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Monday, 2 November 2009
1. World's top 100 universities named
UPI
November 2, 2009
Shanghai, Nov. 2 (UPI) -- U.S. universities were tops among the world's top 100 institutions of higher education, a report found.
Once again American universities dominated the world rankings as they have for the past six years, taking all but three of the top 20 spots, The University World News Web site said.
Three U.S. universities took the top three positions. Harvard ranked first, Stanford second and the UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA BERKELEY came in at third place....
The Web site said 67 of the top 100 universities are located in the United States, 13 in Britain and five in Japan.
Israel's Hebrew University in Jerusalem ranked 64th, data released by the Center for World Class Universities and the Institute of Higher Education at Shanghai's Jiao Tong University said Sunday.
The rankings were based on criteria which included the number of scientific publications released by institutes and the number of graduates who won the Nobel Prize. Full Story
2. Harvard brand takes a hit in tough times
Reuters
October 30, 2009
New York (Reuters Life!) - Tough economic times have hurt Harvard University's public standing in the media over the past nine months, while schools perceived as a safer educational investment have benefited, a research firm said....
Global Language Monitor ranks the top 200 colleges and universities according to their appearances in the global print and electronic media, the Internet, blogs and social media....
THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA-BERKELEY was among the "public Ivies" making a jump, rising to sixth from 10th, and the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill vaulted to ninth from 17th. Full Story
3. Special Report: Business Schools Try New Asia Strategies
Haas, Manchester, and Iowa are among the B-schools striving to build Asia ties through EMBA and alternative degree programs
Business Week
November 2, 2009
LIKE MANY PROFESSORS AT THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AT BERKELEY'S HAAS SCHOOL OF BUSINESS, DEAN RICH LYONS takes pride in the university's close ties with Asia. More than 40% of Berkeley's undergraduate students are Asian or Asian American, and the university's schools have strong research ties across the Pacific. Berkeley, says Lyons, "is the most Asia-leaning of all Western universities. You can't but walk around the campus and see how extraordinarily Asian the place is."
The post-Lehman credit crunch, though, has hurt some of the business school's Asian connections. The number of international students at Haas dropped from 39% two years ago to 33% now, says Lyons. That's because students from outside the U.S. have had trouble getting loans. In the past, overseas students without a local co-signer could get loans from Citibank (C) or Sallie Mae (SLM), but in the aftermath of the Lehman bankruptcy, "the no co-signer market collapsed," Lyons says. As a result, "we had a heckuva time making sure these international students had financing." While Haas ended up making loans itself, the school lost students as a result of the sudden credit crisis.
Now Haas is looking to make up some of its lost ground. Rivals such as Northwestern's Kellogg, University of Southern California's Marshall, and UCLA's Anderson have executive MBA programs with schools in Asia, providing opportunities for the American schools to build ties with business leaders in the region. Berkeley has long resisted setting up such partnerships, on the theory that a vital part of a Berkeley education was the experience of living and studying in the Bay Area. Lyons says Haas isn't about to change now. Among the schools offering EMBAs, "it's getting a little me-too, a little bit commoditized."
So Lyons is considering alternatives. Last month he traveled to Hong Kong and other parts of the region, in part to investigate interest in a program that would offer some classes in Asia and some in California. "It would be nice to offer a degree program in the region that is on-brand, that's different and very Berkeley," he says. "It would be in California but we would need to deliver chunks of it here." Lyons hopes to have a program launched before his term as dean expires four years from now.... Full Story
4. Brain scanners can tell what you're thinking about
New Scientist
October 28, 2009
What are you thinking about? Which memory are you reliving right now? You may think that only you can answer, but by combining brain scans with pattern-detection software, neuroscientists are prying open a window into the human mind.
In the last few years, patterns in brain activity have been used to successfully predict what pictures people are looking at, their location in a virtual environment or a decision they are poised to make. The most recent results show that researchers can now recreate moving images that volunteers are viewing - and even make educated guesses at which event they are remembering.
