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Tuesday, 18 August 2009
1. TR35: 2009 Young Innovator
Technology Review
August 18, 2009
CYRUS WADIA, 34
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory [and UC BERKELEY]
Identifying materials that could be unexpectedly useful in solar cells
Solar power simply won't be able to supply the terawatts of power we need until we identify better materials for solar cells. Silicon, which is used in most photovoltaics, is too expensive; the materials used to make cheaper thin-film solar cells, such as cadmium telluride, are rare--and some are toxic. To uncover other options, Berkeley Lab researcher Cyrus Wadia did an economic analysis of materials that have good electrical properties and can efficiently absorb sunlight. His results point to two previously overlooked materials: iron pyrite and copper sulfide. The analysis shows that the costs of extracting these compounds from existing reserves are low: less than .000002 cents per watt for iron pyrite and .0014 cents for copper sulfide. Wadia has since developed ways to synthesize pure nanoparticles of each. He's made functional but, so far, low-efficiency solar cells from the copper sulfide nanoparticles and is working on iron pyrite cells. Full Story
2. Op-Ed: Is UC opening the door to trouble?
An attempt to increase diversity in admissions while dealing with the limitations of Proposition 209 could have unintended consequences.
Los Angeles Times
August 18, 2009
For 13 years, University of California officials have wrestled with a seemingly insoluble problem: how to sustain a student body that reflects the state's vast diversity without violating Proposition 209, the 1996 ballot measure banning race-based affirmative action.
The latest attempt to formulate a policy that is both legal and capable of increasing diversity is a controversial new admissions mandate that will take effect in fall 2012. A slow-brewed product of the UC Academic Senate's Board of Admissions and Relations with Schools (BOARS), the plan would give more high school students a shot at getting admitted to a UC school, but guarantee fewer of them spots....
Since Proposition 209 passed, the percentage of Asian American students at UC schools has soared. Currently, BERKELEY's undergraduate enrollment is 42% Asian American....
..."I like to call it affirmative action for whites," LING-CHI WANG, RETIRED UC BERKELEY PROFESSOR OF ETHNIC AND ASIAN STUDIES, told me....
Critics wonder whether now is a good time to change the admissions policy in a way that is likely to significantly increase the number of applications to UC campuses -- and therefore the number of employees necessary to review them -- at a time of dwindling resources. Also, in a time of record college applications, most UC campuses are enrolled to capacity. Already, UCLA and BERKELEY reject thousands of highly qualified freshman candidates annually. And UC officials mandated further, emergency enrollment cuts of 2,300 (out of 36,000 admissions) for the coming class year. Assuming the recession doesn't vanish by 2012, critics say, the only certain consequence of the new admissions plan would be an increased number of disappointed freshman rejects.
The goal of having UC campuses that reflect the state's diversity is a good one. And there's no doubt that Proposition 209 has made that more difficult. But California must take care to not have the gains of one ethnic group come at the expense of another.... Full Story
3. Science Insider Blog: Berkeley Engineering Dean Defends Student Services Shakeup
Science Magazine Online
August 18, 2009
STUDENTS AND FACULTY MEMBERS AT THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY, had a chance yesterday to air concerns about a major change in the status of diversity programs within the COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING. But while DEAN SHANKAR SASTRY said he welcomed their input, he made it clear that his decision earlier this summer to fold the long-running CENTER FOR UNDERREPRESENTED ENGINEERING STUDENTS (CUES) into a revamped ENGINEERING STUDENT SERVICES (ESS) office is a done deal.
"The decision to reorganize has been made," Sastry told some 60 people who attended a town hall meeting on campus. “I know that people are worried about change," he said, adding that "we will continue to have meetings like this." He also announced the formation of a faculty-student task force, to be headed by ELECTRICAL ENGINEERING PROFESSOR RUZENA BAJCSY, to provide ongoing advice.
