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.
ESPY Awards: Gymnast Katelyn Ohashi gives rousing speech about body shaming | The Hollywood Reporter
In January, UCLA gymnast Katelyn Ohashi earned a perfect 10 at a collegiate competition for her floor routine, which quickly went viral. On Wednesday, Ohashi received another major plaudit at the 2019 ESPY Awards, with the routine earning her “best play.” Accepting her award, Ohashi gave a rousing speech, and judging by the initial response it will likely go viral, too…. “[I’m] thankful for the internet that made this all happen, but along with that it’s important to understand cyber attacks; the respect people unfortunately lack,” she said. (Also: Independent, San Gabriel Valley Tribune)
Doctor explains how epilepsy could have led to actor Cameron Boyce’s sudden death at 20 | HollywoodLife
Dr. Dawn Eliashiv, Professor, Co-Director, UCLA Seizure Disorder Center, told HollywoodLife exclusively that patients with epilepsy are at risk of a condition called sudden unexplained death in epilepsy, or SUDEP. “Children with uncontrolled epilepsy have the highest risk of SUDEP,” explained Dr. Eliashiv, “but it can occur also in older patients.” … “People with epilepsy that drink alcohol have an increased risk of SUDEP and also people should be vigilant with their medications because when people forget their medications their risk goes up. Sleep deprivation and stress are also factors so getting enough sleep and limiting stress is important as well. And we also recommend that a patient’s family members be trained in seizure first aid.”
There’s a terrifying trend on the internet that could be used to ruin your reputation, and no one knows how to stop it | Business Insider
The manipulation of digital video and images is not new. But advancements in artificial intelligence, easier access to tools for altering video, and the scale at which doctored videos can be distributed are. Those latter two points are largely the reason why deepfakes may be prompting more concern than the rise of other photo and video editing tools in the past, says John Villasenor, a nonresident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and a professor of electrical engineering, public policy, law, and management at the University of California, Los Angeles. “Everyone’s a global broadcaster now,” said Villasenor. “So I think it’s those two things together that create a fundamentally different landscape than we had when Photoshop came out.”
Rising sea levels will leave California with fewer beaches — and more hard decisions | Zócalo Public Square
Professor of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences Alex Hall, director of the UCLA Center for Climate Science, broke down the causes of sea level rise over the past century by percentage: 45 percent of the rise has occurred because the ice sheets and mountain glaciers are melting. Another 45 percent is because, as the ocean has warmed, “thermal expansion of sea water” has occurred, literally expanding the size of the ocean…. Sean B. Hecht, co-executive director of the Emmett Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at the UCLA School of Law, explained that dune and beach ecosystems naturally migrate inland as the water rises.
Africa celebrated black mermaids long before Disney and #NotMyAriel | Washington Post
Shrines to the ocean deity line the historic slave coast of western Africa, from Senegal to Ghana to Angola, said Andrew Apter, interim director of the James S. Coleman African Studies Center at UCLA. Historians speculate that figureheads on the bows of trade ships might have influenced her image. “She represents a fusion of the European sailors’ spirit world and West African spirit worlds,” Apter said.
Mid-budget movies keep flopping. But STX Entertainment’s problems don’t end there | Los Angeles Times
“The concept, to me, was flawed,” said Tom Nunan, a former studio and network executive who teaches at the UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television. “They started with this big idea that there must be room at the buffet line for more than one kind of dish. Who says? Just because those movies don’t exist at the cineplex doesn’t mean people want them.”
These slumbering fish may offer clues to the origins of sleep | National Geographic
It’s hard to relate the results of this study to mammals, because there is so much evolutionary time between them and fish, says Jerry Siegel, a sleep scientist at University of California in Los Angeles. Sleep is almost ubiquitous among animals, he acknowledges, but it varies a lot in mammals. “You can’t just say sleep is sleep,” he says. Just among mammals, the amount of sleep required ranges from three to 20 hours a day. REM sleep can be non-existent, as it is in many cetaceans. Or it may constitute a large portion of sleep, lasting up to 8 hours in mammals like the platypus.
How much is your data worth to tech companies? Lawmakers want to tell you, but it’s not that easy to calculate | The Conversation
Big data’s hidden biases and networked discrimination continue to reproduce inequalities around gender, race and class. Women, minorities and the financially poor are most strongly affected. UCLA professor Safiya Umoja Noble, for example, has shown how Google search rankings reinforce negative stereotypes about women of color.
How the Supreme Court has stirred the populist pot | Axios
“It’s not individual cases but this role of the Supreme Court in American life that contributes to polarization. It decides so many questions. It's become a political hotbed,” said Adam Winkler, a constitutional law professor at UCLA…. If you ask me, Fox News has had a greater effect on polarization than the Supreme Court," said Winkler, the UCLA professor.
Including a citizenship question on U.S. Census could have unexpected, long-term implications for your finances | MarketWatch
The inclusion of a citizenship question on the census will prompt many individuals, immigrants and Latinos in particular, to not respond to the survey, according to research UCLA professor Matthew Barreto conducted last summer…. “A critical component to ensure an accurate response rate on any survey, including the census, is trust between the public and the survey administrator,” Barreto wrote.
Where to plant a trillion trees to save planet Earth? A study maps all the land that’s available | Indian Express
In a post on the website of Legal Planet, a joint initiative of University of California’s Berkeley and Los Angeles law faculties, Jesse Reynolds of UCLA described the new research as “misleading, if not false, as well as potentially dangerous.” Among various arguments, Reynolds noted that the authors do not consider how such reforestation might come about when the land proposed to be reforested is owned and managed by many private persons, companies, nongovernmental organizations and governments.
Similarities of small cell cancers to blood cancers could lead to better treatments | Medical Xpress
“Transformation to the small cell type has become an ‘escape route’ that cancers use to evade the effects of targeted therapies,” said [Thomas] Graeber, director of the UCLA Metabolomics Center and professor of molecular and medical pharmacology. “Our group is looking for commonalities that can be targeted by drugs to treat these cancers and prevent less aggressive cancers from transforming into this type.” (UCLA’s Owen Witte and others also mentioned.)
How the conservative right hijacks religion | The Conversation Opinion
Therefore, overcome what University of California at Los Angeles sociologist Linda Brookover Bourque calls a stylized and simplistic understanding of religion. The next time Trump claims he loves the Bible, his hypocritical claims can be silenced by the roar of a truly enlightened progressive collective.
