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Tuesday, 17 November 2009
1. Protests expected as UC regents ponder fee hikes
Sacramento Bee
November 17, 2009
Large protests are expected Wednesday, when University of California regents vote on a plan to raise fees 32 percent over the next year and – for the second year in a row – reduce the number of students the university will serve.
The proposal calls for increasing undergraduate fees 15 percent for next semester and another 15 percent in the summer, bringing the annual cost of a UC education next year to more than $10,000 – not including room, board and books.
Students are planning to protest the fee hikes Wednesday at UC BERKELEY and UCLA, where the regents will hold their meeting. A panel of the UC regents is scheduled to vote on the plan Wednesday, with the full board voting Thursday....
University leaders say they take no pleasure in raising the cost of a UC education but say their plan should not affect the neediest students. Those whose fees are covered by Cal Grants or other aid for low-income families will not have to pay the increase.... Full Story
2. Why Are We Destroying Public Education?
University of California Students and Staff Prepare for System-Wide Strike to Protest Cuts
Democracy Now! [Radio program airing on hundreds of stations nationwide]
November 17, 2009
The governing body of the UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA SYSTEM, the Board of Regents, is preparing to vote on a major tuition hike for both undergraduate and graduate students. Undergraduate tuition would rise an average 32 percent, while some graduate schools would begin charging thousands of dollars for programs that are currently tuition-free. The Regents are meeting Thursday at UCLA, where students from across the state are converging for what organizers have dubbed a “Crisis Fest,” including mass protests, civil disobedience and teach-ins.
LAURA NADER, PROFESSOR OF SOCIAL CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY AT UC BERKELEY, where she has taught for nearly fifty years. Earlier this year she co-authored a measure approved by the UC BERKELEY ACADEMIC SENATE calling on the school’s athletics program to become self-sufficient and stop receiving subsidies from student fees.
ANANYA ROY, PROFESSOR IN THE DEPARTMENT OF CITY & REGIONAL PLANNING AT UC BERKELEY. She is canceling her classes to take part in this week’s strike.
BLANCA MISSE, UC BERKELEY GRADUATE STUDENT and organizer with the Student Worker Action Team.
MICHAEL COHEN, LECTURER IN AMERICAN STUDIES AT UC BERKELEY and co-chair of the Solidarity Alliance, which issued the call for this week’s strike.
[Link to audio] Full Story
3. Heads of UC, CSU want big funding increases
Sacramento Bee
November 16, 2009
Berkeley, Calif. -- The heads of California's public university systems say they need more money from the state - a lot more.
University of California President Mark Yudof says the 10-campus system needs a $913 million increase in state funding next year. Meanwhile, California State University Chancellor Charles B. Reed is recommending asking for an increase of $884 million for 2010-11....
UC and the 23-campus CSU - the nation's largest public university system - have taken deep cuts in state funding. Yudof and Reed say they hope the extra funding would help restore some campus cutbacks and prevent major fee increases.... Full Story
4. Letters to the Editor
San Francisco Chronicle
November 16, 2009
...The college funding puzzle
It was gratifying to see that nearly 60 percent of respondents to a poll on higher education understood the need for increased funding ("Californians think highly of college ..." Nov. 12). Their concern for the future of public higher education also is well founded.
California's past commitment created the finest systems of public higher education in the world, but (according to a 2006 report by the Institute for Higher Education Leadership and Policy) continued reductions in state support have resulted in California now ranking 49th in per-student funding for higher education.
We have cut every nonessential function to the bone. Without more funds, we will begin the process of eliminating degree programs, which will reduce opportunities for students and erode the engine of California's economy.
A UC BERKELEY STUDY recently found that providing higher education for California's youth can provide nearly $3 billion in additional state income tax revenue for each high school graduating class. In other words, we can either find a way to fully fund higher education or we invite a protracted downward economic spiral for the state.
Shawn Whalen
Academic Senate chair San Francisco State University... Full Story
5. Booster Shots Blog: Do these genes make my heart seem big? Study finds a gene for empathy
Los Angeles Times Online
November 16, 2009
In the long-running nature-nurture debate over what makes us who we are, chalk up a new victory for nature.
A study published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences has found a single coding variation in the human genome that appears responsible, at least in part, for individual variations in such personality and behavior traits as empathy and response to stress. ...
