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Wednesday, 14 October 2009
1. Editorial: Nobel Prizes remind us UC Berkeley is vital to our future
Contra Costa Times (*requires registration)
October 14, 2009
Twice in eight days we've been reminded by the Nobel committee of how vital UC BERKELEY is to the future of our state, nation and world. We've been reminded that we have a treasure in the East Bay that we must protect and we must support.
On Oct. 5, ELIZABETH BLACKBURN AND CAROL GREIDER learned they will share the Nobel Prize for medicine in recognition of their work that inspired new lines of research into cancer. Much of their research was done at CAL, WHERE BLACKBURN WAS A PROFESSOR AND GREIDER WAS ONE OF HER GRADUATE STUDENTS as they solved the mystery of how chromosomes protect themselves from degrading when cells divide.
On Monday, UC BERKELEY PROFESSOR OLIVER WILLIAMSON shared the Nobel economics prize for his research on the internal workings of businesses to help understand how they make decisions on issues such as whether to manufacture internally or outsource production. His work has profound implications for how and when we should regulate businesses.
...This is recognition of a lifetime of meticulous study, experimentation and research, building one block of knowledge on top of another.
Cal hasn't been to the Rose Bowl since 1959, and it doesn't look like this season will be any different. But 21 of its faculty members have won Nobel Prizes since 1939, as have 25 of their alumni dating back to 1934. Recognition has gone to names like ERNEST LAWRENCE (Physics, 1939), GLENN SEABORG (Chemistry, 1951), STEVEN CHU (Physics, 1997) and GEORGE AKERLOF (Economics, 2001).
"Berkeley is really a glorious place," Williamson said Monday. "The commitment to excellence is extraordinary."
But will it last? Berkeley is the flagship campus of a UC system that is being squeezed dangerously tight....
"There is real jeopardy," Williamson said. "And the longer it goes on, the more we're at risk."
UC BERKELEY CHANCELLOR ROBERT BIRGENEAU has proposed that the federal government provide basic operating funds for the university system. While we agree that there is a federal benefit in assisting UC, the basic problems the system faces were created here....
Cal and the entire UC system are vital to our future. If we don't save them, the next generation of students and research could be lost.
[This editorial also appeared in the Oakland Tribune] Full Story
2. Editorial: Bay Area remains a hotbed of academic talent
San Jose Mercury News (*requires registration)
October 14, 2009
President Barack Obama's Nobel Peace Prize has overshadowed the addition of two more faculty members from Bay Area universities to the list of Nobel laureates. The new total for prizes won here is 52, an incredible record.
MOLECULAR BIOLOGIST [AND FORMER UC BERKELEY PROFESSOR] ELIZABETH BLACKBURN of the University of California-San Francisco shared the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine [with FORMER UC BERKELEY GRADUATE STUDENT CAROL GREIDER], and UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA-BERKELEY ECONOMIST OLIVER WILLIAMSON shared the prize in economics.
They're reminders that investing in research has a payback, both for the region's innovation economy and in improving lives....
That so many achieve the pinnacle of recognition here shows the importance of the work that takes place — and must continue. Full Story
3. Athletic spending belies California's budget crisis
USA Today
October 14, 2009
Berkeley, Calif. — From the University of California's Upper Sproul Plaza three weeks ago came the evocative, 1960s-era sounds of protest — speeches, chants, calls for change — over staggering budget cuts on the Berkeley campus and throughout the UC system.
Just up Bancroft Way, construction outside football's Memorial Stadium raised a competing clatter.
More than $430 million will go into a new office, training and locker room complex for athletics and then renovation of the venerable, 86-year-old stadium, in part to make it more earthquake-resistant. The money will come from private sources, officials say. But the high-dollar project nonetheless stands out amid fiscal retrenchment across the university.
Some faculty members have hit on the issue of athletics spending, a few expressing themselves in an online forum about the budget crisis and staff furloughs, tuition increases, enrollment reductions and other cost-saving measures. ANTHROPOLOGY PROFESSOR LAURA NADER complained in a letter this summer to UC system President Mark Yudof: "No word of cuts? A new sports center, fixing the stadium? If it is true that this is what most alums want then faculty have done a poor job in educating."
The outcry has been limited, however.
