The links to the stories summarized on this page are time sensitive, so stories might no longer be online at that URL. We also include links to the original source publication itself.
Wednesday, 9 September 2009
1. Brentwood gives hero's welcome to woman who helped break Dugard kidnapping case
Contra Costa Times (*requires registration)
September 9, 2009
ALLISON JACOBS tried not to cry when she was honored by her community Tuesday night.
But with an overflow City Hall crowd of friends, family and Brentwood residents applauding her, she eventually caved.
"I'm completely humbled and honored for what I feel was me just doing my job," Jacobs said after receiving a proclamation along with a Key to the City -- the second one ever presented by Brentwood.
It was a big night for the 33-year-old UC BERKELEY POLICE OFFICER, who is credited with setting in motion the events that led to the discovery of kidnap victim Jaycee Dugard 18 years after she was abducted, and to the arrest of Dugard's captors, Phillip and Nancy Garrido....
Jacobs received several standing ovations from the packed crowd at the City Council chamber. She broke into smile a couple of times when catching a glance from her family....
In addition to the city proclamation, Jacobs also was recognized by Congress. Exodie Roe, a field representative with U.S. Rep. Jerry McNerney, read aloud a statement that the Pleasanton Democrat had entered in the House record.
"Had it not been for Officer Jacobs' outstanding performance of her duties, the abuse of Jaycee and her daughters would have continued indefinitely," McNerney's statement read....
[This story also appeared in the Oakland Tribune. An Associated Press version appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle, San Jose Mercury News, Sacramento Bee, and Contra Costa Times. UPI also issued a story. Others appeared on KGO TV (link to video) and in the San Francisco Chronicle Online] Full Story
2. Monitor: Memories are made of this
Computing: Memory chips based on nanotubes and iron particles might be capable of storing data for a billion years
Economist [UK]
September 3, 2009
Few human records survive for long, the 16,000-year-old Paleolithic cave paintings at Lascaux, France, being one exception. Now RESEARCHERS LED BY ALEX ZETTL OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY, have devised a method that will, they reckon, let people store information electronically for a billion years.
Dr Zettl and his colleagues constructed their memory cell by taking a particle of iron just a few billionths of a metre (nanometres) across and placing it inside a hollow carbon nanotube. They attached electrodes to either end of the tube. By applying a current, they were able to shuttle the particle back and forth. This provides a mechanism to create the “1” and “0” required for digital representation: if the particle is at one end it counts as a “1”, and at the other end it is a “0”....
What makes the technique so durable is that the particle’s repeated movement does not damage the walls of the tube. That is not only because the lining of the tube is so hard; it is also because friction is almost negligible when working at such small scales....
The next challenge will be to create an electronic memory that has millions of cells instead of just one. But if Dr Zettl succeeds in commercialising this technology, digital decay itself could become a thing of the past. Full Story
3. Researchers may have found ADHD cause
KGO TV
September 8, 2009
Berkeley, CA (KGO) -- Treating attention deficit hyperactivity disorder can be a life-long ordeal, but some researchers believe they may have unlocked a critical secret -- the central cause of ADHD.
Blake Taylor has ADHD. As a child he found it hard to focus on anything which didn't motivate him.
"I was a Leggos kid, wasn't much into video games, but definitely remember wanting to play Leggos and also Connects, which is another similar sort of thing, and not wanting to do studies," says UC BERKELEY STUDENT BLAKE TAYLOR.
Researchers like Dr. Nora Volkow, M.D., with the National Institute of Drug Abuse, believe they now know why. Dopamine is a chemical in the brain that helps cells to communicate. Volkow studied the brains of adults with ADHD with those without. She found a lower concentration of dopamine markers in the brain of people with ADHD. Without enough dopamine, there is less motivation and people with ADHD often don't feel they will be rewarded....
DR. STEPHEN HINSHAW, PH.D., FROM UC BERKELEY'S PSYCHOLOGY DEPARTMENT, has done extensive research on ADHD.
"Doing long boring homework assignments, we all start to yawn a little bit and our eyes glaze over. We have to work to keep that motivation up, but what if you were born with a set of genes that doesn't quite get that oomph in the reward system? That's probably part of what ADHD is," says Hinshaw....
