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Tuesday, 13 October 2009
1. UC Berkeley professor shares Nobel in economics
San Francisco Chronicle
October 13, 2009
OLIVER WILLIAMSON doesn't look like a rebel - he looks like what he is, an economics professor.
Yet it was the UC BERKELEY PROFESSOR's academic rebellious streak that landed him the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences on Monday, an honor that recognized his pioneering work in "economic governance."
He shared the prize with Elinor Ostrom, Indiana University professor of political science and public and environmental affairs...
Williamson, 77, opened up a whole new field of economics starting in the mid-1970s related to the "boundaries of the firm" - in other words, how a company can decide whether it's better to do something itself or to have someone else do it....
The recent development of the Boeing Dreamliner is a Williamson case in point, said RICHARD LYONS, DEAN OF THE UC BERKELEY HAAS SCHOOL OF BUSINESS. Boeing outsourced much of the airplane's construction, but Boeing found it difficult to adapt under that arrangement as the aircraft's design changed. It was a modern-day example of how a bigger company would have operated better, Lyons said....
Williamson's Nobel recognition was "long overdue," Lyons said. He had "a profound influence on generations of scholars who came after him."
UC Berkeley officials noted that Williamson's research ventured across academic lines into law, business and other social sciences to expand the influence of his work and his teaching.
Williamson first came to Berkeley in 1963 as an assistant professor, later teaching at the University of Pennsylvania and Yale University before returning to Cal in 1988.
His was the fifth Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences for UC Berkeley, and its 21st Nobel overall....
The honor comes with about $1.4 million, to be split between the two winners, money for which Williamson said he had "worthy purposes in mind."
And perhaps worth more than the money, he also will receive a Nobel laureate personal parking space at Cal, something he said was very much looking forward to using.
[Stories on this topic appeared in more than 1000 sources worldwide, including the Economist, San Jose Mercury News, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal (link by subscription only), Contra Costa Times, Oakland Tribune, Time Magazine Online, and Chronicle of Higher Education (link by subscription only). Broadcast stories aired on NewsHour (link to audio and video), NPR's Marketplace (link to audio), CNN (link to transcript), and KTVU and KGO TV (link to videos)] Full Story
2. Real Time Economics Blog: Economists React
Nobel Award Sends Message About Economics; Economists and others weigh in on the choice to award the Economics Nobel to Elinor Ostrom and [UC BERKELEY PROFESSOR EMERITUS] OLIVER WILLIAMSON.
Wall Street Journal Online (*requires registration)
October 12, 2009
...Williamson’s paper , The Economics of Governance (working version) published in the May 2005 AER is an excellent recent summary of his views in the area. Williamson’s work is notable for inspiring a large body of empirical and theoretical work in modern industrial organization and having influence in law, political science, and management. His work has been widely cited, and by some counts he was the most widely cited economist in the world. –Alex Tabarrok, George Mason University
...The way to think about this prize is that it’s an award for institutional economics, or maybe more specifically New Institutional Economics... Oliver Williamson’s work underlies a tremendous amount of modern economic thinking; I know it because of the attempts to model multinational corporations, almost all of which rely to some degree on his ideas. ... The prize is also, of course, a happy reminder that most of the profession is not caught up in the macro wars! –Paul Krugman, Princeton University and 2008 Economics Nobel laureate
...What’s interesting is that in the ensuing 15 years, it seems to me that economists have talked less and less about Williamson’s research, at least in the circles in which I run. I suspect most assistant professors of economics have barely heard of him. Yet I suspect the older generation of economists will applaud this choice.... –Steven D. Levitt, University of Chicago
... I applaud this year’s selection of Elinor Ostrom and Oliver Williamson. Williamson’s 1985 book The Economic Institutions of Capitalism remains a classic that repays careful study, even in 2009. And Ostrom’s work on how people often solve public-goods problems voluntarily is too often overlooked — until today, that is! –Don Boudreaux, Café Hayek
[Link by subscription only] Full Story
3. Economix Blog: Honoring the Nobel Laureates
New York Times (*requires registration)
October 13, 2009
This year’s Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Science in Honor of Alfred Nobel went jointly to [UC BERKELEY PROFESSOR EMERITUS] OLIVER WILLIAMSON, who argued that seemingly easy transactions could still have high costs, and Elinor Ostrom, who documented that seemingly intractable problems could still be solved.
