UCLA in the News

In a Mercury News commentary piece co-written by UCLA’s Ramesh Srinivasan, the professor of information studies warns of the hidden environmental toll of AI data centers and the risks associated with AI’s rising surveillance of individuals’ data. Srinivasan, who is the founder and director of the Digital Cultures Lab at UCLA, and his co-writer urge that there are ways to wield technology responsibly that benefit all, offering some insights into a possible blueprint for change. Read more about UCLA in today’s New York Times, CBS News and other outlets.

LAist reported that Union Rescue Mission found that 87% of women living at the shelter were not up to date on breast cancer or cervical cancer screenings. “We couldn’t just ignore it anymore,” said Mary Marfisee, the shelter’s family medical services director and a UCLA faculty physician. “We can't refer them out. It’s been harder and harder to get women's health services, so we just sat down and said, ‘No, we gotta do it ourselves.’” See more about UCLA in NPR, CalMatters and other outlets.

In a New York Times article about how HBO Max’s “The Pitt” portrays psychosis, UCLA psychologist Carrie Bearden, director of the Center for the Assessment and Prevention of Prodromal States, explained that suspiciousness and unusual thoughts can signal elevated risk for developing a psychotic disorder. The story underscores the importance of recognizing and addressing early symptoms. See more about UCLA in today’s Bloomberg, People and other outlets.

Popular Mechanics featured UCLA archaeologist Jo Ann Van Tilburg in an article about her team’s latest breakthrough in the search for answers about the famed statues on the island of Rapa Nui, better known as Easter Island. For over three decades, Van Tilburg and members of the Rapanui community have studied the stone heads, recently proposing that the statues were placed to aid in agricultural food production. New soil testing, in collaboration with the University of the South in Tennessee, supports this conclusion. See more about UCLA in today’s NPR, Earth.com and other outlets.

Much of the excitement around the news has stemmed from the adjudicator of these AI-written proofs: Terence Tao, a UCLA professor who is widely considered to be the world’s greatest living mathematician, reported The Atlantic. When Tao was interviewed about what AI can offer mathematics, he was more tempered. The AI-generated Erdős solutions are impressive, he said, but not overwhelmingly so: The bots have functionally landed some “cheap wins,” Tao said. See more about UCLA in today’s LAist, New York Times and other outlets.

Live Science spoke with UCLA mathematician Terence Tao about how AI models are becoming increasingly proficient at generating convincing mathematical proofs, raising concerns about the potential for accepting incorrect proofs without full understanding. “If you were a terrible mathematician, you would also be a terrible mathematical writer, and you would emphasize the wrong things,” said Tao, who is the 2006 winner of the prestigious Fields Medal. “But AI has broken that signal.” See more about UCLA in today’s CNN, New York Times and other outlets.

The New Yorker spoke by phone with Ahilan Arulanantham, a law professor at UCLA and the faculty co-director of the Center for Immigration Law and Policy. During the conversation, they discussed how judges have tried to limit the Trump administration’s use of this third-country loophole by demanding that it bring wrongly deported immigrants home, the legal process that allows this type of deportation, and how the Supreme Court’s unwillingness to rein in the Trump Administration has strained federal courts. See more about UCLA in today’s Los Angeles Times, KCBS-TV and other outlets.

CBS News Los Angeles featured UCLA gastroenterologist Dr. Fola May discussing the rise of colorectal cancer diagnoses in adults under 50 and the importance of early detection. May noted that a disease once most common in older patients is now increasingly appearing in people in their 30s and 40s, and emphasized that screening should begin at age 45 — or earlier for those with a family history or symptoms. Read more about UCLA in today’s NBC News, Independent and other outlets.

In a commentary in the Los Angeles Times, Jon Christensen, founder and director of The Laboratory for Environmental Strategies at UCLA — which provided data and analysis to support the park needs assessment for the city of Los Angeles — writes: “The city of Los Angeles is turning its back on parks and nature, even after investing in a yearlong, citywide park needs assessment. There’s no good time for a major city to do this, especially in an era of climate change, let alone in L.A.” Read more about UCLA in today’s Forbes, Associated Press and other outlets.

In a commentary in The Hill, UCLA’s Efrén Pérez, a professor of political science and psychology, and director of the UCLA Race, Ethnicity, Politics and Society Lab, writes: “Our evidence shows that the path to a revitalized Democratic coalition runs through solidarity between all people of color. It also clearly indicates that Latinos are predisposed to be reliable Democrats and active allies in collective struggles against a still racially unequal society.” Read more about UCLA in today’s New York Times, Axios and other outlets.

KTLA-TV reported that California Attorney General Rob Bonta has launched a civil rights investigation into the emergency response to the Eaton Fire in West Altadena, following UCLA research that found the blaze disproportionately affected Black residents in the historically Black community. The research comes from a January 2025 data brief from the UCLA Ralph J. Bunche Center for African American Studies, the UCLA Center for Neighborhood Knowledge and the UCLA Latino Policy and Politics Institute. Read more about UCLA in today’s Associated Press, Time and other outlets.

The New York Times reported on new findings from UCLA astronomer David Jewitt, who discovered that Comet 41P/Tuttle-Giacobini-Kresák dramatically slowed its rotation to a stop and then began spinning in the opposite direction, an unprecedented event that may help explain how small comets ultimately break apart. Using images from the Hubble Space Telescope, Jewitt said the extreme shift suggests some comets may be “blown to bits by their own spin.” Read more about UCLA in today’s Time, Scientific American and other outlets.

