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Monday, 5 October 2009
1. Former UC Berkeley prof and her student are winners of 2009 Nobel medicine prize
San Jose Mercury News (*requires registration)
October 5, 2009
Stockholm — Americans ELIZABETH H. BLACKBURN, CAROL W. GREIDER and Jack W. Szostak won the 2009 Nobel Prize in medicine on Monday for discovering a key mechanism in the genetic operations of cells, an insight that has inspired new lines of research into cancer.
It was the first time two women have been among the winners of the medicine prize. GREIDER WAS A DOCTORAL CANDIDATE AT UC BERKELEY UNDER BLACKBURN when she observed enzymatic activity in 1984 that eventually led to the prize-winning discoveries.
The trio solved the mystery of how chromosomes, the rod-like structures that carry DNA, protect themselves from degrading when cells divide....
Blackburn and Greider discovered the enzyme that builds telomeres — telomerase — and the mechanism by which it adds DNA to the tips of chromosomes to replace genetic material that has eroded away.
The prize-winners' work, done in the late 1970s and 1980s, set the stage for research suggesting that cancer cells use telomerase to sustain their uncontrolled growth....
GREIDER was born in 1961 in San Diego and did her undergraduate work at the University of California, Santa Barbara. She RECEIVED HER DOCTORATE FROM UC BERKELEY IN 1987, the Nobel Academy said. She has been a professor of molecular biology and genetics at John Hopkins University since 1997.
BLACKBURN was born in 1948 in Australia and attended the University of Melbourne as an undergraduate. She received her doctorate in 1975 from the University of Cambridge, England, and joined the UC BERKELEY STAFF after doing post-doctoral research at Yale University, according to the Nobel Academy....
[This story also appeared in the Contra Costa Times] Full Story
2. Three Americans Share Nobel Prize for Medicine
New York Times (*requires registration)
October 6, 2009
The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was awarded this year to three American scientists who solved a problem of cell biology with deep relevance to cancer and aging. The three will receive equal shares of a prize worth around $1.4 million.
The recipients solved a longstanding puzzle involving the ends of chromosomes, the giant molecules of DNA that embody the genetic information. These ends, called telomeres, get shorter each time a cell divides and so serve as a kind of clock that counts off the cell’s allotted span of life.
The three winners are Elizabeth H. Blackburn of the University of California, San Francisco, CAROL W. GREIDER of Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and Jack W. Szostak of Massachusetts General Hospital. Only eight women have previously won the Nobel prize in Medicine or Physiology, and it is the first time any science Nobel has been awarded to more than one woman....
All three of the prize-winners seem to have had science in their genes, and certainly in their home environment. DR. GREIDER IS THE DAUGHTER OF TWO SCIENTISTS WITH DOCTORATES FROM THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY, AND SHE, TOO, HAS A PH.D. FROM THAT SCHOOL.... Full Story
3. Chromosome Researchers Win Medicine Nobel
Wall Street Journal (*requires registration)
October 5, 2009
Three scientists shared the Nobel Prize for Medicine for discovering an enzyme that plays a key role in cellular health and aging. Their finding sparked a new field of research into possible treatments for age-related maladies, such as cancer, blindness and cardiovascular disease.
The prize, which includes a total cash award of $1.4 million, was given to Australian-American ELIZABETH BLACKBURN of the University of California, San Francisco; and CAROL GREIDER of Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and Jack W. Szostak of Harvard Medical School, both of the U.S....
In 1985, WHILE A PROFESSOR OF UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY, DR. BLACKBURN AND HER GRADUATE STUDENT, DR. GREIDER published a paper announcing the discovery of the enzyme telomerase.
"This was the result of curiosity-driven, basic research," said Dr. Greider in an interview. In an era when resources are increasingly aimed at research that will provide a specific, short-term payoff, "I consider [today's Nobel announcements] to be a victory for fundamental science."
[Link by subscription only. Stories mentioning the Nobelists' UC Berkeley connections appeared in dozens of sources worldwide, including the Washington Post] Full Story
4. Cracks in the Future
New York Times (*requires registration)
October 3, 2009
Berkeley, Calif. -- While the U.S. has struggled with enormous problems over the past several years, there has been at least one consistent bright spot. Its system of higher education has remained the finest in the world.
Now there are ominous cracks appearing in that cornerstone of American civilization. Exhibit A is the UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY, the finest public university in the world and undoubtedly one of the two or three best universities in the United States, public or private.