These scholars were not favorites to win the prize — the betting site Ladbroke’s put them both at 50 to 1 — but they both have had enormous influence, as shown by the hard currency of abundant citations. ...
His [Williamson's] seminal article, “Markets and Hierarchies: Some Elementary Considerations,” later fleshed out in book form, compared markets with peer group associations and hierarchies. He followed another Nobel laureate [and UC BERKELEY PROFESSOR], GEORGE A. AKERLOF, by emphasizing information asymmetries and the difficulty of ascertaining the productivity of particular workers. Mr. Williamson argued that a simple hierarchy with workers, ground level managers and an entrepreneur was a remarkably efficient way of handling production when information was imperfect....
Ms. Ostrom and Mr. Williamson have enriched our understanding of how human beings solve coordination problems. These problems continue to be enormously important in today’s world, as we grapple with worldwide issues that require coordinated effort, like climate change. But the greatest lesson of the work of Ms. Ostrom and Mr. Williamson is a hopeful one: Mankind has an enormous ability to create institutions that enable us to work collectively.
[Another blog on this topic appeared in the Wall Street Journal Online (link by subscription only)] Full Story
4. Nobel laureate wields great business influence
San Francisco Chronicle
October 13, 2009
OLIVER WILLIAMSON, UC BERKELEY's newest Nobel laureate in economics, is described as a traditional scholar with a dry wit who is generous with his time and ideas.
At 77, he is retired from teaching but still works with grad students when he's not on the tennis court perfecting his new Andy Roddick-style serve.
"He is one of the most academic, scholarly people on our faculty," said RICH LYONS, DEAN OF BERKELEY'S HAAS SCHOOL OF BUSINESS. "To use a science analogy, he does basic research. He's way upstream intellectually."
Williamson doesn't do as much consulting as other economists, is generally apolitical and rarely gives pat answers that make good sound bites. But he has had a big influence on corporate America through his research and influence on doctoral students who go into industry or consulting firms, Lyons said....
"One of the central questions that firms always face is when it makes sense to merge with another firm, when it makes sense to write a long-term contract with the other firm and how that long-term contract should be structured, and when it makes sense to deal on a short-term basis and buy things on spot markets," said AARON EDLIN, A UC BERKELEY PROFESSOR OF LAW AND ECONOMICS. "His work is about which of these decisions make the most sense."
Edlin uses Williamson's work running the Berkeley Electronic Press, an academic software publishing company he co-founded.... Full Story
5. A Conversation With Carol W. Greider on Winning a Nobel Prize in Science
New York Times & International Herald Tribune (*requires registration)
October 13, 2009
...Q. Did you always want to be a biologist?
A. My parents were scientists. But I wasn’t the sort of child who did science fairs. One of the things I was thinking about today is that as a kid I had dyslexia. I had a lot of trouble in school and was put into remedial classes. I thought that I was stupid....
I never planned a career. I had these blinders on that got me through a lot of things that might have been obstacles. I just went forward. It’s a skill that I had early on that must have been adaptive. I enjoyed biology in high school and that brought me to a research lab at U.C. Santa Barbara. I loved doing experiments and I had fun with them. I realized this kind of problem-solving fit my intellectual style. So in order to continue having fun, I decided to go to GRADUATE SCHOOL AT BERKELEY. It was there that I went to LIZ BLACKBURN’S LAB, where telomeres were being studied.
Q. What Are Telomeres?
A. The concept of telomeres was really laid out by H. J. Muller and Barbara McClintock in the 1940s, when they showed that there must be a special unit, a kind of cap at the end of the chromosome that holds it together. In 1978, Elizabeth Blackburn, working with Joe Gall, identified the DNA sequence of telomeres.