LAist reported on California Governor Gavin Newsom’s announcement of a $2.2 million gift that will go to UCLA Health’s Sound Body Sound Mind program to support the mental health of young survivors of last year’s firestorms. The funds will come from LA Rises, a public-private partnership mostly supported by philanthropic donors. UCLA’s Matt Flesock and Catherine Mogil were interviewed. Read more about UCLA in today’s Independent, Los Angeles Times and other outlets.

From the Los Angeles Times: About a quarter of the audience — a crowd that was familiar with the multiple video game style represented in “asses.masses” — couldn’t stand the endurance test. The UCLA Nimoy Theater brought together strangers for a seven-hour video game and reflection on political dissent in what the writer terms “a work of urgency.” The event is part of the Center for the Art of Performance at UCLA's current season. Edgar Miramontes, the center’s executive and artistic director, was interviewed. Read more about UCLA in today’s New York Times, LAist’s “AirTalk” and other outlets.

The Washington Post spoke with UCLA’s Travis Longcore about an increasing concern among ecologists: the rise in excessive nighttime garden lighting. Illuminating gardens harms insects, birds, bats and other small mammals, and can even make plants less productive. It may seem like your garden “goes to sleep,” says Longcore, senior associate director of the UCLA Institute of Environment and Sustainability. “But then there’s all these things that come to life at night.” Read more about UCLA in today’s CNN, USA Today and other outlets.

Jewish Journal reported on UCLA Hillel’s “Celebration of Jewish Resilience,” an event that brought together students, faculty and community leaders to reflect on campus climate and Jewish identity. UCLA Chancellor Julio Frenk emphasized that “hate has ...

The Associated Press cited UCLA Fielding School of Public Health professor Michael Jerrett in response to a recent study tying particle pollution from wildfire smoke to 24,100 U.S. deaths per year. “The estimates they’re coming up with are reasonable,” said Jerrett. “We need more of them. It’s only if we’re doing multiple studies with many different designs that we gain scientific confidence of our outcomes.” Read more about UCLA in today's New York Times, Agence-France Presse and other outlets.

Newsweek cited a new study by UCLA anthropology professor Molly Fox showing that pregnancy and breastfeeding are linked with stronger cognitive function in postmenopausal women. “If we can figure out, as a next step, why those reproductive patterns lead to better cognitive outcomes in old age, then we can work toward figuring out how to craft therapies,” Fox said. Fox was also quoted in KABC-TV and KTLA-TV. Read more about UCLA in today’s NBC News, LAist and other outlets.

The New York Times wrote: In a city with so many great museums, the one that most frequently surprises me is the Fowler, on the campus of the University of California, Los Angeles, whose collection display is also dense with Yoruba woodcarvings, Alaskan headdresses and Haitian ceramics. It began as a modest basement display of “ethnic arts and technology,” but successive donations, above all a copious gift in the 1960s of African and Oceanic objects amassed by the pharmaceutical baron Henry Wellcome, have made it one of America’s foremost institutions of non-Western culture. Read more about UCLA in today’s KCBS-TV, LAist’s “AirTalk” and other outlets.

PBS News Hour interviewed election law expert Rick Hasen, who cautioned that recent federal actions targeting local election offices could pose serious risks to the integrity of future U.S. elections. Hasen, who is also the founding director of the Safeguarding Democracy Project at the UCLA School of Law, said an FBI raid on voting offices in Fulton County, Georgia — more than five years after the 2020 election — appears legally dubious and may be less about accountability than about perpetuating unfounded claims of election fraud. Read more about UCLA in today’s CNN, Time and other outlets.

The Los Angeles Times cited UCLA music industry expert Robert Fink in a discussion about the shifts streaming platforms have made in soundtrack production ahead of the 68th Grammy Awards. The article focuses on Netflix’s “KPop Demon Hunters,” which received five Grammy nominations for the film’s fictional K-pop group, “Huntr/x.” Fink, who is also the associate dean for academic affairs in the UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music, said over the last 10 years, the role of music supervisors working in streaming has become about more than just finding a song to match a scene. Read more about UCLA in today’s Reuters, Los Angeles Times’ ‘De Los’ and other outlets.

The Advocate cited a new study released by the Williams Institute at UCLA School of Law and the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health, highlighting the impact of the fires that burned through LGBTQ+ households and businesses. The findings reveal that LGBTQ+ survivors entered the disaster with greater vulnerabilities and less immediate support from community organizations, friends and family. Read more about UCLA in today’s Marketplace, Associated Press and other outlets.

CalMatters featured a column by UCLA’s David E. Hayes-Bautista discussing findings from a new report showing that the creation and growth of Latino-owned businesses have significantly fueled employment and economic prosperity for the United States. Hayes-Bautista, a distinguished professor of medicine and co-founder of the Latino GDP Project, and collaborators found that Latino GDP, or gross domestic product, contributed to boosting California’s economy and helped it achieve its ranking as the fourth-largest in the world. Read more about UCLA in today’s USA Today, The Hill and other outlets.

The New York Times cited UCLA’s Jaimie Krems in an article bringing scientific clarity to something most people struggle with but rarely study: friendship. Krems, director of the UCLA Center for Friendship Research, explains that friendships don’t just happen — they must be actively built, maintained and protected. Her work shows why friendship is essential to well-being, how adults can navigate closeness and conflict, and why emotions like jealousy can actually help preserve valued bonds. Read more about UCLA in today’s Associated Press, KFF Health News and other outlets.

ABC News cited a new study by UCLA researchers using artificial intelligence to detect early signs of Alzheimer’s disease solely from an individual’s medical history. By using an algorithm that examines patient medical records for prior diagnoses, age and neurological indicators, the UCLA team was able to detect up to 80% of people who would have otherwise slipped through the cracks — an accuracy that’s more than double that of other detection models. Read more about UCLA in today’s New York Times, ABC News and other outlets.