...“I heard a lot of opposition from the students present and less-than-direct answers to many of their questions,” said ANNE MACLACHLAN, A SENIOR RESEARCHER AT BERKELEY’S CENTER FOR STUDIES IN HIGHER EDUCATION and the final speaker in the 90-minute dialogue.
...ACTING ESS DIRECTOR KRISTEN GATES said that the college hoped to offer new programs in peer advising, outreach, internships, and research opportunities for freshmen.
...“What’s the hurry?” asked CAROLINE KANE, AN EMERITA PROFESSOR OF BIOCHEMISTRY AND MOLECULAR BIOLOGY WITH THE COALITION FOR EXCELLENCE AND DIVERSITY IN MATH, SCIENCE, AND ENGINEERING. “It seems like we're dropping a bomb right when we’ve got students coming back to the college of engineering who are used to having a community and community space,” she said. Full Story
4. Protesters Want UC Berkeley Law Professor Fired
New York Times Online (*requires registration)
August 17, 2009
Berkeley, Calif. (AP) -- Anti-war activists protested Monday at the UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY to call for the firing of a LAW PROFESSOR who co-wrote legal memos that critics say were used to justify the torture of suspected terrorists.
Campus police arrested at least four people who refused to leave the university's law school building.
The demonstrators said JOHN YOO should be dismissed, disbarred and prosecuted for war crimes for his work as a Bush administration attorney from 2001 to 2003, when he helped craft legal theories for waterboarding and other harsh interrogation techniques....
Yoo, 42, has defended the controversial interrogation techniques, saying they were needed to protect the country from terrorists after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
''To limit the president's constitutional power to protect the nation from foreign threats is simply foolhardy,'' Yoo wrote in a Wall Street Journal opinion piece last month....
CHRISTOPHER EDLEY JR., BERKELEY'S LAW SCHOOL DEAN, has rejected calls to dismiss Yoo, saying the university doesn't have the resources to investigate his Justice Department work, which involved classified intelligence.
Berkeley law students are divided over Yoo, whose classes are among the law school's most popular....
[This story appeared in more than 100 sources nationwide, including the Washington Post, San Francisco Chronicle, San Jose Mercury News, Sacramento Bee, Contra Costa Times, Oakland Tribune, and Los Angeles Times. Broadcast stories aired on CNN (link to transcript only) and KGO TV (link to video), and a blog appeared in the Wall Street Journal Online (link by subscription only)] Full Story
5. News: Protesting and Defending John Yoo
KQED Radio
August 17, 2009
Students returned for the first day of classes at UC BERKELEY'S BOALT HALL SCHOOL OF LAW today, and they were greeted by protesters demanding the dismissal of PROFESSOR JOHN YOO. After 9/11, Yoo served as a lawyer in the Justice Department. He is one of the authors of memos that set out the Bush administration's legal justification for torturing terrorism suspects. But Yoo has his defenders at Berkeley, even among those who decry his conclusions about torture and executive power.
Guests: CHRISTOPHER EDLEY, DEAN OF UC BERKELEY'S BOALT HALL SCHOOL OF LAW
[Link to audio] Full Story
6. Public outrage weakened BART strike threat
San Francisco Chronicle
August 18, 2009
A wave of anger over a threatened BART strike, averted hours before a Monday walkout, carried a sobering message to employee unions and politicians: In hard economic times, voters in the liberal Bay Area can run out of patience over the demands of organized labor....
"A lot of anger reflects the uncertainty of the economy and the pain that a lot of people were already feeling," UC BERKELEY PROFESSOR HARLEY SHAIKEN, a labor expert who closely tracked the BART negotiations, said Monday.
Rather than seeing the strike threat as a sign of workers standing for their rights, he said, the public seemed to be saying, " 'They're getting something while I'm giving up something. That makes me angry.' "...