OLIVER WILLIAMSON, A PROFESSOR EMERITUS OF BUSINESS, ECONOMICS AND LAW who Monday was awarded a Nobel Prize in economics, keeps his office directly across the street from Memorial Stadium.
"I don't think the chancellor and the leadership on the campus think of athletics as being immune (to the financial crisis)," he says. "But some things, you can deal with immediately and directly. Other things, you deal with in the fullness of time. ... I don't see any reason to believe they're lacking in judgment in this respect."
JOHN AUBREY DOUGLASS, A SENIOR RESEARCH FELLOW AT CAL'S CENTER FOR STUDIES IN HIGHER EDUCATION, says most faculty view football and other Cal sports as "kind of a distant subculture of the university."...
Berkeley is absorbing nearly $150 million of that. Among other things, it's participating in the system-wide furlough program and expects to lay off some 300 non-faculty employees and eliminate 100 faculty positions by attrition, CHANCELLOR ROBERT BIRGENEAU said in August.
Athletics scored some points on campus by including coaches in the furlough program even though contract employees are exempt. ATHLETICS DIRECTOR SANDY BARBOUR says HEAD FOOTBALL COACH JEFF TEDFORD was the first to volunteer when the plan was approved by regents in July.... Full Story
4. Analysis of cellphone studies finds tumor risk
Scientists looking at 23 studies involving almost 38,000 people initially see no connection. But a closer look at the highest-quality studies tells another story.
Los Angeles Times
October 14, 2009
The answer to the question of whether cellphones increase the risk of brain, head and neck tumors is truly a matter of whom you ask.
An analysis published Tuesday of data from 23 epidemiological studies found no connection between cellphone use and the development of cancerous or benign tumors. But when eight of the studies that were conducted with the most scientific rigor were analyzed, cellphone users were shown to have a 10% to 30% increased risk of tumors compared with people who rarely or never used the phones. The risk was highest among those who had used cellphones for 10 years or more.
"The other group of 15 studies were not as high-quality," said STUDY COAUTHOR JOEL M. MOSKOWITZ, DIRECTOR OF THE UC BERKELEY CENTER FOR FAMILY AND COMMUNITY HEALTH. "They either found no association or a negative association or a protective effect -- which I don't think anyone would have predicted."
The main message of the analysis, published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, is that studies should be conducted so that findings are harder to refute, he said....
"I went into this really dubious that anything was going on," Moskowitz said. "Overall, you find no difference. But when you start teasing the studies apart and doing these subgroup analyses, you do find there is reason to be concerned."...
[A Reuters story on this topic appeared in the New York Times Online and Washington Post] Full Story
5. Study: Bosses who bully may feel incompetent
San Jose Mercury News (*requires registration)
October 13, 2009
Berkeley, Calif.—A new study finds that bosses who don't feel like they're cut out to handle their jobs are more likely to bully their subordinates.
The study by RESEARCHERS AT THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY and the University of Southern California challenges the assumption that power alone leads to aggression. It appears in the November issue of the journal Psychological Science.
The study says feelings of inadequacy on the part of power-holders threatens their egos and leads them to lash out at those around them....
The solution? Researchers say flattery could reduce tantrums and rants in the workplace, although it may cause the boss to lose touch with reality.
[This and similar stories appeared in the Contra Costa Times, Sacramento Bee, and San Francisco Business Times] Full Story
6. Blog: DASH, the scampering cockroach-bot
Wired.co.uk
October 14, 2009
We feature a lot of robots here on Wired.co.uk: some ride unicycles, some are shape-shifting blobs, yet others eat humans or sort pancakes. The problem is, most of those robots are complicated and expensive, and some are slow and fragile too.
Not this one. The Dynamic Autonomous Sprawled Hexapod, or DASH for short (because the number one rule in robotics is your creation must have a cute nickname), can reach speeds of 1.5 metres per second, weighs just 16 grams, can be dropped from 28 metres without breaking, and consists of just a cardboard shell and two small motors: one to power its six legs, and one to steer the robot by deforming its body.