More of Berkeley’s undergraduates go on to get Ph.D.’s than those at any other university in the country. The school is among the nation’s leaders in producing winners of the Nobel Prize. An extraordinary amount of cutting-edge research in a wide variety of critically important fields, including energy and the biological sciences, is taking place here....
Berkeley is caught in a full-blown budget crisis with nothing much in the way of upside in sight. The school is trying to cope with what the CHANCELLOR, ROBERT BIRGENEAU, described as a “severe and rapid loss in funding” from the state, which has shortchanged Berkeley’s budget nearly $150 million this year, and cut more than $800 million from the higher education system as a whole.
This is like waving goodbye to the futures of untold numbers of students. Chancellor Birgeneau denounced the state’s action as “a completely irresponsible disinvestment in the future of its public universities.” ...
Chancellor Birgeneau said he is optimistic that Berkeley will be able to maintain its greatness and continue to thrive, but he told me candidly in an interview, “It’s hard to see when we are going to get back to a situation where we can start rewarding people properly.”...
The problems at Berkeley are particularly acute because of the state’s drastic reduction of support. But colleges and universities across the country — public and private — are struggling because of the prolonged economic crisis and the pressure on state budgets. It will say a great deal about what kind of nation we’ve become if we let these most valuable assets slip into a period of decline. Full Story
5. Economix Blog: When State Universities Lose State Support
New York Times (*requires registration)
October 5, 2009
The budget of the public higher education system of California has been slashed by over 20 percent, on top of previous cuts. Faculty and student protests kicked into place the first week of classes, reflecting enormous contention over the best way to respond.
What’s happening in California is both a harbinger of things to come in other states and an amplification of a national trend....
President Mark Yudof of the University of California recently defended tuition and fee increases of more than 32 percent over the next two years as the only viable short-run option for that system. Many other states, including my own, are likely to follow suit.
Some states are raising taxes and may devote increased revenue to protect public higher education.
Increased federal support is also an option. In a recent Washington Post article, the CHANCELLOR AND VICE CHANCELLOR OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY propose a 21st-century version of the Morrill Act, which first established public universities in this country.... Full Story
6. UC Berkeley to pay consultant to find cost cuts
San Francisco Chronicle
October 5, 2009
UC BERKELEY has agreed to pay a consultant $3 million to help the school find new ways to save money - an agreement that has irritated some faculty members whose pay is being cut this year.
The university is facing a $150 million budget deficit for the 2009-10 year, a consequence of less state funding and higher operating costs. Like all 10 UC campuses, UC Berkeley has cut faculty pay through furloughing workers, laying off employees, reducing course offerings and raising student fees.
These short-term fixes, however, "are an unsustainable long-term financial strategy," CHANCELLOR ROBERT BIRGENEAU said Friday in an announcement posted on the campus Web site. "We are now planning for a future that relies less on volatile state funding."
To help in that planning, the university has hired Bain & Co., Massachusetts-based consultant with offices in San Francisco. The company is also working with the University of North Carolina and Cornell University to reduce costs there.
"We think we have a great opportunity to save tens of millions of dollars every year," said UC BERKELEY VICE CHANCELLOR FRANK YEARY.
Yeary is overseeing the project and said the consultants will advise a core group of administrators and faculty members charged with finding long-term savings in how the university does business, such as in its purchasing practices or technology needs.... Full Story
7. Letters to the editor
San Francisco Chronicle
October 3, 2009
I AM A RECENT GRADUATE OF THE UC BERKELEY. I have been following the recent protests and budget crisis (" 'No cuts, no fees!' - huge walkouts staged at UC," Sept. 25).
I received an e-mail from the chancellor about reducing costs at Berkeley though the Operational Excellence program: www.berkeley.edu/oe.
While I understand that everyone needs to make sacrifices, including temporary reductions, I thought, should not the chancellor and other top administrators also take temporary reductions?
I looked at www.ucpay.globl.org to see what UC Berkeley employees make. Seven administrators make more than $445,000 a year, and one makes $2.3 million. For perspective, President Obama is paid $400,000 a year.
As a show of support to the university and public education, these top making administrators and employees should reduce their own pay "temporarily." Leading by example would make everyone feel that this is a unified effort to make it through the budget crisis. Otherwise, I see wealthy administrators and employees slashing the salaries of those who really need it, those who make less than $40,000 a year.