[Professor Shaiken also discussed this topic on KGO TV--link to video] Full Story
7. Talk of the Nation: Is The U.S. Economy Recovering Or Not?
NPR
August 17, 2009
...Rebecca Roberts, host: ...There's some positive news on the economic front: Fewer people filed for unemployment in July than analysts predicted. More people are buying cars, spurred on by the government's Cash for Clunkers program, and home sales are rising. There's also, well, less positive news. In July, 360,000 homeowners defaulted on their mortgages, more people declared personal bankruptcy, and to the disappointment of retailers around the country, many Americans are still watching their wallets. So what to make of this economic split personality? Does the good news signal the recession's easing, or does the bad news mean recovery is still a ways off? We'll hear two view this hour...
We're joined now by ROBERT REICH. He served as secretary of labor for President Bill Clinton. HE'S A PROFESSOR OF PUBLIC POLICY AT THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AT BERKELEY. He joins us from a studio on campus there. Welcome to the program....
Roberts: ... You're looking at all the data and figures we've been talking about, and to you, none of this points to a recovery. Why not?
Mr. Reich: Well, not so much a recovery, Rebecca. The good news, obviously, is that things are getting worse more slowly. That may not seem like good news, but that is good news - 247,000 jobs lost last month is certainly better than the 400,000 or so we've been losing. But the fact of the matter is that I don't see enough consumer demand out there to really turn things around, at least for a very long time. Because consumers, after all, not only do they have to worry about jobs - one out of seven is under-employed, they're unemployed or under-employed in terms of the amount of work they are actually doing versus what they'd like to do - but also banks are not lending. Consumers have a huge debt load that they have to get out from under, an unusually huge debt load, including one-third of homeowners being underwater. I mean, they owe more on their homes than the homes are worth. And you have baby boomers, many who have not saved for retirement, who have got to start saving quite seriously.
So put this all together, and there's just not enough consumer demand to actually sell all the things that people and businesses could sell if the economy were nearly back to normal. I don't see where the demand is going to come from, quite frankly....
[Link to audio] Full Story
8. How to Find Money for College in a Recession
The economy has crunched the old model of paying for college, but there is still money to help you
U.S. News & World Report
August 18, 2009
Back when jobs were plentiful, investments were growing nicely, and borrowing was easy—the good old days of 2007 and 2008—students and parents could generally cobble together the $18,000 or so annual cost of a year at a public university using some variation of the oft-recommended "thirds" strategy: one third from savings, one third from debt, and one third (about $500 a month) out of the family paychecks.
But how can they scrape together tuition money now that the bear market has wiped out savings, banks are too scared to make loans, and layoffs have eliminated millions of high-paying jobs?
...Raising the cash you need to pay for college isn't getting easier. Tuition at the average public university has more than quadrupled in the past 20 years, rising to nearly $7,000 a year. Add in dorms, books, travel, etc., and the sticker price for a year at a local public college now exceeds $18,000. A year at some of the "public Ivies," such as the UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA-BERKELEY, can cost more than $28,000.... Full Story
9. Research and rehab in gear for California's rough highways
Sacramento Bee
August 18, 2009
The pavement on California's highways is hard to ignore.
After decades of heavy traffic and a chronically low-maintenance budget, some stretches can be a teeth-rattling, axle-bending nightmare....
At the University of California's Pavement Research Center in Davis, director John Harvey spends his days figuring out what to do about it....
The UC PAVEMENT RESEARCH CENTER WAS FOUNDED IN THE LATE 1940S AT UC BERKELEY to advise the state on the construction and maintenance of the highway network. The center now is headquartered at UC Davis, with a small team of staff researchers assisted by students.... Full Story
10. California's Ills Aid Candidate
Wall Street Journal (*requires registration)
August 18, 2009
San Francisco -- California's fiscal crisis is giving Tom Campbell, an ex-congressman with few resources, a fighting chance to become the state's next governor.
In a normal year, the 57-year-old would be a poor bet to win the 2010 Republican primary, political analysts say. Mr. Campbell lacks the riches of his GOP opponents, former Silicon Valley executives Meg Whitman and Steve Poizner, who can tap their fortunes to get themselves elected.