Last week at the Society for Neuroscience meeting in Chicago, JACK GALLANT, A LEADING "NEURAL DECODER" AT THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY, presented one of the field's most impressive results yet. He and COLLEAGUE SHINJI NISHIMOTO showed that they could create a crude reproduction of a movie clip that someone was watching just by viewing their brain activity. Others at the same meeting claimed that such neural decoding could be used to read memories and future plans - and even to diagnose eating disorders.
Understandably, such developments are raising concerns about "mind reading" technologies, which might be exploited by advertisers or oppressive governments (see "The risks of open-mindedness"). Yet despite - or perhaps because of - the recent progress in the field, most researchers are wary of calling their work mind-reading. Emphasising its limitations, they call it neural decoding.
They are quick to add that it may lead to powerful benefits, however. These include gaining a better understanding of the brain and improved communication with people who can't speak or write, such as stroke victims or people with neurodegenerative diseases. There is also excitement over the possibility of being able to visualise something highly graphical that someone healthy, perhaps an artist, is thinking....
[Another story on this topic appeared in the Daily Mail (UK)] Full Story
5. Charlie Rose Show: Brain Series Episode One
PBS
October 28, 2009
Tonight’s introductory topic-- The Great Mysteries of the Human Brain: consciousness, free will, perception, cognition, emotion and memory with a roundtable of brain researchers. Co-Host Eric Kandel from Columbia University and Howard Hughes Medical Institute; Cornelia Bargmann from Rockefeller University, Tony Movshon from New York University, JOHN SEARLE FROM UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA BERKELEY and Gerald Fischbach of the Simons Foundation
[Look for link to video in program archive] Full Story
6. Dysfunctional California
Maybe it is time to stop scapegoating legislators
San Francisco Chronicle
November 1, 2009
Maybe it's time to call your state legislator to admit "It's not you, it's me."
A recent Field Poll, designed by a panel of POLITICAL SCIENTISTS from Stanford, BERKELEY and yours truly from California State University Sacramento, asked Californians a series of questions about proposed reforms to state government and various constitutional convention scenarios. The findings reveal a virtually impossible-to-please electorate.
On one hand, majorities in the poll think "fundamental changes" need to be made to the state Constitution. Citizens much prefer a package of revisions done all at once, and they want what is in many ways a radical solution - a new constitutional convention. Indeed, the Bay Area Council and a coalition called California Forward are both actively pursuing a convention, possibly on the 2010 ballot.
This is, of course, a familiar pattern in California politics. If we feel unease, we grasp at the big, bold changes that just might be crazy enough to work. Think of the dramatic tax overhaul that was Proposition 13, or our strict legislative term limits, or the recall of a governor, whom, naturally, we replaced with an action movie hero.
When we're unhappy, we go big. Yet these changes never seem to fix the problems, and in many cases, they create new ones.... Full Story
7. Op-Ed: California's folly - Prop. 13
San Francisco Chronicle
November 1, 2009
In November 1978, Harper's magazine published my article on the passage of Proposition 13 under the headline "Californians Rush for Fool's Gold."
At that time, Prop. 13 was getting lots of national media attention. The pundits of type and tube were hyping California as the pacesetter for a post-Watergate America. At the same time, the cultural gurus were proclaiming it to be a proving ground for paradise....
Instead, Prop. 13 was to become California's Folly. I thought then, and am firmly convinced now, that the key elements in the proposition - the taxation formula and the two-thirds legislative requirement - would be responsible for causing a fiscal and social disaster. These two requirements have, in time, helped to lead the state into financial bankruptcy and created a dysfunctional state government.
The social consequences that I predicted then, and are all too apparent now, are a race to the bottom in: education (from kindergarten through our world-class university system); public health; social services; public safety; the arts, library and culture; and infrastructure development; as well as harming the ability of local governments to provide basic amenities.
In one way or another, almost everyone will pay a price; but the middle class, the working class and the poor - those who are dependent on public services - will be hurt the most.... Full Story
8. The Whole Applicant
New York Times & International Herald Tribune (*requires registration)
November 1, 2009
Patricia B. Taylor, an assistant principal at Rye High School in Westchester County, N.Y., noticed the shift a few years ago. Public colleges and universities that were once content to crunch grade-point averages and SAT scores suddenly wanted more. They began asking for essays and recommendations, wanting to understand the academic rigor — or lack thereof — behind an applicant’s coursework....