Scientists have long known oxytocin as the chemical of bonding and nurture. Produced in the hypothalamus and pumped into both the brain and the bloodstream, oxytocin responds to warm human interaction and drives us to seek it out when our stores are low. It is thought to cause the letdown of milk in breastfeeding mothers, and to soar for many after lovemaking. At the same time, oxytocin appears to have a pronounced calming effect: people and mice alike seem to chill out when the chemical is puffed up their noses or pumped into their bloodstreams, even under conditions of stress.
These two qualities prompted research psychologists from Oregon State University and UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA BERKELEY to ask themselves: If some people's genetic endowment made them richer in oxytocin receptors, might they not, by nature, be more attuned to others and more unflappable when under stress?
...The researchers put 192 COLLEGE STUDENTS AT UC BERKELEY through a pair of experimental tests....
The one in four subjects who inherited a variation in this allele called G/G were significantly better at accurately reading the emotions of others by observing their faces than were the remaining three-quarters of subjects, who had inherited either a pair of A's or an A and a G from their parents at this site. ...
But UC GRADUATE STUDENT LAURA R. SASLOW, a co-author of the paper, cautioned that genetic inheritance -- nature -- is never the sole determinant of our personalities. While researchers will get closer to filling in the inborn components of our personalities, the environments in which we've been raised will always interact with our genetic inheritance and shape how it expresses itself, Saslow says.
"Really, both matter," says Saslow.
[Another story on this topic appeared in the London Times, Telegraph (UK) and Science Now] Full Story
6. The 50 Best Inventions of 2009
From a rocket of the future to a $10 million lightbulb, here are Time's picks for the best new gadgets and breakthrough ideas of the year
Time Magazine
November 12, 2009
...The Cyborg Beetle
Man has yet to master nature, but now he can make it turn left. Armed with funding from the Pentagon's research wing, an engineering team at the UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY, has devised a method of remotely controlling the flight of beetles. By attaching radio antennas and embedding electrodes in the insects' optic lobes, flight muscles and brains, PROFESSORS MICHEL MAHARBIZ and HIROTAKA SATO can manipulate their subjects into taking off, hovering in midair and turning on command. The trick? Wirelessly delivering jolts to a microbattery fastened to a circuit board atop the hapless insects, whose agility and capacity to tote valuable payloads could make the tiny creatures the ultimate fly on the wall. ... Full Story
7. Bristlecone's growth may reflect global warming
San Francisco Chronicle
November 17, 2009
Bristlecone pines, those ancient and iconic trees on many of California's mountaintops, reflect the impact of global warming in a curious way - not by dying off like coral reefs in the world's oceans, but by growing faster than at any time in the past thousands of years, scientists have discovered....
Now these stubborn trees that cling to life at elevations above 12,000 feet are a clear symbol of climate change, according to seven years of field research by Matthew Salzer of the University of Arizona and his colleagues....
Salzer's observations of plants and animals find a striking parallel to recent findings by UC BERKELEY SCIENTISTS working at lower elevations in the Sierra Nevada.
A year ago, CRAIG MORITZ and JAMES L. PATTON AT UC'S MUSEUM OF VERTEBRATE ZOOLOGY reported that for 90 years temperatures have been climbing from the Sierra foothills in the San Joaquin Valley across Yosemite and down to Mono Lake - and that as the higher elevations have warmed, 28 species of mountain mammals - voles, mice and chipmunks have all shifted their habitats upward - to elevations as much as 1,650 feet higher than before. Full Story
8. Law Blog: Harvard Tops First Ever Super Lawyers’ Ranking of Law Schools
Wall Street Journal Online (*requires registration)
November 16, 2009
Ranking law schools and law firms. All of a sudden, everyone’s doing it.
A universe that used to contain one member, it seems — U.S. News & World Report — has suddenly gotten a lot more crowded. ...
Well, let us add one more name to the parade. Law & Politics, the publisher of Super Lawyers and the cheeky magazines Minnesota Law & Politics ... and Washington Law & Politics, will on Tuesday unveil its first ever ranking of U.S. law schools, based on one criteria only: how many Super Lawyers each produces. Roughly 5 percent of the lawyers in each state are selected to Super Lawyers lists each year....
In the real world — the world of clients and juries and judges — no one cares about your GPA or LSAT score. All that matters is how good and ethical a lawyer you are. That’s the focus of Super Lawyers.
Okay, fair enough. So how’d the schools line up?