Sounds cute, doesn't it? Well, it looks a bit like a cockroach, scurrying about like a rapidly escaping bug, appendages flailing and scrabbling at objects. DASH wasn't (just) designed to play practical jokes on squirmish colleagues, however. PAUL BIRKMEYER AND PROFESSOR RONALD FEARING AT THE BIOMIMETIC MILLISYSTEMS LAB AT UC BERKELEY created the insectoid robot to demonstrate the benefits of its smart composite microstructures (SCM) fabrication process. Essentially the process enables precision laser-cutting of cheap materials, such as cardboard and polymer sheets, to create functional folded structures which move using elastic deformation rather than traditional mechanisms such as bearings or pin joints....
If an army of robot insects is going to emerge from anywhere, it's UC Berkeley. Full Story
7. California's democratic dilemma
Does the initiative process give the people too much say in their government?
Los Angeles Times
October 14, 2009
When three of the state's leading academic centers for governmental studies [including UC BERKELEY'S INSTITUTE OF GOVERNMENTAL STUDIES] host a conference in Sacramento today on how to reform California's Constitution, one of the questions they will ask is: What's to be learned from the sweeping reform agenda enacted in 1911 by Gov. Hiram Johnson and his Progressive legislative majorities? Those changes included not only women's suffrage, the direct election of U.S. senators, the recall, and a minimum wage for women and children, but an aspect of our public life that many see at the root of our current problems: the initiative.
Just last Saturday, Ronald M. George, the chief justice of California, told the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in Cambridge, Mass., that California's government is dysfunctional, and he laid the blame squarely on overuse of the initiative process. ...
Earlier this month, similar sentiments were expressed by William H. Gross, who runs Newport Beach-based Pimco, the world's largest mutual bond fund, which has more than $840 billion under management. ...
The chances of repealing the initiative are somewhere south of zero. Yet no one can deny that George and Gross are right: As currently utilized, it's an instrument of havoc. Thus California is skewered on the horns of the democratic dilemma: The fault is neither in our stars nor in our process but in us, the people. Full Story
8. Political Unrest Portends Ecological Ruin in Madagascar
WorldWatch
October 9, 2009
Armed gangs are setting up camp in protected areas, logging the forests illegally and killing endangered species, such as lemurs, for the bushmeat trade, conservation groups said. The ongoing political fallout in Madagascar has led to a rise in both illegal and sanctioned logging, undermining decades of conservation work, environmental groups say. ...
International conservation groups and conservation scientists issued a joint press release on Tuesday warning that the increased pressure on protected forests is threatening to push many of the island's rare species toward extinction. In addition, endangered lemurs are being trapped in increasing numbers and sold as food.
"Bush meat hunting is definitely on the rise since the new government came in - there's basically a lack of governance in these parks," said CLAIRE KREMEN, A UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AT BERKELEY CONSERVATION BIOLOGIST who led efforts in the late 1990s to create Masoala National Park. "People coming in are armed, intimidating park guards and local people. There's not much they can do about it."... Full Story
9. Kuwait: Kidney for sale, asking price €1,500
The Observers, France24.com
October 14, 2009
This ad appeared on the walls of Kuwait City last week. It might seem surprising but it reveals the extent of a growing trend in private sales of organs in the Gulf state. One of our Observers in the capital phoned the number on the poster for further details.
The World Health Organisation estimates that around 5% of the yearly 70,000 transplanted organs are traded on the black market. ...
RESEARCHER NANCY SCHEPER-HUGHES FROM THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY, travelled to Turkey at the beginning of the decade to find out for what price she could sell a healthy kidney. At that time, it was just over 2,000 euros. A kidney in Baghdad can today reach up to €10,100. Meanwhile in Vietnam the going price is €2,600, in Egypt €2,300 and in India, just €675. Full Story
10. Seismology: Shaking up earthquake theory
Geological faults are not behaving as scientists once expected. Glennda Chui reports on efforts to forge a new understanding of quake behaviour.
Nature
October 14, 2009
That low rumbling emanating from California is no earthquake. It is the sound of the state's carefully honed earthquake-forecasting process being shaken hard and put back together.
"We're talking about a radical overhaul," says Ned Field, a seismologist with the US Geological Survey (USGS) in Denver, Colorado, and chairman of the Working Group on California Earthquake Probabilities. The group is charged with forecasting the probability of damaging earthquakes throughout the state over the next 30 years.
