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Friday, 13 November 2009
1. Significant amounts of water found on moon, NASA says
Los Angeles Times
November 13, 2009
The mission that plunged a rocket into the moon's surface last month detected about 25 gallons of water in the form of vapor and ice. 'The moon is alive,' a mission scientist says.
Declaring "this is not your father's moon," NASA scientists said today that last month's mission to punch a hole in the lunar surface found significant amounts of water in a permanently shadowed crater at the moon's south pole...
"This is painting a surprising new picture of the moon," said GREG DELORY, A SPACE SCIENTIST AT UC BERKELEY.
The $79-million lunar crater mission was launched in June to try to uncover the source of large quantities of hydrogen that had been measured by other spacecraft in lunar craters at the poles. If there was water on the moon, scientists reasoned, it would be in these shadowed craters, which haven't seen sunlight in billions of years.
Because those craters were hidden from view, scientists decided the best way to find out what was in them was to go there. Early on the morning of Oct. 9, the lunar crater satellite targeted the Cabeus crater at the south pole, first steering its companion Centaur rocket into the surface. The satellite then flew through the cloud of debris and dust kicked up by the Centaur, using its near-infrared and visible light spectrometers, along with other instruments, to taste the contents of the debris cloud. Spectrometers identify compounds by analyzing the light they emit or absorb...
[A similar story also appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle.] Full Story
2. 3 dinosaurs now thought to be single species
Los Angeles Times
November 13, 2009
After carefully analyzing nearly two dozen ancient dinosaur skulls and bone fragments from the barren rocks of Montana's Hell Creek Formation, UC BERKELEY PALEONTOLOGIST MARK GOODWIN and his partner Jack Horner of the Museum of the Rockies now conclude that many ancient beasts once thought to represent new or separate species may not be new or separate at all.
Even a miniature creature known as Nanotyrannus, the recently discovered "tiny tyrant" that resembled the ferocious Tyrannosaurus rex, may have been nothing more than a juvenile version of the big dinosaur.
And a large-headed, frill-necked creature that its discoverers called Torosaurus turns out to be only an old-age stage of the well-known plant-eating Triceratops.... Full Story
3. Dallas-Fort Worth programs helping Hispanic mothers find teaching moments
Dallas Morning News
November 12, 2009
Catalina Vazquez had to become a student herself to learn how to be her child's first teacher.
With help from the Dallas nonprofit program Avance, she and other Hispanic mothers are taking a more active role preparing their children for school.
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"At school, he likes to read and participate in class," Vazquez said of her 4-year-old son, Angel. "The teacher asked, 'Who taught him this?' "
But many Latina immigrant mothers aren't receiving such help because programs like Avance often suffer from limited funding and lengthy waiting lists.
A new study further highlights the problem: While Hispanic children are born healthy, they begin lagging in language and mental development by age 2 – before they even begin preschool. The lag was tied to mothers' low education levels, the interactions they had with their children and large family sizes.
"We need to help these families earlier," said BRUCE FULLER, A RESEARCHER AT THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY, who led the study. "If we don't, the slowdown in cognitive growth is going to handicap a lot of children, and then it starts to snowball."
Fuller also said he wants to promote President Barack Obama's push for expanded funding for early childhood programs, including those that send educators into homes to train new mothers on child development... Full Story
4. Evidence still fuzzy on cell phones, cancer
CNN.com
November 10, 2009
In the year since a U.S. cancer researcher's warning drew wide attention, more evidence is emerging that long-term cell phone use is associated with cancer, but there's still not a definitive explanation or proof of cause and effect...
A much-anticipated but unreleased report from the World Health Organization on a decade-long investigation called Interphone will show a "significantly increased risk" of some brain tumors "related to use of mobile phones for a period of 10 years or more," the London Daily Telegraph reported in late October. The study will be published before the end of the year, the newspaper said...
Studies that looked at people who had used cell phones 10 years or longer tended to find the strongest risk of tumors. Researchers found that cell phone users had a 10 percent to 30 percent higher risk than people who barely, if ever, used this technology.
A telling feature of the findings in the stronger studies was that the side of the head against which people held their cell phones was highly correlated with the location of tumors, said JOEL MOSKOWITZ, DIRECTOR OF THE CENTER FOR FAMILY AND COMMUNITY HEALTH AT THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY...
Moskowitz said he was surprised to see that a subgroup of studies found this increased risk of tumors.
The poorer-quality studies actually found that cell phones had a protective quality -- that the phones helped stave off tumors -- but could not offer an explanation for why, he said. Many of these weaker studies were also funded by telecommunications industry groups, he said....
Research that has been released by Interphone has major flaws, Moskowitz said. Some shortcomings include poor participation in the control group and a definition of "regular cell phone use" that included people who use their phones once a week for six months.