The top 25 go like this: 1) Harvard; 2) Michigan; 3) Texas; 4) UVA; 5) Georgetown; 6) NYU; 7) Columbia; 8) Florida; 9) BERKELEY; 10) Yale; 11) Hastings; 12) GW; 13) BU; 14) UCLA; 15) Penn; 16) Chicago; 17) BC; 18) Northwestern; 19) Stanford; 20) University of Miami; 21) Vanderbilt; 22) SMU; 23) Duke; 24) Minnesota; 25) Wisconsin....
[Link by subscription only] Full Story
9. Op-Ed: China and the American Jobs Machine
China's export policy is really a social policy, designed to maintain order.
Wall Street Journal (*requires registration)
November 16, 2009
President Barack Obama says he wants to "rebalance" the economic relationship between China and the U.S. as part of his plan to restart the American jobs machine. "We cannot go back," he said in September, "to an era where the Chinese . . . just are selling everything to us, we're taking out a bunch of credit-card debt or home equity loans, but we're not selling anything to them." He hopes that hundreds of millions of Chinese consumers will make up for the inability of American consumers to return to debt-binge spending....
Both America and China are capable of producing far more than their own consumers are capable of buying. In the U.S., the root of the problem is a growing share of total income going to the richest Americans, leaving the middle class with relatively less purchasing power unless they go deep into debt. Inequality is also widening in China, but the problem there is a declining share of the fruits of economic growth going to average Chinese and an increasing share going to capital investment.
Both societies are threatened by the disconnect between production and consumption. In China, the threat is civil unrest. In the U.S., it's a prolonged jobs and earnings recession that, when combined with widening inequality, could create political backlash. Full Story
10. China Real Time Report Blog: Chongqing Criminal Trials Underscore Dangers of Corporatist State
Wall Street Journal Online (*requires registration)
November 17, 2009
The dramatic arrests and trials in Chongqing of officials high and low and their gangster accomplices for corruption on a massive scale raise troubling questions about both China’s governance and the future of its legal institutions.
Major corruption scandals are not new: High-ranking officials have been punished before, but what makes this case in China’s largest city so remarkable is its size and implications. The chief of the city’s Municipal Justice Bureau (formerly the city’s deputy chief of police) has been arrested, along with numerous Chinese Communist Party (CCP) members, high and mid-ranking police officers, rich businessmen, and members of criminal gangs. Arrests of wealthy businesspersons for being in cahoots with bureaucrats is no novelty, but the multi-million dollar scale of the many illegal casinos in Chongqing run by the sister-in-law of the Judicial Bureau chief is more brazen. It is the extent of the links among bureaucrats, businesses and gangsters involved in this case that merits special attention....
[Link by subscription only] Full Story
11. Digits Blog: China Needn’t Surpass U.S., Intel CTO Says
Wall Street Journal Online (*requires registration)
November 17, 2009
China’s factories have long churned out high tech products. A big question facing Silicon Valley — underscored in a survey released Monday by Intel and Newsweek — is how big a role the country will play in dreaming up those gadgets....
Justin Rattner, Intel’s chief technology officer, agrees that China will reduce the innovation gap with America. But that doesn’t mean that surpassing the U.S. is inevitable. “Speaking personally, there’s no reason for that to happen,” he said....
On the other hand, Rattner says, tougher immigration laws are weakening the U.S. advantage as a magnet for students from around the world. Many Silicon Valley companies were founded by foreign students after they got degrees from Stanford, the UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AT BERKELEY, Caltech and other U.S. institutions.
“Now we tell them to go home, and don’t come back anytime soon,” Rattner says. Such a policy could have made it impossible for people like Andy Grove, Intel’s Hungarian-born former CEO, to have risen to the top of the U.S. tech scene. “Nowadays we would have packed him up and sent him home,” Rattner says....
[Link by subscription only] Full Story
12. China plays down Obama's visit
U.S. President tells Chinese town hall of importance of free speech, but few are allowed to hear his words
Globe & Mail [Canada]
November 16, 2009
...Barack Obama arrived in China on his first visit as President of the United States.
The meeting Mr. Obama will hold today with [Chinese President Hu Jintao] is viewed as so important – on fronts as varied as climate change, the North Korean nuclear crisis and the global recession – that many have taken to referring to summit of the world's two most powerful nations as the G2.
But if you were watching the main evening news last night on China's main CCTV-1 network, you had to wait through seven items and 20 mind-numbing minutes to find out that Mr. Obama was even in Beijing. And there was no footage at all of Mr. Obama telling university students in Shanghai about the importance of freedom of speech....
