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Tuesday, 3 November 2009
1. Chips and dips
Silicon Valley, a unique educational, research and industrial ecosystem, is feeling the recession. John Gilbey asks if its success can continue without sacrificing social commitments
Times Higher Education [UK]
October 22, 2009
From the observation deck at the top of Stanford University's Hoover Tower, you can look over the vast, tree-greened campus of the internationally renowned private research university, with its fountains and elegant Spanish colonial-style buildings. Beyond it, the grey matrix of Silicon Valley spreads out indistinctly in the summer heat against a background of distant brown hills....
These iconic scenes apart, how are Silicon Valley and the Bay Area surviving the recession? Can the region - home to some of the biggest global brands in both higher education and high technology - continue to be intellectually and commercially successful? How are the public and private, research and educational components reacting, and what impact is the Obama Administration having?...
ROBERT BIRGENEAU, CHANCELLOR OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY, believes that the future for higher education in the Valley must be based on "comprehensive excellence".
"We contribute in an extraordinarily broad way that probably isn't appreciated in pure academic circles. It isn't that the other universities don't care, but the elite private institutions have a different role in society."
He believes that symbiosis with the big, collocated government-funded laboratories is important, not least with regard to the trend towards the generation of multi-purpose facilities. "But it requires really good leadership," he warns. The Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory works intimately with UC Berkeley, and Birgeneau singles out [FORMER UC BERKELEY PROFESSOR] STEVEN CHU, a recent leader of the laboratory, a Nobel prizewinner and now Barack Obama's Secretary of Energy, for particular mention.
As director of the lab, Birgeneau says, Chu "broke down some of the usual kinds of administrative and institutional barriers that prevent symbiotic partnerships". How do you go about integrating two cultures as diverse as a liberal university and a highly process-driven research institute? It would not be a job for the faint-hearted, but it was probably good training for a future Secretary of Energy.
Has the integration process worked? Birgeneau's answer is an emphatic "yes": "From the academic side, I think it has gone straightforwardly." ...
So how does he see the wider role of Berkeley in the Bay Area community, a region with its fair share of social problems? "Berkeley for me is a paradigm of what a public university can be. Admission is purely merit based - but it's not just grades. We do what is called 'comprehensive admissions'; we look at success in a local context. We end up with a student body of exceptionally talented students from a phenomenal range of backgrounds."
Birgeneau describes these students as "engaged and engaging" and adds that this is probably the aspect of Berkeley he appreciates the most, and "one we have to fight continuously to maintain".... Full Story
2. Blog: Is the U.S. Killing Its Innovation Machine?
Revamping DARPA Is Vital to Preserving the U.S. Lead in IT
Harvard Business Review
November 3, 2009
Government-funded basic and applied research at U.S. universities has given rise to multi-billion-dollar industry after multi-billion-dollar industry. It has been one of the pillars of the U.S. high tech sector. But at least in information technology, the model has been seriously weakened by changes that the administration of George W. Bush instituted at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), which in the prior 30 years had bankrolled some of the most important advances in IT.
Specifically, DARPA under Bush drastically reduced the role of universities in IT research projects it funded and shifted both power and money to companies. If the old DARPA model is not restored, the U.S. lead in IT — especially in software — could be lost....
Early indications are that DARPA's new director, Regina Dugan, will return to the path that DARPA employed in its heyday, which led to technologies and inventions that DARPA still brags about on its website.
There's a lot riding on which path DARPA follows. Full Story
3. Fathers Gain Respect From Experts (and Mothers)
New York Times & International Herald Tribune (*requires registration)
November 3, 2009
It used to irk Melissa Calapini when her 3-year-old daughter, Haley, hung around her father while he fixed his cars. Ms. Calapini thought there were more enriching things the little girl could be doing with her time....
As much as mothers want their partners to be involved with their children, experts say they often unintentionally discourage men from doing so. Because mothering is their realm, some women micromanage fathers and expect them to do things their way, said Marsha Kline Pruett, a professor at the Smith College School for Social Work at Smith College and a co-author of the new book “Partnership Parenting,” with her husband, the child psychiatrist Dr. Kyle Pruett (Da Capo Press)....
“The walls in family resource centers are pink, there are women’s magazines in the waiting room, the mother’s name is on the files, and the home visitor asks for the mother if the father answers the door,” said PHILIP A. COWAN, AN EMERITUS PROFESSOR OF PSYCHOLOGY AT THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY, who along with his wife, Carolyn Pape Cowan, has conducted decades of research on families. “It’s like fathers are not there.”
In recent years, several fathers’ rights organizations have offered father-only parenting programs and groups, and studies have shown that these help men become more responsive and engaged with their children.