But the scope of the project is significant: Nearly 13,000 people were questioned between 2000 and 2004 in 13 countries about their cellular phone use, looking for a link to brain cancers and salivary gland tumors... Full Story
5. Depressed Teens Needed for Cal Study
KCBS Radio
November 12, 2009
Berkeley scientists are looking for sleep-deprived, depressed teenagers for a new study. UC BERKELEY’S SLEEP AND PSYCHOLOGICAL DISORDERS LABORATORY is recruiting middle and high school students for a study aimed at finding out whether teen depression can be alleviated if they get enough sleep.
”If you’re not sleeping well it affects your mood the next day,” said Clinical Psychologist Allison Harvey, who is the director of the study. “And of course, if you’re very sad, worried, ruminating, and experiencing a lot of difficulties in your life then that’s going to make it difficult to sleep at night.”
The study, which will be directed jointly with Kaiser Permanente Oregon, is looking for 80 sleep-deprived teens to take part.
”They’ll meet with the therapist for about one hour per week for about 10 weeks,” said Harvey. “It’s a very practical treatment, focused on the here and now, and focused on devising creative ways to change negative thinking, and behavior.”
The study does not involve drugs or anything invasive, just some talk therapy. Volunteers are being screened now.
[A similar story also appeared in the SF Chronicle.] Full Story
6. Higher education master plan getting ignored
San Francisco Chronicle
November 13, 2009
California's Master Plan for Higher Education - which set academics ablaze with the promise of a nearly free college education for all who qualified - is limping toward the half-century mark largely ignored by lawmakers who don't even pretend they can live up to its expensive commitment.
That's the finding of a report released Thursday by the state's Office of the Legislative Analyst. It says today's reality of soaring student fees, volatile college budgets and enrollment caps are so far removed from the guiding Master Plan, that something must be done to bring them in line.
The Master Plan was crafted in 1960 to establish a coordinated system of colleges and universities, with the goal of steering students appropriately toward the UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, California State University or community college largely free of charge.
"Today its assumptions look pretty quaint," said Steve Boilard, the report's author. "There's a big disconnect between what the state's priorities are and what's actually going on."
That point is not lost on thousands of students and families angry about rising fees at a time when many can't even get into basic courses... Full Story
7. Viewpoints: Plan to close UC Center seems ill-advised
Sacramento Bee
November 13, 2009
Twenty-five UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA STUDENTS AND GRADUATES FROM UC CAMPUSES were gathered around a long table in a windowless basement conference room in downtown Sacramento for a brown-bag lunch. On one side were 10 recent graduates, many working in and around the Capitol, who had participated in a popular public policy program – a program they say prepared them more than any other college experience for the realities of working in politics and public policy. Across the table at the recent gathering were 15 current students, many about to graduate with bachelor's degrees from UC in such diverse fields as political science, mathematics, economics, sociology, psychology and literature.
The session was part of an intensive orientation at the UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA Center in Sacramento before students begin internships in state legislative and government offices, at nonprofits and lobbying and consulting firms. The grads were advising the new students on what to expect in their internships, how to get the most benefit from the experience. "Don't be afraid to ask questions," they said. And "show initiative."
More than 500 students have completed the program since it began in 2004. But this gathering was "bittersweet," as one student put it, because the fall-quarter class may be the last in a widely praised program that was abruptly suspended by UC PRESIDENT MARK YUDOF in August, as UC officials struggle to balance a precarious budget. The action has generated a storm of criticism, and UC administrators are reportedly rethinking how they can keep the effective program in Sacramento.
One of the grads at the brown-bag lunch, KELLY BRADFIELD, came to the center as a "scholar-intern" in the summer of 2007; she was about to GRADUATE FROM UC BERKELEY with an English degree, specializing in gender and sexuality in literature. While considering a public policy career, she lacked practical experience. Placed in an internship with Planned Parenthood, she wrote a paper on the public policy aspects of mandatory vaccination for the HPV virus that causes cervical cancer and was later hired as a policy analyst at the UC Center. Echoing the views of other grads, she said the program "prepared me more than any other academic experience" for working in the Capitol... Full Story
8. Business idea mushrooms from coffee grounds
San Francisco Chronicle
November 13, 2009
Nikhil Arora and Alejandro Velez's plans after graduating from the UC Berkeley Haas School of Business didn't include becoming farmers.
But they took a detour in the spring during a business ethics class, where the two learned that coffee grounds, one of the country's largest waste streams, could be used as a medium for growing mushrooms.
"We loved the idea and thought, 'Hey, there's something we can do with this' - the country's addicted to coffee," says Velez.
Starting out with a fraternity kitchen and a $5,000 social innovation grant from the university, they teamed up with UC BERKELEY PROFESSOR TOM BRUNS, a mycology expert.