The report may have an impact on how ADHD is treated. According to the main researcher of that study, it's also a wake-up call for teachers. Now that we know motivation is a major factor here, teachers may be encouraged to find new ways to engage children with ADHD. Full Story
4. Change sweeps through Bay Area performing arts organizations
San Jose Mercury News (*requires registration)
September 7, 2009
Longtime leaders are out. Fresh blood is in. A changing of the guard is under way this fall at a bevy of Bay Area arts groups — including San Francisco Opera, the Berkeley Symphony Orchestra and CAL PERFORMANCES, to name three with national cachet.
Winds of change don't often blow so sweepingly through the cultural landscape. But with a troubled economy and tighter budgets, the organizations are hoping the fresh talents will connect with their established audiences — and bring in new folks, too. Yet the margin for error is slim, even for well-funded groups such as the opera....
Finding the right blend of cutting-edge and traditional is also of importance to MATÍAS TARNOPOLSKY, THE NEW DIRECTOR AT BERKELEY-BASED CAL PERFORMANCES: "You can say the sky's the limit, but on the other hand you have to be a realist," he noted. "I'm ambitious artistically, but also institutionally responsible — and you can exist at both levels."
Tarnopolsky, 39, replaces ROBERT COLE, who spent 23 seasons building Cal Performances into what has been described as the most adventurous, high-quality arts presenter in the nation. Tarnopolsky, who has served in artistic advisory positions with the New York Philharmonic, Chicago Symphony and the BBC, imagines "a process of evolution rather than revolution" as he proceeds.
Cal Performances, whose season opens Sept. 17 at Zellerbach with the Mark Morris Dance Group, has trimmed its budget from $14.9 million last season to $11 million in 2009-10. The number of performances has been cut from 110 to 87. Still, Tarnopolsky plans to introduce new collaborations in future seasons — with the University of California-Berkeley's faculty, Bay Area arts groups and international soloists and ensembles.
He also talks about making the arts accessible and keeping them affordable for young people. Growing up in London, he saw Leonard Bernstein conduct the Vienna Philharmonic for only a pound or two. "Third row, Mahler Five," he recalls. "I hope that we, today, can instill that sense of wonder." Full Story
5. Haas, Give Something Back award first Paul Newman scholarship
San Francisco Business Times
September 8, 2009
MELISSA MEDINA, AN INCOMING JUNIOR AT THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY, has been picked as the first recipient of the Give Something Back Corporate Social Responsibility Scholarship in honor of Paul Newman, the university said late Tuesday.
The scholarship, awarded through the HAAS CENTER FOR RESPONSIBLE BUSINESS, provides $10,000 to a student with financial need who exhibits a strong interest in corporate social responsibility, and demonstrates outstanding leadership potential. Funded by Give Something Back Business Products Inc., the scholarship was established in honor of Paul Newman, actor and founder of Newman’s Own, which donates all profits to charity, and which inspired the founding of Give Something Back. Newman died on Sept. 26, 2008.
Medina, from an underserved area in Greater Los Angeles, has been active in community service since high school. At UC Berkeley, where she is pursuing a double major in business administration and political science, she teaches business fundamentals to disadvantaged middle school students through the Young Entrepreneurs at Haas (YEAH) program, and is VP of Finance for Bear Minimum, a campus organization that sells bear hats and donates its profits to local charities....
“We know that a huge percentage of Millennials want to have a positive impact on the world,” said JO MACKNESS, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR OF THE CENTER FOR RESPONSIBLE BUSINESS, “and we are delighted that Give Something Back has enabled one of our most deserving undergrads to do just that.”... Full Story
6. Vinod Khosla wins UC Berkeley award
San Francisco Business Times
September 8, 2009
THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY, will give venture capitalist Vinod Khosla a “lifetime achievement” award for entrepreneurship and innovation on Wednesday.
Khosla, former CEO of Sun Microsystems Inc. (NASDAQ: JAVA), went on to a venture career at powerhouse Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers before starting his own VC firm, Khosla Ventures, in 2004....
Cal’s LESTER CENTER FOR ENTREPRENEURSHIP AND INNOVATION — PART OF THE HAAS SCHOOL OF BUSINESS — will present Khosla with his award Wednesday evening. Full Story
7. Caltrans plans frequent inspections after Bay Bridge crack's discovery
Contra Costa Times (*requires registration)
September 8, 2009
In a worst-case scenario, the cracked piece of steel on the Bay Bridge could have collapsed the cantilever section where it was located, though built-in safety designs protect against bridge failures, experts said.