Every time a cell divides, it gets shorter. But telomeres usually don’t. So there must be something happening to the telomeres to keep their length in equilibrium. When I went into Liz Blackburn’s lab in 1984 and began working on this, the most exciting question that was being asked there was, “If we know that telomeres get short over time, how can they be relengthened?” I set out to look for evidence that there was such an enzyme as telomerase that would relengthen the telemeres once they shortened.
What I found out on Christmas Day 1984, through biochemical evidence, was that telomeres could be lengthened by the enzyme we called telomerase, which keeps the telomeres from wearing down. After, I found that out, I went home and put on Bruce Springsteen’s “Born in the USA,” which was just out, and I danced and danced and danced....
CAROL W. GREIDER of the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine was one of three women who won a science Nobel last week, which puts her in some rare company. Only eight women had won in physiology or medicine, and there has never been a year when three women won Nobels in the sciences. Dr. Greider shared her prize with ELIZABETH H. BLACKBURN and Jack W. Szostak for their research on telomeres. Full Story
6. AP Impact: Obama's Travels Carry a Touch of Blue
New York Times Online (*requires registration)
October 13, 2009
Pittsburgh (AP) -- For President Barack Obama, it's almost as if the election campaign never ended. Just look at his travel schedule....
Sometimes, the administration's travel has been political as well as personal.
Before joining the Cabinet, many of Obama's appointees were popular figures in their home states -- four secretaries most recently were governors, four were members of Congress and Biden was a longtime senator. When they go home to announce a new grant or see a program firsthand, the administration has a spokesman who already has standing.
Energy Secretary STEVEN CHU, for example, has made California his top destination; the NOBEL PRIZE-WINNING PHYSICIST TAUGHT AT THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY, until he joined the administration. Similarly, Housing and Urban Development Secretary Shawn Donovan has made New York and Connecticut his top destinations; he was New York's housing chief before being tapped in December.... Full Story
7. Unmanned Helicopters Could Help Air Traffic Controllers Small aircraft could have big impact on safety
Science Nation [NSF Online]
October 2009
The chilling video of a small plane and helicopter colliding over the Hudson River in early August showed that technology can't always protect the crowded skies. Nine people died in that crash in New York City.
Some answers to better collision avoidance systems may come from unusual tools: small, autonomous helicopters that are getting smarter all the time.
"We're interested in developing automated collision avoidance algorithms that can be used for civilian aircraft in the air traffic control system," said CLAIRE TOMLIN, PROFESSOR OF ELECTRICAL ENGINEERING AND COMPUTER SCIENCES AT THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY and professor of aeronautics and astronautics at Stanford University....
The quadrotors developed by Tomlin and her team are about two feet by two feet, snap together like Legos and look more like toys than airliners. But, the technology the quadrotors are used to test could translate to systems that better protect the flying public....
These unassuming aircraft, with off the shelf parts, may not look like lifesavers. But they provide a path to building airplanes and helicopters that are smart enough to navigate safely on their own.
"It's a lot of fun to work on," said Tomlin. "Frustrating at times, but then very rewarding at times."
[Link to video] Full Story
8. Remote controlled bugs buzz off
BBC News
October 13, 2009
A Pentagon-sponsored project to control flying insects remotely has sent ripples of excitement across the scientific pond.
Part insect, part machine, the "cyborg beetle" has been tested successfully by its DEVELOPERS AT THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY. ...
The developers, MICHEL MAHARBIZ and HIROTAKA SATO, "demonstrated the remote control of insects in free flight via an implantable radio-equipped miniature neural stimulating system", they told the current edition of Frontiers in Neuroscience magazine....
The Berkeley scientists suggest that the beetles themselves could serve "as couriers to locations not easily accessible to humans or terrestrial robots". ... Full Story
9. Discussion on counterterrorism, human rights at UC Berkeley
Oakland Tribune
October 9, 2009
Amnesty International USA will host a discussion on counterterrorism and human rights Wednesday at UC BERKELEY'S BOALT HALL SCHOOL OF LAW.
