UCLA in the News lists selected mentions of UCLA in the world’s news media. Some articles may require registration or a subscription. See more UCLA in the News.

Flood fears in Yosemite, elsewhere | Los Angeles Times

Nighttime temperatures are also expected to be warmer than usual — around 40 degrees — meaning Sierra snowmelt could start to happen 24 hours a day, UCLA climate scientist Daniel Swain said. “The ‘big melt’ is now here,” Swain said. “We said there would eventually be some week between about March and May when the rate of snowmelt dramatically increased, either due to a heat wave or late-season warm storm. I think this is probably that week now.” (Swain was also quoted by the San Francisco Chronicle and KCAL-TV, and was featured by KCRW-FM.)  

Northern lights spotted in Mammoth Lakes | KABC-TV

Experts say this is the third big geomagnetic storm since 2019. “We are now not quite at the maximum of the solar cycle. That will happen in the next one or two years, but we’re getting there,” said Jacob Bortnik, found of the UCLA Space Institute. “So this is probably going to happen more and more in the next year or two.”

Health care providers prepare for potential abortion pill ban | LAist

“The ruling goes into effect so long as litigation is ongoing and you know, the full case might take years to develop or at least many months,” said UCLA law professor Blake Emerson. “It’s possible that once the case actually gets fully litigated and works its way through the courts, it would come out to an opposite result,” he said.

Places most at risk from record-shattering heat | New York Times

But the weather has always varied a great deal, and the most exceptional events are ones that, by definition, people haven’t experienced very often. Societies should remain “humble” about all of the climatic extremes that can arise, said Karen A. McKinnon, an assistant professor of statistics and the environment at the University of California, Los Angeles.

More changes for AP African American studies course | New York Times

Some experts are wary. Cheryl Harris, a legal scholar at the University of California, Los Angeles, and a leading thinker in the field of critical race theory, has helped organize the May 3 protest. In an interview on Monday, she said she hoped the College Board had learned that it could not appease a political movement that, in her words, was seeking to “censor and suppress” ideas.

In wake of Monterey Park mass shooting, new gun laws proposed | LAist

While the shooter in Monterey Park was not prohibited from owning a weapon, AB 732 “is a recognition that we have to do more to get guns out of the hands of criminals,” said UCLA Law Professor Adam Winkler, who specializes in gun law. “Historically we haven’t done enough to go get those guns.”

Alien civilizations could send us messages by 2029 | Popular Science

Scientists recently traced the paths of these powerful radio transmissions from Earth to multiple far-away spacecraft and determined which stars — along with any planets with possible alien life around them — are best positioned to intercept those messages. … This work “gives Search for extraterrestrial intelligence researchers a more narrow group of stars to focus on,” says lead author Reilly Derrick, a University of California, Los Angeles engineering student.  

Montana approves a bill to ban TikTok | LAist 89.3 FM’s ‘AirTalk’

“I think that Montana really is trying to pursue its own foreign policy, and that is highly unusual. I’m not sure that a state can unilaterally tell its citizens not to use a product that has an international scope,” said UCLA’s Alex Alben. (approx. 7:40 mark.)

Sex-specific brain signals drive obesity differently | LAist 89.3 FM’s ‘AirTalk’

It may not surprise you to hear that there are different driving factors behind obesity in men versus women. But a new study led by UCLA researchers that was recently published in the journal Brain Communication used MRI imaging to explore those differences, and specifically to examine what brain activity in men and women could tell us about underlying factors of obesity. (UCLA’s Arpana Gupta was interviewed.)