"It's a 73-year-old bridge and it's gotten a lot of wear and tear with 260,000 vehicles a day going across it. There is a good chance there are other problems," said WILLIAM IBBS, A UC BERKELEY PROFESSOR OF CIVIL ENGINEERING....
"I don't think the Bay Bridge would have failed, but certainly the level of safety would have been somewhat compromised," Ibbs said.
In a worst-case scenario, "that one (bridge) section could have collapsed," he said.
Another possibility: "If it had given way, maybe that side of the bridge would have dropped down a couple of inches and the bridge might be slanted. That's inconvenient to the driver."
The professor stressed: "These are hypothetical situations. This is not necessarily what would happen. I'm not familiar with all the details."...
[This story also appeared in the Oakland Tribune] Full Story
8. Cracked steel on Bay Bridge raises doubts about safety
Sacramento Bee
September 9, 2009
A cracked steel beam that compromised the safety of the Bay Bridge was repaired in miraculous time, and the span reopened to commuters Tuesday morning. But the speedy fix didn't bring an end to questions about the crack itself: how it materialized, how it was repaired, and whether the bridge holds other cracks like it still waiting to be found....
The failed eyebar is an example of an obsolete design system no longer used in bridge construction, said ABOLAHASSAN ASTANEH, A PROFESSOR OF STRUCTURAL ENGINEERING AT UC BERKELEY....
Astaneh, who has studied the Bay Bridge for two decades, said it is "unbelievable" for Caltrans to assert that it doesn't know what caused the cracked eyebar. It obviously was caused by metal fatigue, he said, calling it a problem likely to afflict the remaining eyebars on the bridge, of which there are about 264.
All those eyebars were fabricated at the same time from the same steel source, Astaneh said.
"It's like fruits on a tree," Astaneh said. "This crack on the eyebar tells me the fruits on this tree are ripe, ready to drop."
He said Caltrans should halt heavy truck traffic on the bridge until it can perform thorough inspections of all the eyebars. This would involve probing them with ultrasonic or magnetic particle testing devices to reveal cracks that can't be seen with the human eye.... Full Story
9. Tech Chronicles: Google's 2 concessions try to calm book-deal turmoil
San Francisco Chronicle
September 9, 2009
Google Inc. has made at least two significant concessions to critics of its landmark book-scanning legal settlement in recent days, moves clearly aimed at gaining support as big-name opponents line up against the deal.
The agreement would allow the Mountain View search giant to move forward with plans to scan millions of books and make them available - for free at public libraries, through subscriptions at universities, and to preview or buy online - while establishing a system to sort out and compensate the appropriate rights holders....
It hasn't seemed to entirely reassure privacy advocates, however.
On Tuesday, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the American Civil Liberties Union and the SAMUELSON LAW, TECHNOLOGY & PUBLIC POLICY CLINIC AT UC BERKELEY and other privacy groups filed a court brief that said the settlement "fails to safeguard reader privacy." Full Story
10. Politics Blog: UC-Berkeley's Robert Reich can teach Obama a thing about making the public option understandable
San Francisco Chronicle Online
September 8, 2009
We know President Obamaa can deliver a fine inspirational speech. But his test Wednesday night is tougher: Can he sell policy?
If The O can make the public option as easy to understand as former Clinton Labor Secretary (and UC-BERKELEY PROFESSOR) ROBERT REICH does in this video, he may have a shot at convincing a few folks whose eyes glaze over at any detail on health policy....
[Link to video] Full Story
11. Unions attack Sacramento County plan to impose layoffs
Sacramento Bee
September 9, 2009
It's a job action expected to end up in the courts.
Sacramento County says it has the right to lay off employees, change their jobs to part-time and rehire them. All to eliminate 16 hours a month per position, saving $4.6 million for a general fund estimated at nearly $70 million in the red....
There's no question the action would expose the county to litigation and could lead to significant costs down the road, said KEN JACOBS, CHAIRMAN OF THE UC BERKELEY CENTER FOR LABOR RESEARCH AND EDUCATION.... Full Story
12. Op-Ed: Fix health care. But fix the deficits, too
Obama must spell out a plan for reducing health costs. But that only partly addresses the long-term fiscal gap. Taxes and broader cuts are needed.