ROLAND SAEKOW
CLASS OF 2009
BERKELEY Full Story
8. UCSF, other UC med centers, get $10.1M to revamp breast cancer study/care
San Francisco Business Times
October 1, 2009
The University of California and its five statewide medical centers, led by UC San Francisco Medical Center, is using $10.1 million in new grants to launch a statewide program to revamp the study and care of breast cancer.
UC said earlier this week that the effort, dubbed the Athena Breast Health Network, will involve “designing and testing new approaches to research, technology and health care delivery.” Initially, the so-called large-scale demonstration project will screen and study 150,000 women statewide whose health status will be monitored for decades, according to a Sept. 29 news release.
The study is a University of California system wide program funded by a $5.3 million UC grant and a $4.8 million grant from the Safeway Foundation.
Besides UCSF Medical Center, the other participating academic medical centers include UC Davis, UC Los Angeles, UC San Diego, and UC Irvine. Also participating in the collaboration are the UC BERKELEY SCHOOL OF PUBLIC HEALTH, the Northern California Cancer Center, Quantum Leap Healthcare Collaborative, the National Cancer Institute’s BIG Health Consortium, and the Center for Medical Technology Policy, the statement said.... Full Story
9. Scientists discover what makes muscles age
UPI
October 5, 2009
U.S. and Danish scientists say they've identified critical biochemical pathways that are linked to the aging of human muscle.
The researchers said by manipulating those pathways, they were able to restore old human muscle's ability to repair and rebuild itself.
"Our study shows that the ability of old human muscle to be maintained and repaired by muscle stem cells can be restored to youthful vigor given the right mix of biochemical signals," said UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA-BERKELEY PROFESSOR IRINA CONBOY, who led the study. "This provides promising new targets for forestalling the debilitating muscle atrophy that accompanies aging, and perhaps other tissue degenerative disorders as well."
The research that included Michael Kjaer, Charlotte Suetta and Abigail Mackey at the University of Copenhagen; Per Aagaard at the University of Southern Denmark; and MORGAN CARLSON AND MICHAEL CONBOY AT UC-BERKELEY is reported in the journal EMBO Molecular Medicine.
[Another story on this topic appeared in the Financial Times] Full Story
10. UC Berkeley study ties 2004 Sumatra quake to California temblors
Researchers analyzed 20 years of data in the Parkfield area and found that the 2004 earthquake weakened the San Andreas fault, changing the frequency and strength of quakes in the area.
Los Angeles Times
October 3, 2009
The 2004 Sumatra earthquake that set off a deadly tsunami also seems to have caused more earthquakes along the San Andreas fault in the last few years, according to a study from UC BERKELEY.
The study analyzed 20 years of data in the Parkfield area, which sits on the fault, and found that the disastrous earthquake weakened the fault, changing both the frequency and strength of earthquakes in the area.
"So you will have many earthquakes, but the magnitude will be smaller than expected," said TAKA'AKI TAIRA, A SEISMOLOGIST AT UC BERKELEY who headed the study....
Taira acknowledged that the study's scope is limited and researchers are continuing to look at more data. Whether the Sumatra quake affected other parts of the world, he said, is "still an open question."
[UPI also issued a story on this topic] Full Story
11. Future flow: Shifting needs prompt plans to protect the region's water supply
Contra Costa Times (*requires registration)
October 4, 2009
For some 50 years, the water supply for the Arcata, Eureka and McKinleyville areas was tied to two pulp mills on the Samoa Peninsula....
The mills used some 75 percent of the capacity of the available 75 million gallons per day. ... Over the years, that mill began to use less water, and in October, it folded -- probably for good.
This has led to dramatic rate hikes for the district's 80,000 municipal water users....
And by 2029, depending on population growth and climate change in California, much of the state will likely be facing a more dire water supply problem than it does now. While water use per person has fallen some in recent years, it's not enough to offset growth, said MICHAEL HANEMANN, DIRECTOR OF THE CLIMATE AND ENERGY POLICY INSTITUTE AT THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AT BERKELEY.
With climate change reducing storage in the form of snow, Hanemann said, more storage would be needed to capture runoff in wet months for use during the dry months. Hanemann said that California will also need more infrastructure to connect watersheds in order to move water from place to place. Water management also needs to be far more proactive and nimble in the future, he said....