The "Counter Terror with Justice Discussion Panel," the first in a series of talks across the nation this fall and spring, will give the public an opportunity to discuss with experts such issues as U.S. accountability for torture, closure of the detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and the indefinite detention of prisoners at Bagram Air Field in Afghanistan....
Panelists will include PROFESSOR LAUREL FLETCHER, DIRECTOR OF THE INTERNATIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS LAW CLINIC AT BOALT; former U.S. military interrogator Matthew Alexander; and Tom Parker, Amnesty International's policy director on terrorism, counterterrorism and human rights.
The event will begin at 6:30 p.m. at 215 Boalt Hall, Room 105 on the Berkeley campus. For more information, visit www.amnestyusa.org/ctwj. Full Story
10. Food Crisis Showed Market Failure, UC Berkeley’s de Janvry Says
Bloomberg
October 13, 2009
Following are comments by ALAIN DE JANVRY, PROFESSOR OF AGRICULTURE AND RESOURCE ECONOMICS AT THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AT BERKELEY, on the food crisis in 2008. He spoke today at a forum organized by the Food and Agriculture Organization in Rome.
“The occurrence of the food crisis was quite humbling for the profession” because economists failed to predict it, de Janvry said. “We assume wrongly that markets tend to work.” One lesson “from the food crisis is the very limited transmission that has happened,” de Janvry said. “Assuming that markets work is just not the right assumption to make.”
“Food security has become a new issue. It is not just a matter of food stocks, it is not just a matter of trade. There has not been enough emphasis on subsistence farming.” Full Story
11. UC Berkeley paying consulting firm to help it cut costs
Contra Costa Times (*requires registration)
October 10, 2009
OK, class, listen up. Today's test consists of one multiple-choice question, and you'll want to consider your answer carefully because it will determine your grade for the semester.
You are the Grand Wizard of UC BERKELEY, responsible for resolving every nettlesome problem that lands on campus. You just learned that the boobs in Sacramento have slashed your funding by $150 million so they can balance the state budget in time to go to dinner with their favorite lobbyist. How will you deal with this dilemma?
(a) Brainstorm solutions with your senior administrative staffers....
(b) Delegate the budgeting problem to the Budget Office....
(c) Dip into the well of knowledge at the renowned HAAS SCHOOL OF BUSINESS....
(d) None of the above....
If you chose option (d), you might be chancellor material.
When UC BERKELEY CHANCELLOR ROBERT BIRGENEAU was confronted with the $150 million challenge, he gave the matter deep thought, turned his focus eastward to the Boston-based consulting firm Bain & Co. and agreed to pay $3 million over the next two years for someone else to solve the problem. In football, they call this a handoff....
VICE CHANCELLOR FRANK YEARY was prepared for the cynicism.
"I understand at one level," he said, "if you don't have enough money, why are you spending money on external consultants? Most people who are closer to it say it's more sophisticated than that.
"If we spend $1.5 million this year and $1.5 million out of savings next year and we're successful in delivering tens of millions of dollars in savings every year, I think that's the goal against which we should be judged."... Full Story
12. Igniting the Growth of Jobs
New York Times & International Herald Tribune (*requires registration)
October 10, 2009
San Francisco -- Think of this recession as a monstrous hurricane that swept through the job market and is still wreaking havoc. The latest unemployment rate for California is a knee-buckling 12.2 percent, the highest since World War II.
The job market nationwide is the worst it has been in 70 years, noted ROBERT REICH, the former labor secretary, during one of several conversations that I had with him over the past week. He dismissed the upbeat talk of “green shoots” sprouting in the devastated economic landscape and the dreamy notion that recovery is no longer just around the corner, it’s here....
MR. REICH, WHO TEACHES AT THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY, is among those who favor a tax credit for small businesses that create jobs. This is tricky. Policy makers have to make sure that the credit is given only for net new hires, as companies will attempt to get a tax break for hires they would have made anyway.
“Under normal circumstances,” said Mr. Reich, “I would never recommend this. It’s a very blunt instrument. But these are not normal circumstances.”... Full Story
13. Business Fends Off Tax Hit
Wall Street Journal (*requires registration)
October 13, 2009
The Obama administration has shelved a plan to raise more than $200 billion in new taxes on multinational companies following a blitz of complaints from businesses....