CNNMoney.com
September 9, 2009
Washington (CNNMoney.com) -- President Obama says reforming health care is central to the task of getting the government's long-term financial problems under control. And he's right.
But fixing the health care system, even if it brings down costs, is not enough.
Obama and other policymakers need to pay more attention to a fundamental conflict underlying the health care debate: People want the federal government to do much more than they are willing to pay for through their taxes....
So, while strong action is needed on health care, it cannot be sufficient, or even close to sufficient, to bring the nation's books into balance. Significant further tax increases or spending cuts will need to be considered. Full Story
13. Some Funds Stop Grading on the Curve
Wall Street Journal (*requires registration)
September 9, 2009
Last year, a typical investment portfolio of 60% stocks and 40% bonds lost roughly a fifth of its value. Standard portfolio-construction tools assume that will happen only once every 111 years.
With once-in-a-century floods seemingly occurring every few years, financial-services firms ranging from J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. to MSCI Inc.'s MSCI Barra are concocting new ways to protect investors from such steep losses. The shift comes from increasing recognition that conventional assumptions about market behavior are off the mark, substantially underestimating risk....
Another potential pitfall: Number-crunchers have a smaller supply of historical observations to construct models focused on rare events. "Data are intrinsically sparse," says LISA GOLDBERG, executive director of analytic initiatives at MSCI Barra....
As Wall Street relies on ever-more-complex mathematical models to manage money, a new breed of uber-wonks is gaining influence. ... MSCI's MS. GOLDBERG, an inventor of the firm's credit-risk and extreme-risk models, is also a PROFESSOR AT THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY and has a penchant for the "beautiful mathematical subject" of extreme value statistics....
[Link by subscription only] Full Story
14. 18 and Under
Birth Order: Fun to Debate, but How Important?
New York Times (*requires registration)
September 8, 2009
The older girl was smart, neat and perfectly behaved in school; in her spare time, she won dance trophies. At every checkup, her mother would tell me what a good girl she was.
She is the oldest, her mother would say, so she gets lots of attention, and she works very hard....
FRANK J. SULLOWAY, A VISITING SCHOLAR AT THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY, and the author of “Born to Rebel: Birth Order, Family Dynamics and Creative Lives” (Pantheon, 1996), points out that second-born children tend to be exposed to less language than eldest children. “The best environment to grow up in is basically two parents who are chattering away at you with fancy words,” Dr. Sulloway said....
“Birth order doesn’t cause anything,” Dr. Sulloway said. “It’s simply a proxy for the actual mechanisms that go on in family dynamics that shape character and personality.”...
I.Q., though it does grab headlines, may shape family life less than personality and temperament. “It’s a part of a bigger picture that really involves family dynamics,” Dr. Sulloway said. “Child and family dynamics is like a chessboard; birth order is like a knight.”...
[This story also appeared in the International Herald Tribune] Full Story
15. Pa. city blankets streets with security cameras
Associated Press
September 9, 2009
Lancaster, Pa. — Horses drawing buggies regularly clop down the roads approaching Lancaster, a peaceful city in the heart of Amish country that had only three murders last year and relatively low crime.
But if the community sounds reminiscent of the past, it also has some distinctly modern technology: 165 surveillance cameras that will keep watch over thousands of residents around the clock.
When it is complete, the surveillance system will be bigger than those in large cities such as Philadelphia, San Francisco and Boston. And the fact that it will be monitored by ordinary citizens has raised privacy concerns....
Some research has cast doubt on just how much surveillance systems reduce crime.
A January study by the UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY, found that cameras did not reduce homicide in San Francisco but did help reduce the number of burglaries and some thefts. A New York University study found that cameras did not do much to deter crime in some public housing projects.... Full Story
16. Living With Coal: Climate policy’s most inconvenient truth
Boston Review
September/October, 2009
Governments around the world are now struggling with the question of how to reduce emissions of the greenhouse gases that cause global warming. The task is bigger than any other environmental challenge humanity has faced. Carbon dioxide, the leading human cause of global warming, is an intrinsic byproduct of burning the fossil fuels that power the world economy and thus difficult to regulate.