Across the country, selective public colleges and universities are taking a page from their private counterparts and implementing what is commonly called a holistic or comprehensive admissions process....
For students, the evolution has meant less certainty. Colleges find themselves scrambling to explain the process to parents and high school guidance counselors who are newly anxious about a star student’s chances. “We try to be transparent, but still, the very nature of holistic review is not transparent,” says Christine N. Van Gieson, director of admissions at the University of California, Santa Barbara....
Santa Barbara is a vivid illustration of the swell of applications lapping against the gates of strong public universities, and the resulting increase in selectivity. In 1997, the campus admitted about 70 percent of 20,700 applicants. This fall it admitted less than half of 45,000 applicants. In the pecking order of the UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, Santa Barbara isn’t even at the apex. (That is jointly occupied by BERKELEY and Los Angeles, both of which admitted only 2 of every 10 applicants this year.)...
The move toward holistic admissions comes as many institutions of higher education struggle with reduced budgets. The method is costly.... Full Story
9. Union Votes Down Ford Concessions
The Wall Street Journal (*requires registration)
October 31, 2009
Detroit -- Ford Motor Co.'s rank-and-file union members rejected a concessions agreement, leaving the auto maker at risk to higher costs compared with competitors Chrysler Group LLC and General Motors Co....
"This was a tough sell from the beginning," said HARLEY SHAIKEN, A PROFESSOR AT THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AT BERKELEY who specializes in labor issues. "Ford was caught in between of doing better and advertising that, and the UAW already giving Ford concessions."
He said both Ford and the UAW failed to clearly define the future so workers, already pinched by the economic recessions, decided to vote against more cuts.
"I think Ford is smart enough not to retaliate and move work away from plants," Mr. Shaiken said. "However, I suspect it will lightly influence Ford's investment decisions in the future."...
[Other stories on this topic appeared in the New York Times & International Herald Tribune and Wall Street Journal (link by subscription only)] Full Story
10. Prototype: Everybody in the Pool of Green Innovation
New York Times & International Herald Tribune (*requires registration)
November 1, 2009
A popular children’s song has a refrain — “the more we get together the happier we’ll be” — that may sound like a simplistic formula for solving the complex challenges of climate change and sustainability. But if any area is ripe for sharing and collaboration among organizations, it’s green innovation....
Despite the obvious advantages, sharing patents isn’t as easy as it might sound....
HENRY CHESBROUGH, THE EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR OF THE CENTER FOR OPEN INNOVATION AT THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY, says it is surprisingly hard to give away technologies. “If it is not done carefully,” he said, “the companies that use a donated technology might find themselves liable for infringement of another company’s patent.”... Full Story
11. Google's desire to scan old books has critics casting it as Goliath
San Jose Mercury News (*requires registration)
November 2, 2009
Google's ambitious plan to scan millions of old, out of print books, many of them forgotten in musty university libraries, has turned into one of the biggest controversies in the young company's history....
In an op-ed article in The New York Times, [Company co-founder Sergey] Brin said Google hoped "to unlock the wisdom held in the enormous number of out-of-print books, while fairly compensating the rights holders."
Brin did not even mention the Justice Department's concerns about competitive disadvantage in the article....
For opponents like PAM SAMUELSON, A COPYRIGHT EXPERT AT THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY, who helped organize opposition to the digital books plan, Brin's omissions rankle.
"To me that sounds like they don't care what the Department of Justice thinks. It sounds a little like hubris to me," Samuelson said. "Google has done a great job of shining the spotlight on things about the settlement that people would find attractive, but they don't tell you some of the stuff that would be most worrisome about it."... Full Story
12. Prison Studies
Field Report: Prison Studies 1
Chronicle of Higher Education (*requires registration)
November 1, 2009
The Background
Some 2.3-million people are incarcerated in the United States....
The annual bill: $64-billion.
Reacting to that scale and to increasingly harsh methods of imprisonment, scholars across the social sciences and humanities are energetically studying incarceration, reviving a research interest of the 1960s and 1970s that was inspired by prison-reform efforts....