The group's report is due out in 2011 and, like its predecessors (see 'Earthquake probabilities in the California area'), it is expected to have enormous influence — not only on research but also on public policy in California, the most populous state in America and home to three-quarters of the nation's seismic risk. California has the most comprehensive earthquake-forecasting effort in the world and some of the best-studied faults, so lessons learned there will have ripple effects on other quake-plagued nations....
Scientists had known for some time that smaller earthquakes can come in clusters; that's what happens when the ground rattles with aftershocks following a major tremor. But the idea that one large quake could follow on the heels of another was startling. Researchers now routinely talk about large quakes triggering others, both on nearby and distant faults.
In fact, the giant 2004 Sumatran quake was followed by an unusual pattern of small tremors near Parkfield — suggesting that the Indonesian event had weakened the San Andreas fault some 8,000 kilometres away, according to an analysis published this month7. In that study, TAKA'AKI TAIRA, A SEISMOLOGIST AT THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY, AND HIS COLLEAGUES suggest that the Indonesian quake also could have triggered a spate of magnitude-8 shocks around the world.... Full Story
11. Key protein-design papers challenged
Chemists question stability of proteins from 2003 Nature study
Nature
October 14, 2009
Two papers published by protein engineer Homme Hellinga's lab at Duke University Medical Center in Durham, North Carolina, have been challenged.
Last year, Hellinga retracted papers in Science1 and the Journal of Molecular Biology2 after John Richard, a physical chemist at the State University of New York at Buffalo, found that enzymes designed by Hellinga's lab did not work as reported3. Now, questions have been raised about a 2003 paper in Nature4 and a 2004 paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences5. In both, Hellinga's group used a computer program called Dezymer to design proteins that could bind new molecules, or ligands....
Birte Höcker, a former postdoctoral fellow of Hellinga's, and her team at the Max Planck Institute for Developmental Biology in Tübingen, Germany, assembled and analysed five of the designed proteins that seemed to work best6. She found that all five were very unstable, and one was too unstable to analyse further. The group then examined the structure of one of the proteins using crystallography and found that its binding pocket was similar to that predicted by Dezymer — but that it did not bind its intended ligand....
"There is a qualitative difference in the results from Hellinga's lab and the German lab," adds JACK KIRSCH, A CHEMIST AND BIOLOGIST AT THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY. "Clearly they can't both be right."... Full Story
12. Discovery of dwarf galaxy is big find for Macalester professor
Minneapolis Star Tribune
October 14, 2009
In some ways, discovering a new galaxy is all in a day's work for John Cannon, Macalester College assistant professor of physics and astronomy....
But having found a galaxy unlike all the others -- all the millions seen so far, that is -- Cannon, a team of fellow astronomers and now some Macalester students are pondering some new questions about the universe, including how the very stars are formed....
"This is an inherently interesting galaxy," said LEO BLITZ, PROFESSOR OF ASTRONOMY AT THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA-BERKELEY, who studies galaxy formation. "Finding a galaxy like this, that's evolved in isolation, can ultimately tell us how galaxies themselves form. You don't see that very often."...
Dwarf galaxies are beginning to interest astronomers because more and more such galaxies are being detected on the fringes of the Milky Way, Blitz said.... Full Story
13. Rational Irrationality: The Nobel That Should Have Been
New Yorker Magazine
October 14, 2009
Call me slow, but, forty-eight hours on, I still don’t get this year’s economics Nobels. First those zany Norwegians award President Obama the Peace Prize for having good intentions. Then, in a year when economics was featured on the front pages as seldom before, they hand the dismal-science award to a relatively obscure BERKELEY ECONOMIST, OLIVER E. WILLIAMSON, and a positively obscure (to most economists, anyway) Indiana University political scientist, Elinor Ostrom.