All fossil fuels emit carbon dioxide when burned, but the real heart of the warming problem is coal. Emissions from coal are growing faster than from any other fossil fuel. Beyond greenhouse-gas pollution, coal is linked to a host of other environmental troubles such as local air pollution, which is why a powerful coalition of environmentalists in the richest and greenest countries is rallying to stop coal. Mired in opposition, barely any new coal plants are being built anywhere in the industrialized world. Coal, it may seem, is on the precipice....
For three decades now, environmental regulation has focused on finding new ways to cut pollution. In a masterful study, RESEARCHERS AT THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY and Carnegie Mellon University have shown that tighter sulfur regulations introduced in the 1970s forced radical improvements in scrubbers... Full Story
17. Blog: A test of fairness
Even though blacks may face additional hurdles in taking standardized exams, excuses are no substitute for effort.
USA Today Online
September 9, 2009
Years ago when we were fresh out of law school, a group of my classmates and I spent the summer cramming for the state bar exam. We worked full-time jobs and spent hours each evening and much of Saturday sitting through a bar review course. Finally, we took the grueling two-day exam. But when the results came out, almost no one in our group — which included whites, blacks and at least one Asian — had passed....
Claude Steele, a psychology professor at Stanford University, along with professors Joshua Aronson and Steven Spencer, have documented "stereotype threat" — that is, black students score lower on tests based on society's lower expectations of their intellectual abilities. Steele found that when extremely bright Stanford students were asked to take difficult verbal tests, and were told it was a test of their verbal skills, the black students underperformed. But when they were told the exams simply measured how students solved problems, the black students performed equal to their counterparts.
Steele also concluded that the stereotype threat might affect the way black students study. He studied a group of black calculus students at UC BERKELEY. These students hit the books for long hours, but out of fear of confirming the black stereotype, they misdirected their efforts — checking and rechecking their calculations against the correct answers in the back of the book, for instance — instead of focusing on mastering the concepts involved. If stereotype threat can have such a devastating effect on how the nation's most gifted black college students perform on written exams, it stands to reason that it could depress the performance of blacks who are required to take written exams for employment and promotion, especially when the exams are perceived as difficult.... Full Story
18. Hopkins president lacks security clearance on APL research
Canadian Daniels is seeking U.S. citizenship, recently got green card
Baltimore Sun
September 9, 2009
He has to wait in longer lines at the airport. He couldn't vote in last year's historic presidential election. But until he took over as president of the Johns Hopkins University in March, Ronald Daniels had never been denied a professional privilege because he is Canadian.
As a Canadian citizen who just received his green card, Daniels cannot obtain security clearance to oversee classified research. And under Hopkins' enormous research umbrella sits the Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel. The lab attracted $845 million in research money last year, about 70 percent of which came from the Department of Defense. Many of those defense contracts involve classified research....
Hopkins is not the first prominent U.S. university to install a Canadian at its top. Princeton and the UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY are also in the club. Though Daniels made his academic reputation as a law professor at the University of Toronto and speaks with an accent, he said he hasn't applied any particularly Canadian touches to Hopkins since arriving from Penn.
"In the academic world, the similarities between universities in each country are pretty striking," he said.... Full Story
19. Column One: In the Arizona desert, Buddhists will embark on a three-year silent retreat
There will be no word from the outside world in the Great Retreat, only the quiet of rock and cactus. Adherents hope to find enlightenment in the silence, a gift they plan to share when they emerge.
Los Angeles Times
September 7, 2009
Reporting from Bowie, Ariz. - Deep in a remote desert valley, where rattlesnakes lurk in the scrub, Stéphane Dreyfus and several dozen other Buddhists are preparing to undergo a mind-altering journey:
Three years, three months and three days of silence....
HUBERT DREYFUS, A PROFESSOR OF EXISTENTIAL PHILOSOPHY AT UC BERKELEY, worries that his son Stéphane is wasting his talent for writing and filmmaking to pursue ideas he sees as irrational.
The elder Dreyfus conceded his son is happier than ever. Still, he can't understand why anyone would leave loved ones behind to disappear into the desert -- in this case, for 1,190 days. "I'm just torn," said Dreyfus, 79. "I want grandchildren."... Full Story