Once they achieved success, the next step was quality control: Velez and Arora, both 22, took their mushrooms to the crew at Chez Panisse for a taste test. They got the thumbs up. "Who better than a chef at one of the country's top restaurants?" says Velez... Full Story
9. Holiday dance guide
San Francisco Chronicle
November 13, 2009
...
Mark Morris Dance Group: "The Hard Nut." Back for its 10th CAL PERFORMANCES visit, Morris' updating of the material to 1970s suburbia retains its immense charm, satiric thrust and generosity of spirit. The plot follows E.T.A. Hoffmann's original "Nutcracker" tale more faithfully than conventional versions and is more musically astute than most of the others, too.
Expect incomparable dancing from Morris' augmented Brooklyn company. Expect a familiar face, Robert Cole, former Cal Performances director, conducting the Berkeley Symphony.
Dec. 11-20. ZELLERBACH HALL, UC BERKELEY. Tickets: $36-$62. (510) 642-9988. www.calperfs.berkeley.edu... Full Story
10. More settlements from Intel expected
San Francisco Chronicle
November 13, 2009
Now that the Advanced Micro Devices case is settled, Intel Corp. is going to move as expeditiously as it can to clean the slate of all the other antitrust cases that have dogged it for years.
"Everyone's judgment is that Intel is tired of litigating and wants to put it all behind them," said Chuck Diamond, O'Melveny & Myers LLP's lead attorney representing AMD. But Intel's going to have to shell out considerably more than the $1.25 billion it's paying its Silicon Valley rival to go away...
Interested? Approximately 7,500 small businesses are currently on the block in California, 200 of them in San Francisco.
Loud and clear: Hopefully, President Obama's "jobs summit" means that he's finally getting the message. As in San Francisco Federal Reserve Board president Janet Yellen's warning Tuesday that U.S. unemployment "could well stay high for several years to come."
Or, the "significant probability, according to a member of his Economic Recovery Advisory Board, UC BERKELEY HAAS SCHOOL OF BUSINESS PROFESSOR LAURA D'ANDREA TYSON, that "the country will slip back into recession next year"... Full Story
11. CNN makes bet on nonpartisan news
San Francisco Chronicle
November 13, 2009
There's a gamble implicit in CNN shuffling its lineup Thursday after the departure of controversial conservative commentator Lou Dobbs: It is betting there is a prime-time cable audience for news delivered without opinion.
Talk on the three major cable news outlets - Fox, MSNBC and CNN - "drives the public conversation," said ROBERT CALO, A SENIOR LECTURER AT UC BERKELEY GRADUATE SCHOOL OF JOURNALISM and a former NBC and ABC producer. "It is the engine of opinion."
In replacing Dobbs' drum-beating with the straight-ahead reportage of its chief national correspondent, John King, CNN has completed its effort to rid its prime-time lineup of commentators.
With cable news leader Fox News corralling conservative viewers with nighttime shows headlined by commentators Bill O'Reilly and Sean Hannity and MSNBC grabbing left-leaning hosts like Rachel Maddow, CNN slipped behind its rivals in the Nielsen ratings last month... Full Story
12. Golden oldie
ESPN.com
November 12, 2009
Built in 1923 to honor Californians who lost their lives in World War I, MEMORIAL STADIUM gained entry on the National Register of Historic Places in 2006. Two seventh-graders, however, recognized Memorial Stadium's appeal some 50-plus years earlier, when JOE KAPP and Everett Alvarez, friends from Salinas, visited CAL'S BERKELEY CAMPUS with their teacher.
"A young teacher, Pamelina Brunelli, took us up to Berkeley from Salinas -- in those days it was a three-lane road -- and we got to go to the Cal-Missouri game," Kapp said. "Everett and I with Miss Brunelli, we walked up STRAWBERRY CANYON, went by the LIFE SCIENCE BUILDING, went by the BANCROFT LIBRARY. ...
"So we get past all these beautiful buildings, and Everett says, 'Miss Brunelli, what do we have to do to go to school here?' Then we get to the stadium ... and the best band in the land comes on the field ... and I said, ‘Never mind that. Miss Brunelli, what do I gotta do to play football here?’”...
Alvarez ended up going to Santa Clara on an academic scholarship before becoming a U.S. Navy pilot in 1960. His plane was shot down in 1964, and he became the first American POW in Vietnam, enduring more than eight years of captivity and torture. Though Kapp would probably be the first to tell you that his own life story pales in comparison to his war hero friend's, Kapp made good on his California dream, matriculating at UC-BERKELEY and quarterbacking the GOLDEN BEARS to the 1959 Rose Bowl. Cal hasn't made it back to Pasadena since... Full Story