Concern was acute in the high-tech community, which had strongly supported Mr. Obama in the campaign but is heavily invested overseas. In early June, chief financial officers for high-tech giants such as Microsoft and Cisco Systems gathered in a conference room at semiconductor maker Applied Materials Inc. According to one participant, several CFOs said the deferred-tax proposal, if it became law, could drive them to relocate out of the country.
The CFOs directed their complaints at LAURA TYSON, A BERKELEY ECONOMIST and outside adviser to the White House, who was there. "You need to convince people that you're serious," Ms. Tyson recalls telling them. "You need to provide evidence, and take this to the White House."...
[Link by subscription only] Full Story
14. Op-Ed: The California Fix
Bicoastal constitutional conundrum; California has what New York wants; New York tried the constitutional convention some propose for California.
Los Angeles Times
October 13, 2009
The nation's two mega-states are poised to embark on constitutional experiments of a scale not seen since Philadelphia in 1787. Prominent New York leaders want to call a convention to enact term limits, an unfettered initiative process and a limit on the legislature's ability to raise taxes. Guess what? Californians have been there, done that and lived to regret it. Current calls for reform in California focus on exactly the opposite: loosening term limits, restraining the initiative process and giving a simple majority of legislators the ability to raise taxes....
What New York teaches California, in turn, is that a constitutional convention can fail to achieve any reform at all, as happened in the Empire State in 1967. New Yorkers called a convention charged with reapportioning the state's legislative districts, but the debate quickly expanded into bitter fights over welfare policy, state funding of religious schools and racial discrimination in education. Voters split along partisan and geographic lines when convention delegates presented them with an omnibus package of proposed constitutional changes, and they rejected it at the polls.
California cannot afford to waste this moment of reform by failing to learn the lessons of New York. That is why scholars and political practitioners from New York and across the country are coming to Sacramento to inform California's constitutional debate at an Oct. 14 conference, jointly convened by Stanford, UC BERKELEY and Sacramento State and to be broadcast on the California Channel.... Full Story
15. Topic A: What Does the Nobel Peace Prize Mean for Obama?
Washington Post
October 9, 2009
The Post asked political experts what receiving the Nobel Peace Prize will mean for President Obama. Below are contributions from Tony Fratto, Donna F. Edwards, Robert Shrum, Robert Reich, Lisa Schiffren, Douglas E. Schoen and Ed Rogers.
...ROBERT REICH
Secretary of labor from 1993 to 1997; PROFESSOR OF PUBLIC POLICY AT THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY
President Obama's only real diplomatic accomplishment so far has been to change the direction and tone of American foreign policy from unilateral bullying to multilateral listening and cooperating. That's important, to be sure, but it's not nearly enough. Had the world not suffered eight years of George W. Bush, Obama would not have won the prize at this early stage of his presidency. I'd rather he had won it after Congress agreed to substantial cuts in greenhouse gases comparable to what Europe is proposing, after he brought Palestinians and Israelis together to accept a two-state solution, after he got the United States out of Afghanistan and reduced the nuclear arms threat between Pakistan and India, or after he was well on the way to eliminating the world's stockpile of nuclear weapons. Perhaps the Nobel committee can give him only half the prize now and withhold the other half until he accomplishes one or more of these crucial missions.... Full Story
16. Pelosi reaches her defining moment
San Francisco Chronicle
October 11, 2009
Washington - -- House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's heady days of adoration as the elegant grandmother who broke the marble ceiling two years ago are over....
But for all the scars of Washington's blood-sport politics, this is Pelosi's moment. The levers of power are in Democratic hands and she harnesses hers to one end: enacting the most ambitious Democratic agenda since the 1960s, pointing the nation in what she calls a "new direction."...
