The Los Angeles Times reported on the unusual heat wave descending on the region this week, in which a combination of hotter nights and high humidity is leaving Angelenos feeling little relief. Multiple factors contribute to a person’s thermal burden, or the amount of heat their body carries, said Bharat Venkat, a medical anthropologist and director of the UCLA Heat Lab. Humidity is a critical one, he says — since muggy air can hold less moisture, the sweat on a person’s body doesn’t evaporate as swiftly. “Sweating is the most powerful mechanism our body has at its disposal to cool us down,” Venkat said. Read more about UCLA in today’s National Geographic Magazine, CNN and others.

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More highlights from UCLA in the News: August 25, 2026

Meet the Colorado rodents vying for chubby champion | Denver Post

OnlyMarms, which accepts tips in exchange for G-rated footage of the rodents in the wild, has since raised $6,700 from supporters, said Katie Adler, a doctoral candidate at the University of California, Los Angeles, and one of the Marmot Project researchers. “I think people love to have something to root for, and with the current state of long-term funding, people have really rallied behind us,” she said by email. “People also just love cute, fat animals, and marmots really take the cake with that!”

The South Carolina Senate race | CNN

“It’s another one of these elections where we’re coming into it not knowing. And we spend so much time in politics talking about how the two sides are stuck where they are. And these last couple of primaries have really illustrated this idea that there are voters who are undecided,” said UCLA’s Lynn Vavreck.

Supreme Court’s order on elections could open door to ‘chaos’ | Associated Press

Rick Hasen, a UCLA law professor, said after the ruling: “This doesn’t necessarily mean anything in terms of November.” (Hasen was also featured by CNN.)

The latest data about Mpox | KNX-AM

“What we are not seeing are lots of cases of reinfection. We’re not seeing big spikes. There’s no strong signal here that protection from [vaccines] is falling off dramatically, and in particular, when it comes to preventing serious disease, [the caveat is] not seeing waning, and surveillance data right now is not the same thing as proving that immunity is then changed,” said UCLA’s Anne Rimoin.

Undocumented college students are losing hope | Los Angeles Times

When Christian Espinoza immigrated to the Inland Empire from Mexico at 9 years old, he quickly learned English and graduated from high school among the top 10 students in his class. After studying at a community college, he transferred in 2015 to UCLA, where California Dream Act grants and institutional aid helped him earn dual degrees in sociology and computer science. While attending UCLA, Espinoza was surrounded by resources for undocumented students like him: scholarships for commuters, designated housing near campus and a program called the UndocuBruins Fellowship that paid scholars to do original research projects.

Mobility tests can reveal a glimpse into how you’re aging | Los Angeles Times

At the UCLA’s multidisciplinary fall prevention clinic, Dr. David Lee said it’s important to look across multiple tests in combination. Grip strength, for example, is predictive of many different things, but it can be affected by arthritis, stroke or even simply not conditioning those muscles. “It’s one measure of many,” Lee said.

We’re still not sure what a planet really is | National Geographic Magazine

“In every other field, scientists have defined the terms they need to do their work,” says Jean-Luc Margot, an astronomer at the University of California, Los Angeles. “We know what a triangle is. We know what a virus is. It continues to surprise me that astronomers have not come up with a precise definition of the word planet.”