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.
Flawed oxygen readings might have worsened COVID’s toll on people of color | Politico
Experts say the flawed readings are the result of how light is absorbed on different skin shades. Pulse oximeters work by shooting light onto a person’s skin and observing how much bounces back, said Achuta Kadambi, an engineering professor at the University of California, Los Angeles. Darker skin reflects back a smaller signal than lighter skin, which can corrupt the pulse oximeter’s reading, he said. Kadambi, who has darker skin, has encountered similar problems with automated soap dispensers, which also rely on light to activate.
Gay men can now donate blood | The Conversation
(Commentary by UCLA’s Ayako Miyashita) When the FDA first implemented the blood donation ban in 1983 for men who have sex with men, there were good reasons for broad regulations to ensure the safety of the blood supply. At the start of the AIDS epidemic, public health officials were dealing with an unknown virus that was spread through unknown means. Researchers formally identified HIV as the cause of AIDS a year later, in 1984, and it took another year to approve the first test to screen blood donations for HIV in 1985.
Preventive full-body MRI scans worth the risks? | KCAL-TV
[T]he newest trend in healthcare is offering a peek at what most have never seen before: a hidden view inside the window of our own bodies — and our health. … But these types of scans have plenty of critics. “There’s no evidence it’s going to help them. And it has potential harms,” said Dr. Joann Elmore, a physician and educator at the School of Medicine at UCLA. Elmore joins the American College of Preventive Medicine and the American College of Radiology, who also think these types of scans are unnecessary.
Brain-based treatment for hot flushes approved by FDA | Nature
At the University of California, Los Angeles, neuroendocrinologist Stephanie Correa studies how temperature is regulated in rodents, in the hope of designing other therapies. “Temperature is regulated by a circuit in the brain that has many connections,” she says. “And fezolinetant really focuses in on one of those connections.” But tracking down those connections is a challenge, because historically much of the research into the basic biology of temperature regulation has been conducted using male rodents, she notes.
Reading curriculum deemed ‘culturally destructive’ | Spectrum News NY1
Tyrone Howard is a professor of education at UCLA who serves on a research advisory board for the publisher of the curriculum, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, and as a fellow at their International Center for Leadership in Education. He says NYU’s report is based on too small a sample size. “To call it culturally destructive, I think is a huge overreach,” Howard said. He says the primary goal of the curriculum is to teach children to read — something he says it does well — but acknowledges it’s also critical for all children to see themselves reflected in what they learn.
Black strikers say helping streamers boost diversity backfired | NBC News
Some creators say Hollywood’s shift toward streaming has helped improve representation in writers’ rooms and on screens, but too often at the expense of good pay and job stability. … Since then, streamers have by some measures earned higher marks for diversity than their traditional counterparts: Minority writers were credited in 20% of streaming films last year, compared to 12.4% of theatrical releases, according to UCLA’s latest Hollywood Diversity Report.
AI is reshaping jobs. Here are the companies to watch. | Barron’s
“At the firm level, whether AI is positive or negative for value hinges on how exposed their labor forces are, and how able incumbent firms vs. new entrants are able to take advantage of the technological improvements,” Andrea L. Eisfeldt, the finance chair and professor of finance at the UCLA Anderson School of Management, told Barron’s.
A UCLA startup is removing carbon from the ocean | LAist 89.3 FM ‘AirTalk’
To avoid the worst of climate change, we have to look beyond reducing our carbon footprints to actually removing carbon from the atmosphere. This process, called carbon capture, has seen a lot of innovation, with some significant developments happening in our own backyard. … Now UCLA has gotten into the business, debuting project SeaChange, which will remove more than 40 tons of carbon from the air every year. (UCLA’s Dante Simonetti was interviewed.)
LACMA is now a de facto contemporary art museum | Los Angeles Times
Downtown there’s an important Museum of Contemporary Art with a storied, if sometimes administratively wobbly, history. Across the street is the flashy Broad, a rich man’s treasure vault overstuffed with paintings and sculptures, especially Pop art and its descendants, from the 1960s and after. At UCLA, the savvy Hammer Museum has catapulted into the ranks of the nation’s most ambitious university art museums by showing and collecting the art of our time almost exclusively.
Anti-LGBTQ threats are rising, intensifying | Los Angeles Blade
Violent threats against the LGBTQ community are rising and intensifying according to data from a document by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security that was shared with law enforcement and government agencies on May 11… The Williams Institute of the UCLA School of Law reported in 2022 that “LGBT people [are] nine times more likely than non-LGBT people to be victims of violent hate crimes.”