But a new randomized, controlled study conducted by the Pruetts and the Cowans found that the families did even better if mothers were brought into the picture.... Full Story
4. Managing Your Career: Caring for an Ill Parent Even as Your Career Calls
Wall Street Journal (*requires registration)
November 3, 2009
As the jobless rate heads higher, you may need to relocate for work. But how can you cope when you or your spouse cares for an older parent? Your decision could crimp your chance to advance or accept employment....
Because of extended life spans, Americans increasingly confront elder-care issues. About one in eight employees is involved in caring for someone over age 65, estimates ANDREW SCHARLACH, A PROFESSOR OF AGING AT THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AT BERKELEY. By 2020, one in three people will have to provide care for an elderly parent, he predicts....
[Link by subscription only] Full Story
5. Corps starts $1B barrier for western New Orleans
Associated Press
November 3, 2009
Harvey, La. — Mindful that the suburban West Bank of New Orleans has regained its pre-Hurricane Katrina population and is primed for growth, the Army Corps of Engineers is launching a $1 billion effort to keep the next storm at bay....
The West Bank project is one of two the corps is building to protect New Orleans, the other being a similar storm surge barrier on the East Bank that closes off the Inner Harbor Navigation Canal....
They shouldn't sleep too soundly, according to ROBERT BEA, A CIVIL ENGINEER WITH THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY, and an expert on the New Orleans levee system. Bea called the West Bank project an example of the corps' flawed levee building policies, designed to handle a 100-year storm rather than shelter the area for many centuries like dikes in the Netherlands.
Bea's advice to West Bank developers and homeowners: "Build high, build strong because the level of protection is not sufficient to build low and weak."... Full Story
6. Sudden oak death test results are in
The Almanac [Menlo Park, Atherton, Portola Valley, Woodside]
November 2, 2009
Last April, residents of Portola Valley and Woodside went out and collected samples to test for sudden oak death (SOD), and gave them to SCIENTISTS FROM THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AT BERKELEY.
The results are in. Of 155 samples, 42 have been deemed positive for SOD, according to the Web site of the school's Forest Pathology and Mycology Lab.
MATTEO GARBELOTTO, AN ADJUNCT ASSISTANT PROFESSOR IN ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE, POLICY AND MANAGEMENT AT UC BERKELEY, will talk about the results at 7 p.m. Friday, Nov. 6, at Portola Valley's Historic Schoolhouse at 765 Portola Road.... Full Story
7. Omega comes first for brain imaging
Chemical Technology
November 2, 2009
Remote-controlled miniature valves designed by US scientists can deliver tracers into the brain.
Real-time neuroimaging studies on small animals such as mice are needed to understand the relationship between behavioural events and brain function, says Ellis Meng, leader of the team at the University of Southern California, Los Angeles. Standard techniques such as MRI require the animal to be immobilised which severely limits the events that can be studied. Radiotracers selectively label areas of the brain with elevated blood flow and have been used in larger animals without the need for sedation. Imaging the labelled areas can link areas of increased brain activity with a particular behaviour.
Existing valves are too heavy to use in small animals without affecting their mobility. So, Meng's team have created a small, light, valve which can be remotely operated for fast, on-demand tracer delivery....
'They tackled a real immediate problem,' says MICHEL MAHARBIZ, A MICROMACHINE ENGINEER AT THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY, US. 'Flowing all the drug in at one time; it has to be a robust structure and very reliable,' he adds.
The team are now building the other side of the system - a cage that is wirelessly hooked up to talk to the implant. Maharbiz seemed in no doubt that the USC group would perfect their device: 'They are very close, they have done a nice analysis job and it is very nice engineering,' he says. Full Story
8. Calling a Coup a Coup
U.S. conservatives' Honduras revisionism is misguided and dangerous.
Foreign Policy
November 2, 2009
Events in Honduras took a dramatic turn last week as an agreement was finally reached that could defuse the country's long-running political crisis. But the coup's defenders in the United States will likely maintain the dangerous stance they have adopted since late June. Ambassador Otto Reich's Oct. 27 article on ForeignPolicy.com perfectly captured the ideologically driven revisionism that conservatives have peddled since the coup that replaced Honduran President Manuel Zelaya with de facto president Roberto Micheletti. Reich vigorously defended Micheletti's assumption of power as the victory of the rule of law and a stand against Latin American leftists....
Micheletti's supporters cite a recent Congressional Research Service (CRS) report on the events of the coup to defend their claims, but ignore the fierce rebuttals this report has elicited. One of the most thorough was done by ROSEMARY JOYCE OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA-BERKELEY, following the legal analysis done by the University of Notre Dame's Doug Cassel. Joyce argues that the Honduran congress does not have (nor did it claim to have) the powers to remove the president that the CRS report suggests. She also debunks the idea that the congress can get rid of a president by "disapproving of him" -- the argument made in the CRS report -- even if it followed the right procedures, which it most certainly did not.... Full Story
9. Cosmic Vision
A new generation of giant telescopes will carry the eye to the edge of the universe.