David Garland, a professor of sociology and law at New York University, suggests that a "penal-welfare" system that sought to rehabilitate prisoners held sway for a century until the 1970s, when militant prison reform provoked conservatives like Ronald Reagan to impose radical law-and-order regimes. Even as crime rates eased, fearful voters came to view criminals, particularly African-American ones, as undeserving of the rights of citizenship.
JONATHAN SIMON, A LAW PROFESSOR AT THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AT BERKELEY'S CENTER FOR CRIMINAL JUSTICE, sees the roots of the phenomenon in the collapse of the New Deal in the 1960s and the rise of a new kind of social control: Fear-mongering by governments and other powerful agents led to a societal embrace of the lockdown in various forms—incarceration, the detention of immigrants, zero-tolerance policies in schools, and gated communities. The BERKELEY SOCIAL THEORIST LOÏC WACQUANT, too, contends that neoliberalism has eroded democratic citizenship by imposing harsh penal policies as a means of containing social unrest....
While Wacquant, like another SENIOR PRISON RESEARCHER AT BERKELEY, FRANKLIN E. ZIMRING, concludes that class is a greater factor than race, Perkinson sees mass incarceration as a backlash against the civil-rights era, an echo of chattel slavery, and a triumph of the old South's punitive, plantation-style approach to imprisonment over a Northern, Quaker-inspired emphasis on rehabilitation....
Researchers agree that if they are to understand how hordes of minor, nonviolent drug offenders cycle through prisons—or other issues, such as the huge numbers of mentally-ill people caught up in the corrections system, often merely because they are unable to navigate their way out—they will need far greater access to cells and yards: to prisoners' attitudes, motivations, and tendencies.
STAFF AT THE CENTER FOR THE STUDY OF LAW AND SOCIETY AT BERKELEY, founded in 1961, have performed that kind of ethnographic research, but the most renowned practitioner is the Prisons Research Centre at the University of Cambridge, whose staff specializes in encouraging prisons' "moral performance"—their success in becoming safer, more humane, and better able to rehabilitate inmates....
[Link by subscription only] Full Story
13. Anthony Sowell and Phillip Garrido Cases Raise Questions about Sex Offender Monitoring
Sowell Was Last Visited By Police About One Month Ago
ABC News Online
November 2, 2009
Registered sex offender Anthony Sowell was able to hide six decomposed bodies in his Cleveland home from officials who routinely checked in on him has called into question the effectiveness of the probation and parole system.
There are too few officers checking on a growing registry of sex offenders that often tops 100 for each officer to keep an eye on, at times giving the same level of scrutiny to offenders who had one-time flings with a minor to dangerous predators. "The system is broken in the sense that we have a lot of people on sex registries and while it gives us a list of people who might be involved in crimes, there are so many people on those lists that they're overly inclusive," said JONATHAN SIMON, THE ASSOCIATE DEAN FOR JURISPRUDENCE AND SOCIAL POLICY AT UC BERKELEY'S SCHOOL OF LAW. "[These lists] don't give authorities the chance to select those who are the higher risks," said Simon....
Jonathan Simon, the associate dean for Jurisprudence and Social Policy at UC Berkeley's School of Law, said that the long lists sex offenders like Garrido and Sowell are put on are often ineffective in preventing future crimes from being committed.
"The system is broken in the sense that we have a lot of people on sex registries and while it gives us a list of people who might be involved in crimes, there are so many people on those lists that they're overly inclusive," said Simon. "[These lists] don't give authorities the chance to select those who are the higher risks," said Simon....
Simon said another problem with the system is that many officers who follow offenders for years tend to get lax in their surveillance after making house calls for years.
"How do you spot [a criminal] and whose behavior on the surface doesn't put them far outside the norm in their community?" said Simon. Full Story
14. Regional: Appeals Courts Hold Special Sessions At Berkeley And Stanford Law Schools
KPIX Online
November 2, 2009
Both the California Supreme Court and a federal appeals court based in San Francisco are set to reach out to Bay Area law schools this week by holding special sessions on two campuses.
On Tuesday, the state high court will hear arguments on five cases during a session in an auditorium at the SCHOOL OF LAW OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AT BERKELEY.
The cases concern whether the Legislature can set allowable amounts of medical marijuana, the use of DNA evidence and a California law that restricts residence locations for convicted sex offenders.