Don’t get me wrong. Williamson, 77, and Ostrom, 76, have both produced significant and original scholarship, and I congratulate them on their success. Williamson, who studied under the polymath Herbert Simon and for many years taught at the University of Pennsylvania, developed a theory of why big corporations develop which hinges on the need to minimize “transaction costs.” (To put it crudely, by eliminating haggling and replacing it with diktat, firms can do some things more cheaply and efficiently than the market can do them.) Formalizing and testing Williamson’s intuitive insights has kept many economists gainfully employed. If it’s a bit difficult to assess the practical importance of his ideas, the same can be said of many other Nobel-winning contributions. Ostrom, through a series of case studies, cast doubt on the traditional view that commonly owned resources, such as rivers and grazing pastures, are invariably overused—the so-called “Tragedy of the Commons.” With other scholars, she also carried out some economic experiments that demonstrated people’s willingness to punish cheaters and defectors even when there is no gain to them personally in doing it. (It was in reading up on this area, a few years ago, that I first came across her name.) The fact that Ostrom is the first woman to win the prize gives added significance to her selection.
In the economics blogosphere, the reaction to the announcement was respectful. ... BRAD DE LONG, A BERKELEY COLLEAGUE OF WILLIAMSON, put up a picture of an impromptu party in his honor. ... Full Story
14. Push on to expand $8,000 tax credit
Some want to expand the tax credit for homebuyers. Supporters say it could stem price declines. Critics say it would just be a costly, temporary fix.
CNNMoney.com
October 14, 2009
New York -- Congress is considering proposals to greatly expand a soon-to-expire $8,000 tax credit for first-time homebuyers -- potentially applying it to all but the wealthiest homebuyers....
"An expansion of the tax credit would spur an increase similar to what occurred in the lower end of the market, by motivating buyers in the 'trade-up market' to purchase a higher priced primary home," said KENNETH ROSEN in testimony before Congress. Rosen runs the consulting group that conducted the study and is CHAIRMAN OF THE FISHER CENTER FOR REAL ESTATE AND URBAN ECONOMICS AT THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA IN BERKELEY.... Full Story
15. How about a bailout for student debtors?
If the U.S. can come to the assistance of banks and homeowners, surely it could offer a helping hand in the form of lower interest rates for students.
Los Angeles Times
October 14, 2009
Like many recent college grads, Los Angeles resident STEVEN LEE finds himself unemployed in one of the roughest job markets in decades and saddled with a big pile of debt. He owes about $84,000 in student loans for undergrad and grad-school costs.
But what Lee's angry about isn't the slings and arrows of an outrageous economy, and it isn't the idea that he owes a ton of money for all the schooling he's received.
It's the interest rates on his government-backed student loans, which range from 6.8% to a whopping 8.5%.
..."The government has bailed out homeowners. It's bailed out big businesses. Why can't it also help students?"
Good question -- and one that's especially germane as tuition continues to soar at both public and private universities. The UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA is looking to raise its fees 32% next year to more than $10,000 a year.
"If I was a student, I'd be outraged too," said Tony Hollin, chief executive of Edamerica, the seventh-largest provider of student loans nationwide, with about $1.6 billion in loans originated last year. "This is an issue that more people need to be aware of."
Edamerica lent $30,000 to Lee so he could get a master's degree in clinical psychology from the Santa Barbara campus of Antioch University. This followed LEE'S EARNING A BACHELOR'S DEGREE IN SOCIOLOGY AND PSYCHOLOGY FROM UC BERKELEY.... Full Story
16. ARCS Foundation celebrates scholarships
San Francisco Chronicle
October 14, 2009
A San Francisco group of volunteer women supporting young scientists is to announce today that its members have awarded more than $14 million in scholarships to more than 2,000 graduate students at Northern California universities since it was founded in 1970.
The ARCS Foundation - Achievement Rewards for College Scientists - said members raised $566,500 this year alone to support 59 students at Stanford, San Francisco State, UCSF and the UC CAMPUSES AT BERKELEY, Davis and Santa Cruz.... Full Story
17. Jaycee Dugard Captive No More
People Magazine
October 14, 2009
The two girls, white as ghosts, walked shyly into the birthday party at 7 p.m. Starlit, 15, and Angel, 11, wore blue sundresses and sandals, mingled with other girls and listened to rap music....
On that night, perhaps, everything seemed innocent—but Molino soon learned the two girls were trapped in a horrific living nightmare. On Aug. 26, police in Concord, Calif., discovered that 29-year-old Jaycee Dugard—kidnapped in 1991 when she was just 11—was still alive and living with her alleged abductor, Phillip Garrido, 58. ...