The uncertainty of California's water future makes planning now a smart thing to do, Hanemann said.
”Planning 25 years out is not too early to start,” Hanemann said.... Full Story
12. Post-human Earth: How the planet will recover from us
New Scientist
September 30, 2009
When Nobel prize-winning atmospheric chemist Paul Crutzen coined the word Anthropocene around 10 years ago, he gave birth to a powerful idea: that human activity is now affecting the Earth so profoundly that we are entering a new geological epoch.
The Anthropocene has yet to be accepted as a geological time period, but if it is, it may turn out to be the shortest - and the last. It is not hard to imagine the epoch ending just a few hundred years after it started, in an orgy of global warming and overconsumption.
Let's suppose that happens. Humanity's ever-expanding footprint on the natural world leads, in two or three hundred years, to ecological collapse and a mass extinction. Without fossil fuels to support agriculture, humanity would be in trouble. "A lot of things have to die, and a lot of those things are going to be people," says TONY BARNOSKY, A PALAEONTOLOGIST AT THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY. In this most pessimistic of scenarios, society would collapse, leaving just a few hundred thousand eking out a meagre existence in a new Stone Age. The wave of extinctions is likely to sweep through species in a fairly predictable way. "First we would probably lose the species that are already endangered, then it would work its way down," says Barnosky. "Eventually it would hit some of the species that we don't consider at risk today - for example, many of the African herbivores that today seem to have healthy populations."...
...Nearly a decade ago, JAMES KIRCHNER OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY, and Anne Weil of Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, took a database of all known marine fossils and used it to work out how closely peaks of speciation follow peaks of extinction (Nature, vol 404, p 177). "We went into this thinking, like everybody else, that when you have an extinction, you begin repopulating almost immediately," says Kirchner, now at the Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research in Birmensdorf. Instead, they found that speciation peaks lagged about 10 million years behind extinction peaks. "We pretty much fell out of our chairs," he says.
In fact, for the first few million years after an extinction the speciation rate actually falls. "That suggests to us a sort of wounded biosphere. Extinction events don't just remove organisms from an ecosystem, leaving lots of opportunity for new species to diversify. Instead, what we think happens is that the niches themselves collapse, so you won't have new organisms emerging to occupy them. The niches themselves don't exist any more," says Kirchner.... Full Story
13. Scientists study fish decline, flooding problem in Pescadero
Contra Costa Times
October 2, 2009
Pescadero — Ask a Pescadero resident what they blame for the problems in the town's watershed, and you'll get a different answer every time. But everyone agrees on one thing: It's time for action.
That hunger for action — for immediate steps to address the annual die-off of steelhead trout and the disastrous flooding each winter in Pescadero and Butano creeks — was clear from the opinions locals brought to a community science forum in Pescadero this week.
They came to hear a group of scientists outline the parameters of a four-year study of the Pescadero Creek watershed, a study that could result in water quality regulations by the San Francisco Bay Regional Water Quality Control Board....
The threat facing so many sensitive species led the state to designate the entire watershed as "impaired" under the Clean Water Act, which led to this study.
THE SCIENTISTS — WHO HAIL FROM UC BERKELEY, San Francisco State University, and elsewhere — hypothesize that the two rural creeks are overloaded with sediment (sand, clay, dirt, even rocks and boulders) that pours in from mountain gullies during landslides and builds up along creek beds.
Their job is to determine how much sediment is too much — a healthy helping of sediment is part of every functioning creek, while too much can destroy fish habitat. They will pinpoint locations in both creeks that could be conducive to fish habitat once the excess sediment is removed and the creeks can be restored. The Regional Water Board will them impose limits on how much sediment can enter the creeks.... Full Story
14. After a Devastating Fire, an Intense Study of Its Effects
New York Times (*requires registration)
October 3, 2009
Angeles National Forest, Calif. — The Station fire, which in over a month has burned away nearly a quarter of this vast, mountainous backdrop to the Los Angeles skyline, is finally just about out, sending all but a handful of firefighters home. Now, the scientists swoop in....
SCOTT L. STEPHENS, A RESEARCHER AT THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY, and president of the Association for Fire Ecology, said the Station fire work coincided with a burst of fire science research in recent years designed to answer questions not only about what happens during and after fires but also about the effect climate change and drought may be having on forests and scrubland in high-burn areas.
