images yet of our first interstellar comet | Forbes
Led by David Jewitt from the University of California, Los Angeles, a team has been using the power of Hubble to image the comet found in late August 2017 as it makes our way into the Solar System. Images were taken on the night of Saturday, October 12 on the first four of seven orbits of the telescope allocated to this particular observation.
Scientists’ assumptions were wrong about cell mitochrondia — they work more like Tesla battery packs | SciTechDaily
“Nobody had looked at this before because we were so locked into this way of thinking; the assumption was that one mitochondrion meant one battery,” said Dr. Orian Shirihai, a professor of medicine in endocrinology and pharmacology at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA and senior author of the study published on October 14, 2019, in EMBO Journal.
He sold illegal AR-15s. Feds agreed to let him go free to avoid hurting gun control efforts | CNN
Adam Winkler, a UCLA constitutional law professor and Second Amendment expert, predicted that Selna’s tentative order would have “broad implications” and would encourage others to challenge existing law. “This case could open up a huge loophole in federal law,” he said. “It could lead to an explosion in the number of AR-15s out on the streets.”
1 in 5 LGBTQ adults isn’t registered to vote, despite high 2020 stakes | MarketWatch
Some 21% of LGBTQ adults aren’t registered to vote, according to a study released this week by the University of California, Los Angeles’ Williams Institute. That’s compared to an estimated 17% of non-LGBTQ adults…. While about 137,000 transgender people who had transitioned in the U.S. were eligible to vote ahead of the 2018 midterm elections, more than half might not have had documentation or ID that correctly reflected their gender, the Williams Institute found in August 2018.
Vaping CBD carries unique risks | Quartz
Kathryn Melamed, a pulmonologist at University of California, Los Angeles, Medical Center who has seen patients affected by vaping, agrees that smoking oils can be dangerous, and notes that the vaping-related illness bears some resemblance to lipoid pneumonia — a direct reaction to lipids or oils in the lungs. “While one type of substance — like vitamin E or maybe some other oil — can be ingested and metabolized through the gut, the lung just doesn’t have that ability,” she says. “So then it becomes much more dangerous, and a particle that the lung wants to try to fight and expel. And that’s the inflammatory response that you get.”
NRA troubles: A hunter targets the world’s most powerful gun lobby | Christian Science Monitor
Even as polls show considerable bipartisan support for universal background checks and other restrictions, GOP lawmakers who go soft on gun rights are likely to face primary challenges. “It’s a story about intensity,” says Adam Winkler, a professor of constitutional law at the University of California, Los Angeles. “There’s a lot of support for gun control in America. But the pro-gun rights voters are much more dedicated to this issue.”
Millions of Californians lost power because PG&E refused to spend money to fix its problems | Vice
Though PG&E’s sparking lines have started recent fires, they aren’t the only ones responsible. Stephanie Pincetl, a UCLA professor of environmental policies, points to poor land-use planning that forces utilities into fire-prone areas. Developers are allowed to build houses farther and farther into the forest with the expectation that they will be as connected as if they lived in the heart of town. A start, she said, would be to value fire insurance properly to reflect the high risk of building and living in these areas — right now, these homes are cheaper than those in the city, encouraging further flight and development. (Also: UCLA’s Daniel Swain quoted in Guardian [U.K.])
O’Rourke said he would support removing tax exemptions for religious institutions that oppose same sex marriage. Is that legal? | CNN
“It’s open and shut,” Eugene Volokh, a professor at UCLA School of Law and First Amendment expert, told CNN. “Everything old is new again. In the 1950s, various governments tried to do that — they were going after supposed communists.” Volokh pointed to the 1958 Supreme Court case Speiser v. Randall over California’s decision to require applicants for certain tax exemptions to sign a loyalty oath to the US and the State of California. The Court ruled that California could not impose the oath and in the opinion, progressive Justice William Brennan wrote that “a discriminatory denial of a tax exemption for engaging in speech is a limitation on free speech.”
U.S. ‘medical tourists’ seek cheap health care abroad | Daily Mail (U.K.)
According to Gerald Kominski, a professor of health policy at UCLA in Los Angeles, the US does “little to regulate prices, in contrast to all other high-income nations.” “Medical tourism from a high-income nation like the US is indicative of a problem with affordability, as opposed to quality,” he added.
How Steph Cha’s ‘Your House Will Pay’ was inspired by a racially charged shooting and the L.A. Riots | Orange County Register
Cha tracked down the book discussed on KPCC-FM that day, “The Contested Murder of Latasha Harlins,” by UCLA professor Brenda Stevenson. As she read, and as she learned more of the real-life events it examined, creativity took over.
Saddleridge fires bring bad air quality to Los Angeles | KCRW-FM
“There’s a moderate level of pollution all across California and unhealthy levels in this more localized region that the Saddleridge fire is affecting,” said UCLA’s Pablo Saide.
Are recent wildfires tied to climate change? | KPCC-FM
“If you take one fire in isolation, you can’t say much, but if you step back and you look at the fact that we’ve had 15 of the 20 biggest wildfires in California since the year 2000. That’s a pretty clear trend right there,” said UCLA’s Glen MacDonald.