But she has serious problems communicating, said UC BERKELEY LINGUIST AND PELOSI ADMIRER GEORGE LAKOFF. "She tries to be nice to people when she's talking but she's not an inspiring speaker and she's very bad at the framing of issues," he said.... Full Story
17. Politics Blog: California Tea Parties Love Chuck D from the OC
San Francisco Chronicle Online
October 12, 2009
Fresh off of his dead-heat showing against Carly "Annnn-ti-ci-paaaaaa-tion" Simon-Fiorina in the latest Field Poll, Orange County Assemblyman Chuck DeVore has a new bunch of friends: California's Tea Partiers.
The T.P.ers dig Chuck D. from the OC, says T.P. Patriots czar Mark Meckler: "My impression is that the support among tea partiers for DeVore is high. I hear nothing but praise for the guy."
T.P. love may be a boon in June's GOP primary. But what will that mean in the general election, should Chuck D. get that far? As UC-BERKELEY POLITICAL SCIENCE PROF HENRY BRADY told us the other day, "I don't see where reaching out to the tea party people helps. That's the fringe of the far right," Brady said. "(Republicans) need to reach out to the decline-to-state voters in the middle." Full Story
18. Think Again Blog: The Rise and Fall of Academic Abstention
New York Times Online (*requires registration)
October 13, 2009
As recently as 1979, legal academics Virginia Nordin and Harry Edwards were able to say that “historically American courts have adhered fairly consistently to the doctrine of academic abstention in order to avoid excessive judicial oversight of academic institutions” (Higher Education and the Law). Academic abstention is the doctrine (never formally promulgated) that courts should defer to colleges and universities when it comes to matters like promotions, curricula, admission policies, grading, tenure, etc. The reasoning is that courts lack the competence to monitor academic behavior; they should get out of the way and let the professionals do the job. “Courts are particularly ill-equipped,” Chief Justice Rehnquist declared in 1978, “to evaluate academic performance.” (Board of Curators of the University of Missouri v. Horowitz)
In 2009, courts still pay lip service to this doctrine but in practice, Amy Gajda tells us in her terrific new book, “The Trials of Academe,” they now boldly go where their predecessors feared to tread. Once, “if a student or faculty member had the temerity to bring a grievance to court, is was likely to be bounced out in short order.” Now, however, “courts feel free to enter . . . from the ground up, parceling out the right and obligations of each disputant down to the last dollar.” Indeed, “litigation and ‘rights talk’ have permeated every crease and wrinkle of academic life.”...
WHEN I BEGAN TEACHING IN 1962 AT THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA IN BERKELEY, I asked older colleagues about the decorums and rules of the classroom. In response, I was given the MYRON BRIGHTFIELD RULE. BRIGHTFIELD WAS THEN A VERY SENIOR MEMBER OF THE DEPARTMENT. His rule (and I paraphrase) was, When you close the door, there’s nothing they can do to you. Those were the days, and they had their injustices as well as their advantages. Now we have justice, or at least the demand for justice, all the time and it may, Gajda suggests, be killing us. Full Story
19. Agriculture and Algae Coexist Uneasily in Imperial Valley
New York Times Online (*requires registration)
October 12, 2009
Calipatria, Calif. -- With 360 days a year of pure, unclouded sun, California's Imperial Valley has the potential to become the Silicon Valley of renewable energy. Assuming, for example, that a technology based on extracting oil from algae proves itself on a commercial scale, this place has much of the right stuff....
"Imperial ranks dead last in terms of economic vitality," Brian Brady, general manager of the Imperial Irrigation District, told potential investors and researchers from China, India, Australia, Spain, France and the United States last week. "We are totally motivated to bring in industry, particularly green industry."...
One of the industry's leading scientists, Scripps Research Institute biologist Stephen Mayfield, espoused the same free-market attitude with respect to land-use policy.
"Although it's great for us to sit here and say we're not going to compete with water or food, at $30,000 an acre, that's an economic decision farmers are going to have to decide on their own," he said at last week's Algae Biomass Summit in San Diego, citing estimates from the UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY'S ENERGY BIOSCIENCES INSTITUTE. "This is America, it's called capitalism, and these decisions are going to be made by someone other than you and I."... Full Story
20. Seeking fat acceptance
Size-tolerance activists envision a day 'when fat phobia becomes as intolerable as racism.'