Underlying much of the interest, Dr. Stephens said, are questions like these: “Are there things we can do to mitigate fire? Are there things managers can do to reduce their impact?”... Full Story
15. Some Academics Vow Not to Conduct Research Under Coup Regime in Honduras
Chronicle of Higher Education (*requires registration)
October 4, 2009
Mexico City -- For months, many American scholars working in Honduras held out hope that the June 28 military coup in the country would have little impact on their research.
But the firing on September 1 of Darío A. Euraque, the respected director of the Honduran Institute of Anthropology and History, by the coup-backed regime has prompted many scholars to take sides in the political standoff. Since then, more than 350 archaeologists and historians from the United States, Europe, and Latin America have signed a petition urging that Mr. Euraque be reinstated in his post....
"I can't imagine convincing myself that it would be OK to go and work there," said ROSEMARY A. JOYCE, A PROMINENT ARCHAEOLOGIST AND CHAIR OF THE ANTHROPOLOGY DEPARTMENT AT THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AT BERKELEY, who has been excavating in Honduras since 1977. She argued that continuing to conduct research in the country was tantamount to condoning the coup.
Ms. Joyce also voiced concern over the validity of a memorandum of understanding between the U.S. government and the government of Honduras's ousted president, Manuel Zelaya.
The pact, renewed by the U.S. State Department in March following testimony by Ms. Joyce and other scholars, commits the U.S. government to take measures to prevent the smuggling of Honduran artifacts into the United States. In return, the Honduran government agrees to provide logistical support for American scholars working in the country.
With the Honduran government in legal limbo, Ms. Joyce argued, neither country is obliged to stick by the terms of the agreement....
[Link by subscription only] Full Story
16. In New Pentagon-NSF Grants, Social Scientists See Reason for Hope and Caution
Chronicle of Higher Education (*requires registration)
October 4, 2009
In a widely discussed speech in April 2008, U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates called for a new spirit of cooperation between the military and academe. He envisioned "consortia of universities that will promote research in specific areas," including studies of the Chinese military and radical Islamic movements.
The proposal was met enthusiastically by some university leaders, but social-science organizations have been skeptical. ...
Mr. Gates's vision—which is broadly known as the "Minerva Initiative"—came a step closer to reality on Friday, when the National Science Foundation announced 17 national-security-related social-science projects that will receive grants under a special agreement between the science foundation and the Department of Defense. ...
The group includes a few prominent senior scholars, including ROBERT L. POWELL, A PROFESSOR OF POLITICAL SCIENCE AT THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AT BERKELEY who is known for his game-theoretic models of international conflict, and Martha Crenshaw, a senior fellow at Stanford University's Center for International Security and Cooperation who has been studying terrorist organizations since the 1970s. But most of the awardees are near the beginning of their careers.... Full Story
17. Lawmakers Face Trouble 'Bending The Curve'
Health care spending keeps going up, with no end in sight. Will reform efforts make a difference in controlling costs?
National Journal
October 3, 2009
Deep-seated anxiety over rising health care costs, which have strained family finances and government budgets for years, made health care reform a major issue in the 2008 presidential campaign. At the height of the campaign, the Kaiser Family Foundation asked respondents to name their top health care concern: 64 percent cited making health care and insurance more affordable, reducing government spending on Medicare and Medicaid, or reducing the total amount that the country spends on health care. Only 18 percent listed covering the uninsured. Recent polls have produced similar results....
In an August report for the Engelberg Center, 10 well-respected health care policy experts from across the political spectrum called health information technology critical. The group argued not only for meaningful investments in health information technology but also for more research into the comparative effectiveness of treatments and drugs, as well as a buildup of the health care workforce.
The report's authors included LEONARD SCHAEFFER, A BUSINESS PROFESSOR AT THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA (BERKELEY); Joe Antos, a Wilson H. Taylor scholar in health care and retirement policy at the American Enterprise Institute; Mark Pauly, a professor of health care management at the University of Pennsylvania; and Cutler, McClellan, and McGlynn....
Berkeley's Schaeffer, who administered Medicare in the 1970s, said that the agency had more authority in the past. The Brookings authors would like to see an entity that can propose policy changes in Medicare and Medicaid, and avoid gridlock on Capitol Hill. Such an entity could implement proposals, with congressional approval, to "ensure the long-term sustainability" of the programs. This approach would allow CMS or a Medicare entity the flexibility to implement practices that have proved effective in experiments and to discontinue practices that don't work.... Full Story
18. Unemployment rate rises to 9.8% as employers cut more jobs than expected
A net 263,000 jobs were eliminated in September, pushing the jobless rate to a 26-year high. The rate of unemployment plus underemployment -- representing workers whose hours were cut back -- is 17%.