The court's seven justices will hear appeals of rulings by regional state appeals courts.... Full Story
15. Grade the teachers: A way to improve schools, one instructor at a time
Boston Globe
November 1, 2009
A good teacher equals a good school year. ...
Nearly everyone can probably recall a teacher who lit their passion for poetry or who was able to help them connect all the dots in a seemingly incomprehensible algebra formula. We know that individual teachers can make a huge difference.
But public schools in America have been bent on ignoring the obvious: Almost nothing about the way we hire, evaluate, pay, or assign teachers to classrooms is designed to operate with that goal in mind. ...
Now, increasingly challenging this status quo is a new wave of research showing that one can actually measure the difference a teacher makes. The studies use a statistical analysis of standardized test results to measure the “value added” that each teacher contributes each year, revealing stark differences in their ability to move a class forward. ...
Critics of value-added assessments contend that there is far too much room for these studies to miss factors that might account for apparent teacher-effectiveness differences but actually have nothing to do with the teacher. JESSE ROTHSTEIN, A UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA-BERKELEY ECONOMIST, wrote a paper earlier this year suggesting that principals do not randomly assign students of varying abilities to classrooms, a practice he says could skew results. Others have pointed to the unreliability of value-added assessments of teachers that are based on only a couple of years of data or small numbers of students.... Full Story
16. Bay Bridge reopens with new precautions
After six days, San Francisco's Bay Bridge reopened for the Monday morning commute. Extra steps have been taken to ensure the repairs don't fail again, officials said.
Christian Science Monitor
November 2, 2009
San Francisco - Six days after it was closed because of a failed repair job, snarling traffic throughout the Bay Area and raising fresh safety concerns, the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge reopened around 9 a.m. Monday....
Transportation officials blamed traffic vibration and high winds for undoing a Labor Day repair job to a cracked structural beam called an eyebar....
But, according to ABOLHASSAN ASTANEH-ASL, A CIVIL ENGINEERING PROFESSOR AT THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY, engineers rushed the Labor Day fix. He told AP that the repair was just a "Band-Aid" on a fracture that was symptomatic of larger problems with the Bay Bridge.... Full Story
17. Perry gigs Schwarzenegger in battle with Hutchison
Dallas Morning News
October 31, 2009
Austin – In his quest for re-election, Gov. Rick Perry has launched a two-coast offensive.
Everyone knows his riff on Washington: bad, wasteful, arrogant. For Perry, contempt of Congress isn't a crime; it's common sense.
But punctuating the speeches and interviews is another bad boy: California....
It's a state that needs strong, conservative leadership to bring it back from the brink, he told The Wall Street Journal in August, and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger – a fellow Republican – can't deliver it....
JACK CITRIN, HEAD OF GOVERNMENTAL STUDIES AT THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA-BERKELEY, said that while both governors might be Republican, "Schwarzenegger and Perry do occupy different points on the political spectrum."
Schwarzenegger is a GOP governor in a Democratic state with a Democratic legislature.
"For a Republican to win at the statewide level, you can be a fiscal conservative, but if you take a fairly hard line on social issues, you'd have a hard time winning," Citrin said.
Over the past few years, when legislators had a surplus, they spent it. And once the bubble burst, there were no reserves and few options left for California, Citrin said.
But this summer, Schwarzenegger won the fiscal fight by insisting "on significant cuts in services and a budget that didn't raise taxes," Citrin said. "He was really pretty close to what your governor would call the Republican mantra."... Full Story
18. Sloppynomics
The Freakonomics duo tackles climate change -- and discovers the limits of cleverness
Boston Globe
November 1, 2009
Four years ago, “Freakonomics” took the reading world by storm. Co-written by the acclaimed economist Steven Levitt and the journalist Stephen Dubner, the book pulled off the unlikely coup of recasting economics, the theretofore dismal science, as a tool for cerebral swashbucklers....
Now Dubner and Levitt are at it again, marshalling the forces of data to trouble the conventional wisdom and dethrone the experts. In their new book, “SuperFreakonomics,” they argue that walking drunk is more dangerous than driving drunk, that a doctor’s skill doesn’t matter very much, and that prostitution makes poor women better off....