National Geographic
July 1, 2009
When you start stargazing with a telescope, two experiences typically ensue. First, you are astonished by the view—Saturn’s golden rings, star clusters glittering like jewelry on black velvet, galaxies aglow with gentle starlight older than the human species—and by the realization that we and our world are part of this gigantic system. Second, you soon want a bigger telescope....
Today's largest telescopes have mirrors up to some ten meters (33 feet) in diameter, with quadruple the light-gathering power of the legendary five-meter Hale Telescope at Palomar Observatory in southern California. Looming large as office buildings, some of these giants are so highly automated that they can dust off their optics at sundown, open the dome, sequence and carry out observations throughout the night, and shut down come threatening weather, all with little or no human intervention. Yet humans, being human, still intervene a lot, if only to make sure nothing goes awry: To lose just one night's work at a big telescope these days is to squander as much as $100,000 in operating costs.
Few of the astronomers awarded time on the big telescopes actually go there to observe anymore. Most submit their requests electronically—on a recent night at Gemini, the scheduled projects ranged from "Primordial Solar System Masses" to "Magnetic Activity in Ultracool Dwarfs"—and the results are sent back to them. [UC BERKELEY ASTRONOMY PROFESSOR] GEOFF MARCY, a modern-day Prince Henry the Navigator whose team has discovered more than 150 planets orbiting stars other than our sun, gets more observing time than most at Keck but has not been there for years. Instead, his extrasolar planet team observes from a remote OPERATING FACILITY AT UC BERKELEY. During observing runs, Marcy reports, "we settle into a routine of working all night. We have all our books and other resources here at hand, plus enough normal life so our spouses don't forget us."...
Orbiting space telescopes are opening up another dimension. NASA's Kepler satellite, which launched in March 2009, is methodically imaging the constellation Cygnus, looking for the slight dimming of light caused when planets—some perhaps Earthlike—transit in front of their stars; GEOFF MARCY's team will then use Keck to scrutinize stars flagged by Kep¬ler to confirm that they have planets. In the future, pairs of mirrors deployed in orbit and linked by laser-ranging systems could attain the resolving power of telescopes measuring thousands of meters across.... Full Story
10. Tauscher seat may set victor's long-term path
San Francisco Chronicle
November 2, 2009
Martinez -- There is more at stake in Tuesday's election than the remaining 14 months of Ellen Tauscher's congressional term. If history is a guide, the victor - Democrat John Garamendi or Republican David Harmer - has an opportunity to serve for years to come.
The most elementary rule for congressional elections is that incumbents don't lose. Fewer than 1 in 20 incumbents seeking re-election nationwide was unseated in 2008, a number that has been relatively constant for a decade.
Only two California incumbents seeking re-election have lost a general election in the past decade, and the average California House member is serving a seventh term. Bay Area members have even more longevity, with the average member now serving a 16th year.... Full Story
11. Furloughed workers keep free breakfasts
San Francisco Chronicle
November 3, 2009
San Francisco -- For the 193,000 state employees who have to take three days off each month without pay, Monday brought a little ray of sunshine: A company that offers them a free breakfast or a cheap ski lift ticket can't be sued for discrimination for not offering the same deal to everyone else.
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger ordered the furloughs to save the deficit-plagued state $1.3 billion, although a UC BERKELEY study last month concluded the savings were barely half that amount.... Full Story
12. Political Notes
Contra Costa Times (*requires registration)
November 2, 2009
...Orinda
Majority vote initiative on agenda: Linguistics expert and UC BERKELEY PROFESSOR GEORGE LAKOFF will speak at the Nov. 12 meeting of the Lamorinda Democratic Club about his ballot initiative that would eliminate the two-thirds voting requirement for a state budget or new taxes....
Admission is $5 per person, and it is open to the public.
The group meets at the Orinda Community Church, 10 Irwin Way in Orinda. For more information, call 925-210-7337 or visit lamorindademoclub.org. Full Story
13. I'm so addicted to email, Facebook and Twitter, I have to hide it from my wife
As a new book claims Britain is under the tyranny of email, James Delingpole owns up to a compulsion that is affecting his friendships, family and working life.
Telegraph [UK]
November 3, 2009
A friend of mine was driving his family back from their half-term hols in Cornwall and the journey was taking far longer than it should. Two hours in and Tom's fingers were starting to twitch. After four hours, he'd had enough.
"What are you doing?" said his wife Kate.
"Er just, you know, um checking my emails," said Tom.
"But we're on the motorway, we've got two kids sleeping in the back and YOU'RE DRIVING!" Kate screamed.