Los Angeles Times
October 3, 2009
Reporting from Los Angeles and Washington -- The nation's unemployment rate edged closer to double digits in September but only began to reflect the miserable reality confronting America's workforce....
And for the future, many economists say that even if the prospect of recovery encourages businesses to step up production, many are likely to begin by restoring the hours of workers who were cut back, instead of hiring new workers.
"When the economy starts to recover, firms can expand quite a bit without adding new workers," said DAVID CARD, A LABOR ECONOMIST AT UC BERKELEY.... Full Story
19. Unemployment rate edges up to 9.8%
San Francisco Chronicle
October 3, 2009
The nation's unemployment rate rose in September, job losses jumped and many Americans quit looking for work, according to a report from the Labor Department that cast doubt on the effectiveness of the federal stimulus package and the notion the economy is recovering....
Experts said the malaise of joblessness hits every strata of society.
UC BERKELEY PSYCHOLOGY PROFESSOR DACHER KELTNER said unemployed adults suffer long-term damage to their health and self-esteem, and children find it particularly difficult to deal with loss of income.... Full Story
20. California Blunts Budget Cuts
State Finds Funds to Save Some Programs, Avoiding the Most Grim Scenarios
Wall Street Journal (*requires registration)
October 5, 2009
California officials are finding ways to avoid some of the dire consequences that were expected from closing the state's $24 billion budget gap.
For most of the summer, state agencies and constituents had feared the worst as lawmakers hacked $16 billion from programs in order to close the deficit. But through a combination of new legislation, funding shifts and other cuts, the state has so far mitigated the potential effects of three significant budget reductions....
Avoiding the impacts that appeared inevitable just a few months ago may also make it appear that officials exaggerated the severity of the state's fiscal situation amid the political wrangling over a deal. "There's some indication that when the governor had first put forth his proposals, he did the ol', 'Take all the policemen off the streets,' " said HENRY BRADY, DEAN OF THE GOLDMAN SCHOOL OF PUBLIC POLICY AT THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AT BERKELEY....
[Link by subscription only] Full Story
21. City illustrates new report on unions' impact
Contra Costa Times (*requires registration)
October 5, 2009
A Washington, D.C.-based think tank that says unions and government are a bad mix has Vallejo's bankruptcy at the heart of its new study.
The Cato Institute report, "Vallejo Con Dios: Why Public Sector Unionism is a Bad Deal for Taxpayers and Representative Government" (www.cato.org) asserts government agencies are in a "financial straight-jacket" in today's economic climate, due to generous employee contracts....
In a national March phone survey by the independent polling firm Rasmussen Reports, 56 percent of 1,000 people polled who do not belong to a union said they did not want to be part of one.
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA BERKELEY CENTER FOR LABOR RESEARCH CHAIRMAN KEN JACOBS disagreed, saying "The research is pretty strong: Generally, if they're not in unions, they want to be in unions."...
Some impediments to union formation in the private sector, Jacobs said, include: a decline in the manufacturing industry, which is a traditionally union-heavy vocation, legal decisions making unionization efforts more difficult, the rise of a consulting industry that works with management to "thwart union formation," and weak penalties on firing workers attempting to unionize.
"What you have right now is a very uneven playing field," he said.... Full Story
22. Is Columbus Day a holiday? State workers get conflicting advice
Sacramento Bee
October 4, 2009
Their boss says one thing. Their union says another. Now tens of thousands of California state employees have to decide: Will they show up for work on Columbus Day?
Service Employees International Union Local 1000 has told its members to stay home the second Monday of this month in keeping with the holiday provisions in its last contract and the law.
But Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's administration says the law has changed. Now employees who want Oct. 12 off must use personal leave time or their pay will be docked and they'll be disciplined...
Still, UC BERKELEY LABOR EXPERT KEN JACOBS said the union's appeal has to be considered with the union's stalled labor deal.