Yet analysts say Mr. Campbell has an equalizer: a state-budget mess that plays to his strengths as an economist. When Sacramento lawmakers this year slashed spending and raised taxes to close a cumulative $60 billion budget shortfall, the candidate traveled California to tout alternative solutions that rankle loyalists in both parties, but which he said are longer-lasting and less harmful to the state's economy....
In presenting himself as the candidate best suited to handle California's budget dilemmas, Mr. Campbell points to his résumé. Armed with a University of Chicago doctorate in economics and a Harvard Law School degree, he represented Silicon Valley for five terms in the U.S. House, served as BUSINESS-SCHOOL DEAN AT THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY, and also as the state's finance director under Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger....
MR. CAMPBELL, who lost U.S. Senate bids in 1992 and 2000, TOOK A LEAVE AS BERKELEY'S BUSINESS-SCHOOL DEAN to launch his gubernatorial bid in July 2008.
[Link by subscription only] Full Story
11. Afghan Elections 101: The Top 5 Candidates
Media Line
August 18, 2009
With Afghanistan’s elections this Thursday, The Media Line offers a primer on the top five presidential candidates.
...DR. ASHRAF GHANI
Ghani was born in 1949 to an influential Afghan family and spent his early life in the Province of Logar. ...
...Ghani ended up earning a PhD at Columbia, holding teaching positions at the UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY and Johns Hopkins University. He later joined the World Bank as the lead anthropologist and did not return to Afghanistan until the 2001 ouster of the Taliban.
Ghani first served as Special Adviser to Ambassador Lakhdar Brahimi, the United Nations Secretary General’s special envoy to Afghanistan. Then between 2002-2004 Ghani served as Finance Minister and was widely credited with the design and implementation of some of the most extensive and difficult reforms of the period. After the election of President Karzai in October 2004, Ghani declined to join the cabinet and instead asked to be appointed as Chancellor of Kabul University.... Full Story
12. Corcoran Named AP Latin America Enterprise Editor
New York Times Online (*requires registration)
August 17, 2009
New York (AP) -- KATHERINE CORCORAN, an editor at the Latin America Desk of The Associated Press and a former teacher and innovator in community journalism, has been promoted to the new position of enterprise editor for Latin America and the Caribbean....
Corcoran joined the AP in January 2008 after an award-winning career as a reporter and editor at newspapers including the San Jose Mercury News, The Denver Post and the San Francisco Chronicle.
A graduate of the University of Notre Dame, she taught journalism at Stanford University and at the UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AT BERKELEY, WHERE SHE DEVELOPED AN INNOVATIVE PROGRAM IN COMMUNITY JOURNALISM.... Full Story
13. Film: Dark Cynicism, British Style
Wall Street Journal (*requires registration)
August 18, 2009
New York -- Rain-slicked streets, hard-boiled protagonists, femmes fatales—it's easy to assume one knows the hallmarks of film noir without coming close to plumbing its depths. A mood rather than a genre, noir is a rich but elusive category. Even those who coined the term were shortsighted, seeing only Hollywood as the source of a gloomy new tone in moviemaking that emerged around World War II and spread, shadowy and glittering, into the cinema of the 1950s and early '60s.
...In Britain, noir was vibrant and eclectic—and surfaced earlier than the Hollywood version, in movies such as William Cameron Menzies's "The Green Cockatoo" (1937) and Arthur B. Woods's "They Drive by Night" (1938)—but remains little known stateside. At Manhattan's Film Forum theater, the 44-movie series "Brit Noir," with its tales of coppers, spivs, dance-hall girls and psychopaths, is packed with titles ripe for rediscovery....
Nearly half the prints for the series have been sent from the U.K. Mr. Goldstein says four other American venues—the PACIFIC FILM ARCHIVE IN BERKELEY, Calif.; the National Gallery in Washington, D.C.; the George Eastman House in Rochester, N.Y.; and the University of California, Los Angeles—will screen some of them before they return home. Brit noir is stepping out of the shadows.
[Link by subscription only] Full Story