UCLA Headlines May 9, 2012

The San Jose Mercury News reported Tuesday on a study by researchers from UCLA and other institutions that found that the amount of plastic trash in an area about 1,000 miles west of California has increased 100-fold since the early 1970s and has affected the ocean's food chain.

 

On Monday, mtvU highlighted comedian and political commentator Bill Maher's recent "surprise" visit to UCLA professor Thomas Schwartz's undergraduate political science class, where the TV personality gave his take on the 2012 presidential race and answered questions from students.

 

An article in today's La Opinión about the popular norteño band Los Tigres del Norte highlights the Arhoolie Strachwitz Frontera Collection of Mexican and Mexican American Recordings at UCLA, whose digitization was funded by a donation from Los Tigres to UCLA's Chicano Studies Research Center.

 

An article in today's Los Angeles Times about the Los Angeles Unified School District requiring all students to pass a college preparatory curriculum cited a report on the subject by the Institute for Democracy, Education and Access at UCLA.

 

John Villasenor was interviewed Tuesday on Washington, D.C.'s Federal News Radio about the online scam technique known as "spearfishing."

 

The syndicated public television program Healing Quest With Olivia Newton-John on Tuesday highlighted the work of Michael Waterhouse, an acupuncturist who treats pediatric patients suffering from pain at Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center. Waterhouse was interviewed.

 

A Los Angeles Times blog reported Tuesday that critics of UCLA's planned sale of the Hannah Carter Japanese Garden in Bel-Air have filed a lawsuit aimed at preventing the sale.

 

An article in Tuesday's Pittsburgh Post-Gazette about the suspect in a recent mass shooting at a Pittsburgh psychiatric institute cites Dr. Brennan Spiegel, assistant professor-in-residence of digestive diseases at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, who warned colleagues about the suspect’s behavior before the incident.

 

Fierce Mobile Healthcare reported Tuesday on the development by Aydogan Ozcan, associate professor of electrical engineering and bioengineering at the UCLA Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science and a member of the California NanoSystems Institute at UCLA, and colleagues of a cell phone-based platform that can read and analyze disease tests in the field and, with the help of Google Maps, use the data to chart the spread of diseases throughout the world.

 

The Century City Patch reported Tuesday that that UCLA's new Alzheimer's and Dementia Care program has received a $3.2 million Health Care Innovation award from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Dr. David Reuben, chief of UCLA's geriatrics division and leader of the program, was quoted.

 

All Africa reported Monday on a crowd-sourced online game developed by researchers at UCLA’s Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science and the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA that lets the public compete in distinguishing healthy cells from those infected with malaria. Aydogan Ozcan, associate professor of electrical engineering and bioengineering at the UCLA Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science and a member of the California NanoSystems Institute at UCLA, was quoted.

 

The Spanish-language Mercado reported Monday on “Good Strategy/Bad Strategy," a book by Richard Rumelt, the Kunin Professor of Business and Society at the UCLA Anderson School of Management.

 

The May issue of Health magazine features tips by Dr. Gary Small, UCLA's Parlow–Solomon Professor on Aging and a professor of psychiatry at the Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior at UCLA, on how to remember the names of new people you meet.

 

 

Fonarow, UCLA's Eliot Corday Professor of Cardiovascular Medicine and Science and director of the Ahmanson–UCLA Cardiomyopathy Center, was quoted Tuesday in a HealthDay News article about research showing that older women with an irregular heartbeat have a higher risk of stroke than men.

 

Meyer, senior public policy scholar at the UCLA School of Law's Williams Institute, is quoted today in a San Francisco Chronicle article about California legislation that would ban therapy aimed at turning gay and lesbian youths straight.

 

Watson, assistant professor of cardiology at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, was quoted Tuesday in a Time magazine article on research showing that drivers with long daily commutes are more likely to have high blood pressure and other health problems.