"SEIU will be watching. This is a test of faith and a show of strength," Jacobs said. "It certainly looks like another step toward putting pressure on the Legislature to get the contract signed."... Full Story
23. Tech Chronicles Blog: Web users don't want advertisers collecting data
San Francisco Chronicle
October 5, 2009
Web users don't want advertisers collecting data
For years marketers have argued that Web surfers prefer to see ads that cater to their specific interests, but a study from the BERKELEY CENTER FOR LAW & TECHNOLOGY AT UC BERKELEY and the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania suggests otherwise.
The researchers surveyed 1,000 adult Internet users and found that two-thirds of them said they didn't want tailored ads. The number grew to between 73 and 86 percent once people were told about some of the techniques marketers employ to mine for information....
The study is the first national survey on people's attitudes toward behavioral targeting, which involves monitoring their online habits and directing ads to them based on that information....
According to the study, 92 percent of the respondents said there should be a law that required advertisers to delete information on users upon request.
[Another blog on this topic appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle] Full Story
24. High Response Rates Don't Ensure Survey Accuracy
Chronicle of Higher Education (*requires registration)
October 5, 2009
Though it may not grab headlines like Twitter or Facebook, the use of surveys is one of the fastest-growing and most pervasive trends on campuses, and it's no wonder. With rising demands for systematic evidence and rapidly shrinking costs to gather such data, colleges and universities are increasingly surveying students, employees, and alumni to measure all kinds of things—from engagement to satisfaction to the carbon footprint made in commuting to campus....
Logically, a perfect 100-percent response rate would eliminate nonresponse bias, but since universal participation is rarely if ever attainable in practice, many colleges and universities focus instead on maximizing response rates....
If it is good news that a high response rate is not necessary for a survey to produce unbiased results, the bad news is that it is not sufficient, either. There are many other invidious sources of bias in surveys, and there is no response rate—not even 100 percent—that is adequate to prevent them....
...Those directly involved in conducting surveys should follow best practices for survey research, including reviewing the relevant research, testing surveys to the extent feasible, employing established techniques for minimizing measurement error, and using data from other sources to corroborate survey results whenever possible.
Carrying out those recommendations requires significant investments of time and money, but they might be partly offset by resources that would otherwise have been used to boost response rates. And by shifting their focus to creating better surveys, college and university officials can worry a bit less about those response rates.
[Link by subscription only] Full Story
25. On the Tip of Creative Tongues
New York Times (*requires registration)
October 4, 2009
The Tipping Point, a store in Houston that calls itself a sneaker lifestyle shop, does not just sell a collection of differently colored rubber soles, along with books, music and apparel. No, its Web site declares, the store “curates” its merchandise....
The word “curate,” lofty and once rarely spoken outside exhibition corridors or British parishes, has become a fashionable code word among the aesthetically minded, who seem to paste it onto any activity that involves culling and selecting. ...
Pretentious? Maybe. But it’s hardly unusual for members of less pedigreed professions to adopt the vernacular of more prestigious ones, said GEOFFREY NUNBERG, A LINGUIST AT THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY.
For instance, he said, the term “associate” originally tended to connote a partner or a work colleague who shared “a position of authority with another,” as the Oxford English Dictionary puts it. The description has expanded to include employees at all levels of the organization, including sales and customer service associates.... Full Story
26. The Guilt-Trip Casserole: The Family Dinner
New York Times (*requires registration)
October 4, 2009
“I don't need family-dinner studies to guilt-trip me,” said Shannon Rubio, a mother of three teenage boys from Spring, Tex. “I do it to myself.”
But just in case, Mrs. Rubio, here is the latest, from the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse (CASA) at Columbia University:
Teenagers who eat with their families less than three times a week are more likely to turn to alcohol, tobacco and drugs than those who dine with their families five times a week....
DR. PHILIP A. COWAN, A PSYCHOLOGIST AND FORMER DIRECTOR OF THE INSTITUTE OF HUMAN DEVELOPMENT AT THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY, suggests that the alacrity with which Americans embrace equations like family dinner frequency and substance abuse speaks to their need to find “silver bullet” solutions to profound problems.
But, he cautioned in an e-mail message, there is not a proven cause and effect that more family dinners equal less drug use. “To say that family dinners are associated with good outcomes is not the same as saying that family dinners cause good outcomes,” wrote Dr. Cowan, who has studied families.