When Kate told me this story over dinner the other day, I think she expected me to be horrified. But I'm afraid my sympathies were all with Tom. ...
My wife now resents my iPhone so much that I scarcely dare use it in front of her any more, preferring surreptitiously to sneak glances at it in another room on my own, for all the world as if my email compulsion was like an addiction to internet porn. In some ways, I think it's worse because it's so much more intrusive and all-pervasive. As the BERKELEY SOCIOLOGY PROFESSOR ARLIE RUSSELL HOCHSCHILD puts it: "Your body is there but your mind is not."... Full Story
14. Son of murdered El Cerrito couple testifies their killer should be spared death penalty
Contra Costa Times (*requires registration)
November 2, 2009
Martinez — Edward Wycoff's eldest nephew testified Monday that he didn't think his uncle should be executed for killing his parents because Wycoff is "mentally childish" and "immature."
"I think you should get life without parole. I think it would be wrong for you to get the death penalty," Eric Rogers, 21, said after Wycoff asked him what punishment he should receive for killing Julie and PAUL ROGERS with a knife and wheelbarrow handle in their home Jan. 31, 2006. "I've talked to people who have known you for a long time and they say you haven't changed much since you were about 9 years old."...
Prosecutor Mark Peterson finished his case Monday with testimony from family members who described the couple as loving, compassionate, intellectual, and dedicated to family and the community.
PAUL WAS A CORPORATE ATTORNEY AND LECTURER AT UC BERKELEY. Julie, 47, was an attorney, stay-at-home mother of three and El Cerrito planning commissioner.... Full Story
15. Column One: They're really and truly for the birds
Tom and Jo Heindel's first date was a birding trip in the Santa Monica Mountains. After years of cataloging avian life forms, they're nearing completion of a definitive Inyo County guide.
Los Angeles Times
November 3, 2009
Reporting from Big Pine, Calif. -- On a recent weekday morning, Tom and Jo Heindel strode to the top of a hill at the edge of town and held hands, savoring the panoramic views below of elk grazing in alfalfa fields, strips of willows along streams and elm trees glistening with the remnants of rain....
Theirs is a love story that dates to a spring day in 1953 when Tom, 16, asked Jo, 14, out on their first date -- bird watching in the Santa Monica Mountains....
Now the Heindels are nearing completion of what has grown into a 500-page draft manuscript of a comprehensive scientific survey of every species and subspecies ever documented in Inyo County over the last 150 years....
Their effort has become the stuff of legend among premier ornithologists, who liken it to the inventory of California life forms compiled a century ago by JOSEPH GRINNELL OF UC BERKELEY'S MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY.... Full Story
16. French-born parkour goes mainstream
Contra Costa Times (*requires registration)
November 2, 2009
At dusk on a recent Thursday, a small corner of the UC BERKELEY CAMPUS comes alive with activity. A dozen young people — mostly men but some women — jump on, bounce off and climb every railing and planter box as if they were piping hot. Fast on, fast off.
They are training in the art of parkour, a sport that started in France that is growing exponentially all around the world, thanks to the Internet and movies such as "Casino Royale." The word parkour is loosely based on the French word "parcours," which means "route."
A small crowd of onlookers grows around the UC Berkeley tumblers as the more advanced members of the group, including LINGUISTICS STUDENT ALBERT KONG, bounce off a wall and snake around and off a metal railing.
Kong, 20, has been a traceur — someone who practices parkour — for five years. He's fit, athletic and hardly a showoff — although he has reason to be. He moves around objects like river water around a stopped canoe. He looks both graceful and strong in the process. That is the point of parkour, to move around objects with little stalling....
This group that meets Thursday nights at UC Berkeley is unusual because at least three traceuses hop and slide around campus, while women make up "point two percent" of practitioners, Toorock says.
One of those women, 18-year-old MARINA GAVRYUSKINA, has been training for two months and rivals many of the men in skill.... Full Story
17. Cal Students to Roll One for the Record Books
NBC Bay Area Online
November 2, 2009
The recipe calls for 536 sheets of edible seaweed, 100+ pounds of rice, 167 pounds of surimi, 67 pounds of cukes and an equal amount of avocados.
The finished product? A 330-foot long California sushi roll to best the world record one made in Maui in 2001. That beast of traditional cuisine was 300-feet long.
More than 350 UC BERKELEY STUDENTS on 58 teams will build the ginormous roll on Sunday. The teams, with names like Smashin' Sushi, AvoCALdoes and Roll Me California Style, are made up of students from sororities, fraternities and other campus groups....
Apparently, just having a degree from the country's best public university just isn't enough in anymore and edging out competition with tough job market with "creator of the world's largest California sushi roll" on a Cal grad's resume will be the ticket to a brighter future. Full Story