Along the way, the authors explain the economics of LoJack and the difficulty of getting doctors to wash their hands, and every few pages there is another conventional wisdom-exploding salvo, often calling into question the reliability of current predictions of global warming or questioning the role that carbon dioxide plays in it.
The book’s critics range from environmental activists and opinion journalists to climate scientists and liberal economists like Paul Krugman and UC BERKELEY’S BRAD DELONG... Full Story
19. Obituary: Seymour Fromer, Archivist of Jewish Contribution to West, Dies at 87
New York Times & International Herald Tribune (*requires registration)
November 2, 2009
Seymour Fromer, who with his wife, Rebecca, opened a museum in California that eventually came to hold one of the largest collections of Judaica in North America, including archives documenting the history of Jews in the American West, died Oct. 25 at his home in Berkeley, Calif. He was 87....
What became the Judah L. Magnes Museum in Berkeley started serendipitously in 1960 when Mr. Fromer was browsing through an old bookstore in Oakland and came across a 1894 yearbook from a local high school. In it was a photo of Judah Magnes. Mr. Fromer, an administrator of Jewish schools, knew that Magnes had gone on to become the first ordained rabbi in California. The Fromers later met Rabbi Magnes’s widow in Israel and decided to create a museum dedicated primarily to Jewish history in the West....
“Many Jews came out here during the Gold Rush period in the 1840s and ’50s, and some of them became among the most prominent families in the Bay Area,” ROBERT ALTER, A PROFESSOR OF HEBREW AND COMPARATIVE LITERATURE AT THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY, said Thursday. “Until Seymour transformed the museum into a major institution with a focus on Jewish culture in this part of the country, most people were unaware of the Jewish contribution.”... Full Story
20. Iran grants Swiss access to detained US hikers
Washington Post
October 30, 2009
Washington -- Iranian authorities this week allowed a Swiss diplomat a second visit with three detained American hikers arrested for illegal entry near the Iraq border in late July, the State Department said Friday.
Spokesman Robert Wood said the Swiss ambassador to Iran was granted consular access to SHANE BAUER, SARAH SHOURD and JOSH FATTAL on Thursday "after repeated requests." He provided no details, citing privacy concerns but the families of the hikers said in a statement they were in "good physical shape."
They said the 40-minute visit was held at Evin Prison in Tehran, where the three are being held, and that the Swiss ambassador had brought them clothes and other supplies, including books and writing paper. The Swiss, who represent U.S. interests in Iran, were first allowed to visit the trio in late September....
Bauer, Shourd and Fattal were arrested July 31 after straying over the Iranian border while hiking in northern Iraq. ALL ARE GRADUATES OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY. The U.S. government and their families have appealed for their release, saying they were vacationing and did not mean to cross the border.
[This story appeared in more than 100 sources nationwide] Full Story
21. East Bay hosts conference about California Indians
Contra Costa Times (*requires registration)
October 30, 2009
Hayward — Hundreds of scholars and tribal leaders and members gathered at Cal State East Bay this weekend for the annual California Indian Conference.
The two-day gathering began Friday evening with song, dance and stories at Coyote Hills Regional Park in Fremont, home to the site of a 2,000-year-old Tuibun Ohlone village.
The event, founded by a UC BERKELEY ANTHROPOLOGIST and held for more than 25 years at different spots across the state, provides a regular forum for those who study American Indian communities to discuss their work....
UC Berkeley hosted the first conference in 1985 and four others after that. This year is the first time another East Bay school has hosted the event. Full Story
22. Book Review: 'The Greatest Show on Earth'
San Francisco Chronicle
November 1, 2009
The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution
By Richard Dawkins
(Free Press; 470 pages; $30)
Richard Dawkins, who recently retired from the Oxford University faculty, is a canny, funny and beguiling biologist.
Like a detective reconstructing a crime, he gives us dozens upon dozens of clues from the fossil record and from today's genetics laboratories to persuade us all that evolution is indeed real and that the process has in fact made us all relatives, however distant, of everything else alive....