The most likely explanation for the CASA results, he added, is that families who place importance on eating together — and can organize themselves to pull it off — are those who are more likely to produce good outcomes for their children anyway.... Full Story
27. Blog: Why Dumb Toys Make Kids Smarter
We didn’t want our son to have Pokémon cards—until they began turning him into a human computer. NurtureShock author and Newsweek blogger Po Bronson on games that increase children’s brain power 100-fold.
The Daily Beast
October 1, 2009
This is a story about the science of kids’ brains. But before we get into things like how dopamine enhances neural signaling, let’s talk about Pokémon.
Early in our son’s life, my wife let it be known that she didn’t have many clear-cut rules about how we’d raise him. To her, the world of parenting was not to be artificially cleaved into what’s Good for Kids and what’s Bad for Kids. However, she felt the need to warn me of two exceptions: violent videogames and Pokémon cards....
About half his class was entranced by the cards. At times it seemed ridiculous, but then I’d hear my son plop down two cards and talk out more complicated math problems than anything he saw at school: “160HP minus 110HP plus 30 resistance points minus 20 weakness points equals 60 points left,” he’d say, then plop down two more cards to solve....
While we weren’t aware of the neuroscience, it was plainly obvious: Pokémon cards were making our son’s brain really fast at elementary-school math. I began to buy him cards. Lots of cards....
How exactly does this happen? According to DR. SILVIA BUNGE, A NEUROSCIENTIST AT U.C. BERKELEY, the presence of dopamine triggers a meaningful tweak in the tuning function of brain cells. Dopamine depolarizes neurons and improves their firing rate; their response to optimal stimuli becomes sharper, and the background buzz of relevant stimuli is quieted a little.... Full Story
28. Days Gone By: Digging up bones and building museums all part of a CCC boy's work
Contra Costa Times (*requires registration)
October 4, 2009
Summary: The Civilian Conservation Corps became one of President Franklin D. Roosevelt's most popular New Deal Programs....
On Feb. 1, 1934, CCC workers dug up a huge mastodon tusk near the foot of Mount Diablo about 4½ miles from Danville. ... It was eight feet long and weighed 100 pounds.
R.A. STIRTON, CURATOR OF THE PALEONTOLOGY MUSEUM AT UC BERKELEY, estimated its age to be between 200,000 and 500,000 years old.
It was such a momentous find that Stirton convinced Capt. J.K. Patterson in charge of CCC Camp No. 590 and representatives of the Department of National Parks to detail 10 men at the site to push the work of excavation. Guards were posted during the night to prevent vandalism....
When the excavation was completed, Stirton would direct the work of encasing the fossil in a plaster cast for removal to UC Berkeley.
"This particular tusk is the largest I have ever seen in my six years of experience. Where this road now lies, 400,000 years ago in all probability, there was a creek bed or water hole. Perhaps this prehistoric monster died of natural causes there.
"I am sure as the work progresses that we will find more fossils here. Yesterday I took the lower jaws of two bison, the vertebrae of a bison and five horse teeth to the museum. They were all found in the same cut.".... Full Story
29. Books: Nonfiction Chronicle
New York Times (*requires registration)
October 4, 2009
The Essays Of LEONARD MICHAELS
Farrar, Straus & Giroux, $26.
MICHAELS is primarily known for his terse and unsettling short stories, but he also had a LONG CAREER AS A PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH AT THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY. His academic experiences course through this posthumous compilation of nonfiction (he died at 70 in 2003), surfacing not only in his tales of graduate school, where he “would read and slash with great enthusiasm and hope for the value to register,” but also in the volume’s critical pieces, which don’t blush at mentioning Wittgenstein and Foucault. Thankfully, the book has little of academia’s abstruseness and detachment; rather, it showcases Michaels’s timing, wit and instinctively good prose. Whatever the subject matter — and the essays here range from Edward Hopper to the Rita Hayworth vehicle “Gilda” to Yiddish, his first language — Michaels channels the full force of his intellectual and narrative abilities into a voice that is at once sensitive and unyielding. While he is in grad school at Berkeley, a dispute over a security deposit with a couple also from New York inexplicably turns to blows — such is “critical intercourse among East Coast intelligentsia” — leaving the girl’s fingernails “mooned” in Michaels’s blood. His sarcasm and darkness are deployed in moderation, and this collection — edited by his widow, Katharine Ogden Michaels — steams forward largely on his urgent desire to understand what he can of the world. “The impulse toward truth is built into our existence just as the shape of our eyes is built into our genes,” he writes, “and the truth, like murder, wants out.” Full Story