Los Angeles Times
October 12, 2009
Getting heavy people to feel comfortable in their skin, however ample, and focus on healthy behaviors is only half the fat-acceptance battle; the other half is getting society to make room for fat people....
..."I look forward to the day when fat phobia becomes as intolerable as racism." JOANNE IKEDA IS EMERITUS PROFESSOR OF NUTRITION AT UC BERKELEY, where she taught nutritional sciences for 37 years. She's also a member of the National Assn. to Advance Fat Acceptance. "I joined NAAFA because I wanted to hear these people's stories, and get insight into their experiences. When I heard people talk about going to the grocery store and having strangers take food out of their carts, I wanted to cry."
Ikeda, who is 65, 5 feet 2 and 190 pounds with a BMI of 34.7, says others make unfair and untrue assumptions about fat people. "People assume if you're heavy, that you're lazy, and that you have no self-control . . . . They think you're stupid, and don't exercise. If I could give one message, it would be, 'Don't prejudge.' "...
Meanwhile, folks like Wann, Ikeda and Owen are trying -- not for thinness, but for overall good health. Not for personal acceptance, which they've achieved, but for more acceptance from society. And they're gaining it -- slowly. Full Story
21. Obituary: Carol Tomlinson-Keasey dies at 66; founding chancellor of UC Merced
Tomlinson-Keasey, a distinguished developmental psychologist, overcame major hurdles in the effort to build the first UC campus in the San Joaquin Valley. The school opened in September 2005.
Los Angeles Times
October 13, 2009
CAROL TOMLINSON-KEASEY, who became the first female founding chancellor of a UC campus when she was named to head UC Merced in 1999 before the university broke ground, has died. She was 66....
UC Merced Chancellor Steve Kang, who succeeded Tomlinson-Keasey in 2007, said in a statement that "UC Merced would not exist were it not for her visionary leadership, her tireless determination and her remarkable gift of persuasion."...
She received a bachelor's degree in political science from Pennsylvania State University, a master's in psychology from Iowa State and a DOCTORATE IN DEVELOPMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY FROM UC BERKELEY.... Full Story
22. Obituary: Israel Gelfand dies at 96; Russian mathematician
His research laid the mathematical foundation for the imaging abilities of MRI and CT scanners.
Los Angeles Times
October 11, 2009
Israel Gelfand, the Russian mathematician whose research laid the mathematical framework for the imaging abilities of MRI and CT scanners and who did crucial work in a host of more esoteric fields, died Monday at Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital in New Brunswick, N.J. He was 96.
During a century when mathematicians were becoming ever more specialized, focusing on narrow and often exotic areas of research, Gelfand became a legend as a generalist who made contributions in more than a dozen areas. His work in the field known as representation theory was an underpinning of quantum physics....
Gelfand said mathematicians were like music composers and that he was probably most like Mozart, said EDWARD FRENKEL OF UC BERKELEY, who worked with him in Moscow. "'We like Mozart not because of a particular piece that he created,' he said. 'It's the totality of his work and its profound beauty that make him a great composer.' Gelfand thought the same applied to his work," Frenkel said....
[This obituary also appeared in the Washington Post] Full Story
23. Cal's Rogers comes to grips with health scare
Washington Post
October 9, 2009
Berkeley, Calif. -- TIERRA ROGERS never let herself think she was going to die. Her late father gave her strength and always taught her to persevere through the most trying of times.
Before Rogers' recent collapse during a basketball workout in which California's freshman guard stopped breathing, her dad's murder at halftime of her high school game outside the gym had been the greatest thing she'd endured....
Now, she is coming to grips with the devastating news her college career is over before it began because of a rare heart condition. Fortunately, it was discovered before it took her life. Last week, she had a defibrillator implanted to manage the problem. She's been out of the hospital and back in her campus dorm room since Oct. 2....
Rogers' condition was discovered as the result of a Sept. 21 workout - some of the episode is still a blur - in which she had trouble breathing, told her teammates she didn't feel well, collapsed on the court and then again about 30 minutes later into the arms of ATHLETIC TRAINER ANN CASLIN at Haas Pavilion outside the training room. She was taken by ambulance to a nearby hospital, where she spent a week for testing and observation....
