UCLA In the News August 10, 2020

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.

Hollywood is running out of villains | Foreign Affairs opinion

(Commentary written by UCLA’s Kai Raustiala) Many ingredients combine to give U.S. soft power its strength and reach, but entertainment and culture have always been central to the mix. Film and television have shaped how the world sees the United States — and how it perceives the country’s adversaries. Yet that unique advantage seems to be slipping away. When it comes to some of the great questions of global power politics today, Hollywood has become remarkably timid. On some issues, it has gone silent altogether.

Is your child an orchid, tulip or dandelion? | New York Times

When Dr. Judith Orloff, a clinical psychiatrist at the University of California, Los Angeles, was growing up, she couldn’t go into shopping malls or crowded places without leaving feeling anxious or depressed. Adults told her to “toughen up.” It was the wrong advice, she says. “Tell your sensitive children it’s likely they’re picking up another person’s emotions. Teach them to take a few deep breaths, visualize a relaxing scene, calm down,” Dr. Orloff advised.

1875 Supreme Court decision denied women’s right to vote | Washington Post

“It’s dismissed almost offhand,” said Ellen DuBois, a professor emeritus of history and gender studies at UCLA.

Masks with valves are problematic | KNBC-TV

“When you have a valve in that mask, it allows you to exhale. It allows you to exhale particle of the virus, which can then be spread to others,” said UCLA’s Anne Rimoin.

The internet has changed the experience of coming out | The Economist

In 2018 the Williams Institute at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), found that whereas interviewees in their 50s had tended to reveal their sexuality at about the age of 26, those currently in their late teens and early 20s had already done so before their 17th birthday.

Children’s vaccination rates plunge amid pandemic | KCBS-TV

Dr. Nava Yeganeh at UCLA Medical Center says the drop could be even worse: anywhere from 40 to 90 percent in some of the vaccines. Yeganeh says the double whammy of a vaccine-preventable disease coupled with COVID-19 could be very dangerous. “So if you have COVID and influenza, those both are respiratory viruses that can really damage the lung,” said Yeganeh. “So if you have both, they can work together and it would be devastating and preventable.”

New York attorney general seeks to dissolve the NRA | KPCC-FM’s “AirTalk”

“I think there’s a decent chance that it will end up with that result. I don’t think the New York attorney general would have taken such a bold action had the facts not been there to support the claims,” said UCLA’s Adam Winkler (approx. 10:30 mark).

The destructiveness of science mimicking social media | The Hill opinion

(Commentary written by UCLA’s Dr. Kim-Lien Nguyen) Researchers at academic institutions and biotech companies have rushed to share findings on COVID-19, even though they know (or ought to know) that the available data aren’t yet sufficient to support their theories or products. These symptoms reflect an insidious problem.  Researchers and companies have fallen prey to a celebrity culture whereby the quest for five minutes of fame is more alluring than the painstaking restraint and rigor that the scientific method demands.

Back to school: Answers for parents | KABC-TV

“So this is one of the big elephants in the room. We know that this issue has affected communities across the board, but obvious African American, Latino and Asian-Pacific Islander families are being hit even harder. Just a few weeks ago, the Los Angeles Unified School District put out a report showing that even though black and brown kids had access to devices, they still were not able to log on,” said UCLA’s Tyrone Howard (approx. 28:45 mark).

UCLA lands grant to study gun violence and safety | City News Service

UCLA said the grant will help fill data gaps about risk factors for gun suicide and urban gun violence related to understudied and disproportionately affected subpopulations, such as youth and young adults, veterans, immigrants and LGBT people. The recipients of the grant from the National Collaborative for Gun Violence Research are Ninez Ponce, director of the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research, and Michael Rodriguez, professor and vice chair in the Department of Family Medicine at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. (Also: KABC-TV, MyNewsLA and The Antelope Valley Times.)

Endangered species habitat proposal raises climate questions | Bloomberg Law

The words the administration uses to define habitat need definitions of their own in order to provide more clarity, said Sean Hecht, co-director of the UCLA Law Environmental Law Clinic. For example, “What does ‘areas’ mean?” he said.

People seeking unemployment benefits lose their jobs again | CNBC

“It’s become apparent that for the individuals who have been lucky enough to return to work, they’re seeing that this new employment is especially unstable,” said Till von Wachter, a co-author of the analysis and an economics professor at the University of California, Los Angeles.

Hollywood can do more to build on diversity efforts | Variety opinion

Black crew and business professionals still find themselves underrepresented on set and in meeting rooms, studies such as UCLA’s annual Hollywood Diversity Report estimate that over 90% of studio heads and senior executives remain white… UCLA Anderson’s Center for Management of Enterprise in Media, Entertainment & Sports (MEMES) partners with HBCU beacon Howard University to provide a true taste of Hollywood, with site visits and internships included in the coursework.

Does air pollution make COVID-19 worse? | Palm Springs Desert Sun

Michael Jerrett is the director of the Center for Occupational and Environmental Health at the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health. He’s involved in several related projects, including a CARB-funded collaboration between UCLA, Kaiser Permanente, UC Davis and UC Berkeley. Preliminary findings from one of his team’s studies already suggest that air pollution leads to worse health outcomes in coronavirus-positive patients.

A fight over a cell phone tower in Boyle Heights | KCRW-FM’s “Greater L.A.”

Dr. Leeka Kheifets, Professor of Epidemiology at the UCLA School of Public Health, has done extensive research on the potential health effects of cell phone use. She says 5G is a great new technology. But with all new technology, she warns, “We need to be cautious, but right now, there are no reasons for great concern.” 

Will a cheap pill cure gonorrhea? New test can tell | HealthDay News

“Gonorrhea is one of the most common drug-resistant infections worldwide and is becoming harder to treat. Current treatment methods require an antibiotic injection, which is expensive and painful,” said lead author Dr. Jeffrey Klausner, a professor of medicine at the David Geffen School of Medicine at the University of California, Los Angeles.

Apple smartwatch will track symptoms of depression | Popular Mechanics

Now, Apple [is] using its watches to better understand symptoms of depression and anxiety. Thanks to help from UCLA, Apple is launching a new 3-year-study to figure out how factors like sleep and physical activity can impact your mental health. (UCLA’s Dr. Nelson Freimer is quoted.)

How people at higher risk from COVID-19 can enjoy summer safely | Healthline

Dr. Timothy Brewer, professor of medicine in the division of infectious diseases at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA and of epidemiology at the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health, told Healthline that it’s all about minimizing your exposure…. “If you’re traveling, make sure you aren’t around a large concentration of people at any one time,” Brewer said. “You can go out and enjoy the outdoors, but don’t congregate in settings where there are floods of people.” (Brewer was also interviewed on KPCC-FM’s “AirTalk” and quoted in LAist.)

Smartwatch tracks medication levels to personalize treatments | ScienceDaily

This wearable technology could be incorporated into a more personalized approach to medicine -- where an ideal drug and dosages can be tailored to an individual… “We wanted to create a wearable technology that can track the profile of medication inside the body continuously and non-invasively,” said study leader Sam Emaminejad, an assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering at UCLA.