Publication of "The Greatest Show" just missed the powerful evidence of Ardipithecus ramidus - "Ardi" - a million years older than "Lucy" and at 4.2 million years old is the earliest hominid yet discovered. A female biped, her discovery was reported Oct. 9 by a TEAM OF ANTHROPOLOGISTS LED BY UC BERKELEY'S TIM D. WHITE, and Dawkins would have loved her.
But he has plenty to remind us about the other hominids, their fossils on display in museums around the world, from Australopithecus through Homo habilis through Homo erectus to us, Homo sapiens....
"The Greatest Show" is brilliant, detailed, anecdotal and immensely readable. It's badly needed in this era when the science of evolution is being threatened in our schools. Full Story
23. Book Review: Graphic novel explores mathematics
San Francisco Chronicle
October 31, 2009
Bertrand Russell is an unexpected comic book hero, but then, "Logicomix" is full of surprises.
It's a graphic novel about an abstruse intellectual quest involving some of the greatest mathematicians and philosophers of the 20th century, and it's told as a story within a story within a story. But you don't need a background in symbolic logic and meta- fiction to enjoy this entertaining work....
"Logicomix's" writers know their stuff. Novelist Apostolos Doxiadis has a strong mathematics background: His "Uncle Petros and Goldbach's Conjecture" merges fiction and math. Co-author CHRISTOS H. PAPADIMITRIOU IS A PROFESSOR OF COMPUTER SCIENCE AT UC BERKELEY and author of "Turing (A Novel About Computation)."
Both men, along with "Logicomix's" two artists, appear in the book, with Papadimitriou taking on the role of kibitzer, challenging his co-writer on matters of both form and content. "We thought it would be a funny way to bring out some of the contradictions in the story," Papadimitriou says....
Logicomix: Written by Apostolos Doxiadis and Christos H. Papadimitriou, illustrations by Alecos Papadatos and Annie di Donna. Bloomsbury; 347 pages; $22.95. Full Story
24. Local documentary 'Going On 13' focuses on awkward years of puberty
Contra Costa Times (*requires registration)
November 2, 2009
In the opening moments of the compelling documentary "Going On 13," Ariana, a feisty 9-year-old tomboy, claims she's not "the baby-doll type." She spends much of her time playing basketball and occasionally beats up on the boys, which lands her in trouble at school.
As for her future, it's precisely laid out: She wants to be a pro hoops star, have just one kid, and live in a "mansion house with a swimming pool in the back and a basketball court."
Oh, but how things change. Fast-forward four years, and Ariana is on an entirely different track. The ball has been tossed aside, and the fighting has stopped. She's pulling down solid grades at her Oakland school and dreaming of being a lawyer.
Ariana — only first names are used in the film — is one of four East Bay girls of racially diverse backgrounds featured in "Going On 13," which deftly tracks its subjects as they tiptoe through the precarious mine field of puberty. Produced by FORMER UC BERKELEY CLASSMATES KRISTY GUEVARA-FLANAGAN and DAWN VALADEZ, the award-winning documentary made the rounds at film festivals last year and is now appearing on public television stations throughout the country. Just recently, it spawned a Web site (www.gurlstalkback.com).... Full Story
25. America's cool college towns
Travel & Leisure
November 2, 2009
Burlington, Vermont (Travel + Leisure) -- On a recent afternoon along Church Street in Burlington, Vermont, young aspiring actors recited passages from Shakespeare's Henry V as jugglers, break-dancers, and blowers of didgeridoos displayed their skills nearby, creating a visual and aural cacophony. Just another day in a thriving college town -- this one happening to be home to the University of Vermont.
There are notable distinctions between college towns and other American cities....
BERKELEY, CALIFORNIA (UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA)
If coffee shops define a good college town, Berkeley has the competition beat. Some host bands, others show art, many sell fair-trade blends, and most offer a space where it's okay to relax for hours....
Many residents prefer the crackle of vinyl to MP3s; pick up some LPs at the well-stocked Amoeba Music on Telegraph Avenue, Berkeley's festive commercial strip. In the heart of campus, the 61-bell carillon provides the tunes atop 307-foot Sather Tower, which also offers stunning panoramas of San Francisco Bay.
Local taste: For brunch, fit in with the crunchy crowd by ordering a tofu scramble at Venus. For some local suds, stop in for pints at the festive Pyramid Brewery.... Full Story