Losing Rogers is a devastating blow to the Golden Bears, who brought in the top recruiting class in the country after a March run to the NCAA regional semifinals for the first time in school history....
CAL COACH JOANNE BOYLE was in Los Angeles at a home visit with a recruit, her phone away in her bag, when all this happened. She immediately flew back to the Bay Area.
Boyle herself survived a life-threatening brain aneurysm while an assistant coach at Duke in November 2001.
"She's a lot stronger than I am," Boyle said, fighting tears. "I just hate to see her go through this. We always talk about that there's a bigger plan, a bigger purpose. We just have to be patient and figure out what that is. I wish she would have had just one year to experience everything."... Full Story
24. TechCrunch Blog: Ten Teen Entrepreneurs To Watch
Washington Post Online
October 10, 2009
Kids these days. It seems like they're writing HTML before they learn how to talk. And a lot of them are starting companies before they graduate from high school.
Here's a list of some of our favorite teen entrepreneurs. And please keep in mind that there are lots of startups we've yet to hear about. So if you are a young entrepreneur, make sure to leave a comment below and add your bio and startup information to CrunchBase.
JESSICA MAH
Jessica Mah, 19, is currently the CEO and Co-Founder behind Indinero, a Mint.com for small businesses. Mah started her first startup at 13. Last year, she founded internshipIN.com, a site to help high school and college kids find internships in their area. Now, at 19, MAH IS FINISHING UP HER COMPUTER SCIENCE DEGREE FROM THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY, as well as being the CEO of Indinero.... Full Story
25. Book Review: 'Logicomix: An Epic Search for Truth'
San Francisco Chronicle
October 11, 2009
Of all the graphic novels out there about dead white male logicians, there is one you must read. Logicomix: An Epic Search for Truth (Bloomsbury; $22.95) is like no other book of its kind. It's a wonderfully imaginative, funny and gripping exploration not just of Bertrand Russell's long and eventful life (orphan, scholar, renowned pacifist, four-time husband), but also, in accessible and fascinating fashion, of the complex philosophical ideas that Russell struggled with - often opposite a fiery Ludwig Wittgenstein.
The story is told by Apostolos Doxiadis and CHRISTOS H. PAPADIMITRIOU, THE LATTER A PROFESSOR OF COMPUTER SCIENCE AT UC BERKELEY. Both writers also feature in the self-referential story, as do the graphic novel's artists, Alecos Papadatos and Annie Di Donna, whose gorgeous earth-tone panels lift the book above almost everything else in its genre. Forget comic book superheroes - give us more philosopher heroes! Full Story
26. City Brights Blog: Grassroots science
San Francisco Chronicle Online
October 12, 2009
Girls Go Tech program boxes for girls living on a rural reservation. That's what our 5-way merger was all about!
It would be great if every school offered equal opportunities to explore science, technology and engineering - but they don't and given the state of our state and local school districts, we can't sit around and wait for that to happen. This is story about grassroots science -- a way of delivering quality program through a network of staff and volunteers....
To date, our pilot Girls Go Tech 101, program has focused on two primary goals:
) 1) Afterschool programs in underserved schools. During the 2008-2009 school year, we delivered this program to 133 girls at five underserved middle schools in Oakland, El Cerrito and San Francisco and introduced the girls to experiences that included including hands-on projects like Blinky robots, field trips to places like Google and UC BERKELEY'S PATH RICHMOND FIELD STATION. In addition, we connected the girls with role models - women engineers and scientists who inspired them with their stories.... Full Story
27. Leah Garchik: Good Samaritans One and All
San Francisco Chronicle
October 13, 2009
...UC BERKELEY POLICE OFFICER ALLY JACOBS AND SPECIAL EVENTS COORDINATOR LISA CAMPBELL, whose response to encountering Phillip Craig Garrido on campus led to their investigation and led, thereafter, to his being charged with the abduction of Jaycee Lee Dugard, are on "Oprah" today.... Full Story