...Garrido apparently believed himself to be a powerful messenger of God and even set up a church in his basement. ... On Aug. 25 he turned up on the campus of UC BERKELEY with Starlit and Angel to get a permit for an event in which he planned to spread his message. LISA CAMPBELL, 40, UCPD'S MANAGER OF SPECIAL EVENTS, saw the group and noticed the girls "were nonresponsive; they didn't have the energy that children of their age generate," she later explained. Campbell called in ALLY JACOBS, A SECURITY OFFICER, who said the girls spoke in "a monotone. It was almost like Little House on the Prairie meets robots."
Jacobs ran a background check on Garrido, turning up his record. She called his parole officer, and on Aug. 26 Garrido was summoned to a parole office in Concord; inexplicably he arrived with his wife, Jaycee and the girls.... Full Story
18. City Brights Blog: Good Music, Talk in Oakland
San Francisco Chronicle Online
October 14, 2009
In my previous post, I wrote about a good cause, helping the Asian Health Services of Oakland, California, restore its modest, but effective HIV/AIDS prevention and education program. One funding strategy was a "yogathon."
Now I'd like to draw your attention to another good cause, based also in Oakland's Chinatown. It's helping the Oakland Asian Cultural Center (OACC) maintain its cultural programs and services....
This Saturday night (October 17), the OACC will present what should be a stimulating and entertaining evening program, Diaspora Tale #2: 1969, that features Bay Area saxophonist Francis Wong and other musicians, and a panel discussion with veterans of the Third World Strike at the UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AT BERKELEY in 1969. Asian Improve aRts is co-presenter of this program....
The talk portion of the evening's program will involve five activists who either organized or participated in the Cal Third World Strike 40 years ago, or who later carried on the mission of that strike....
The Third World Strike at Cal resulted in the ETHNIC STUDIES DEPARTMENT that includes the Asian American Studies program. San Francisco State University established such specialized academic programs before Cal did, and many other institutions of higher learning have since instituted these kinds of departments and programs.... Full Story
19. S.F. Jazz Festival kicks off with legendary singer Omara Portuondo
San Jose Mercury News (*requires registration)
October 14, 2009
...Wayne's World: You don't have to wait until next week to hear some terrific jazz. Get a jump start Saturday by attending the CAL PERFORMANCES concert with Wayne Shorter.
Shorter, who etched his name among jazz immortals as part of Miles Davis' second great quintet (the same one that included Tony Williams), is one of the finest saxophonists of all time and, arguably, an even better composer. He's bringing his great quartet — featuring Danilo Perez on piano, John Patitucci on bass and Brian Blade on drums — the same one that I saw him with last year at San Francisco's Masonic Center.
Shorter's set at the Masonic was inspiring, as he lived up to his legend in every facet of his game, and I highly recommend that fans catch him in Berkeley. Show time is 8 p.m. The venue is ZELLERBACH HALL ON THE UC BERKELEY CAMPUS, Bancroft Way at Telegraph Ave. Tickets are $28-$52. Call 510-642-9988 or visit www.calperformances.org.... Full Story
20. Dance Review: 'Dead' is alive
Joe Goode, Holcombe Waller, and UC Berkeley Students deliver a promising new work
San Francisco Bay Guardian
October 14, 2009
Wonderboy, Basil Twist's adorably insecure puppet in Joe Goode's 2008 work of the same name, has grown up. His name is Monroe (Daniel Duque-Estrada), and he lives in a community looking eerily like that in one of Armistead Maupin's light-hearted Tales of the City. It even includes a wise woman named Anna (Lura Dola) who likes to grow plants. But Goode digs deeper.
Monroe is the hero of Goode and Holcombe Waller's new musical Dead Boys. He is still scared, but now to the point where he has shut down his emotions. It's not a good way to be, particularly if you are a would-be writer whose sense of pain, anger, and helplessness paralyzes your work as well as your life. One of Dead's funniest monologues is Monroe's raging using performance theory vocabulary, the lingua franca in today's academy.
Created with and performed by STUDENTS FROM UC BERKELEY'S DEPARTMENTS OF THEATER, DANCE, AND PERFORMANCE STUDIES AND MUSIC, the evening-length Boys is a "multidisciplinary mashup of dance, music, and theater," as Goode calls it. Full Story