“The Chinese government has been very sensitive and hyper about managing the message, especially an American president visiting China and directly interacting with Chinese youths,” said XIAO QIANG, DIRECTOR OF THE CHINA INTERNET PROJECT AT THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY.... Full Story
13. Open your mind to the idea of innovation
Financial Times [UK]
November 17 2009
The three most dangerous words in management? "Not invented here." Only complacent leaders believe that their way of doing things cannot be improved upon. But that attitude can lead apparently successful businesses astray.
As HENRY CHESBROUGH, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR OF THE CENTRE FOR OPEN INNOVATION AT THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY, has pointed out, senior management teams can fail to spot important innovations because the new business models they rely on do not easily fit in with the way things are being done now.
Researching the performance of Xerox, the copier and printer company, between the late 1990s and early 2000s, Prof Chesbrough found that, out of 35 projects that had been rejected as part of a review process, 10 had gone on to become highly successful businesses. Indeed, the combined market capitalisation of these 10 new ventures, even after the "new economy" crash of 2001, was twice that of the former parent itself. He calls these unfortunate rejections a "false negative": the innovations had looked bad, but that was because senior managers were unable to recognise their virtues.
Prof Chesbrough was one of the speakers at last week's Financial Times innovation conference in London.... Full Story
14. California’s two-third tax-and-budget requirement may head to ballot
Central Valley Business Times
November 17, 2009
It would take just a simple majority vote in the Legislature to approve a state budget or raise taxes under a proposed amendment to the California Constitution.
Currently, such actions require a two-thirds vote. That has led to the annual budget wars in Sacramento as a minority of lawmakers controls the final actions. While Democrats hold most of the seats in the Assembly and state Senate, they lack a two-thirds majority.
The proponent for the measure, GEORGE LAKOFF, A PROFESSOR AT THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY, must collect signatures of 694,354 registered voters – the number equal to 8 percent of the total votes cast for governor in the 2006 gubernatorial election – in order to qualify it for the ballot. He has until April 12, 2010.... Full Story
15. N.A.A.C.P. Prods Obama on Job Losses
New York Times & International Herald Tribune (*requires registration)
November 17, 2009
With unemployment among blacks at more than 15 percent, the N.A.A.C.P. will join several other groups on Tuesday to call on President Obama to do more to create jobs....
Mr. Obama has invited groups nationwide to voice their views and recommendations on jobs in preparation for his job summit next month.
“Obama keeps saying, ‘Push me to do the right thing,’ said STEVEN PITTS, A LABOR ECONOMIST AT THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY. “I don’t see this as any break with Obama. The current political alignment of forces doesn’t support a new economic stimulus package. They’re trying to create an alignment of political forces to counteract that.”... Full Story
16. Real Time Economics Blog: A Lemons Problem for Microsoft’s Xbox
Wall Street Journal Online (*requires registration)
November 17, 2009
A “lemons problem” is what economists call situations where sellers have more information about the quality of what they’re selling than buyers do.
There’s a real-life example going on right now with used versions of Microsoft Corp.’s Xbox 360 console.
In 1970, UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AT BERKELEY ECONOMIST GEORGE AKERLOF wrote “The Market for Lemons” – a paper that would later help him win the Nobel prize – which examined how differences between what used car sellers and buyers know could affect the price of used cars....
[Link by subscription only] Full Story
17. Eyebar failures call into question bridge construction
KGO TV
November 16, 2009
We've all seen the problems caused by a critical design flaw on the Bay Bridge -- days of closures because of a cracked eyebar. So what about other bridges of similar design? Federal law mandates inspections just every couple of years, however, based on what has happened on the Bay Bridge, is that sufficient?...
The cracked eyebar on the Bay Bridge is 70 years old. When new, it was considered the best in bridge design....
"The belief at the time was that these were efficient and safe and perform well, but experience since that time has demonstrated that they don't always perform as we originally intended," says U.C. BERKELEY ENGINEER JACK MOEHLE....
"Given what's happened recently with the Bay Bridge, I guess it wouldn't hurt to go back and give it an inspection and maybe step up the inspection intervals," says Moehle....
[Link to video] Full Story
18. Property rights at stake in tussle over trees
San Francisco Chronicle
November 17, 2009
Neighborhood disputes over trees in the Bay Area are not uncommon, but few can match the legal entanglement raging in Marin County over one woman's beloved eucalyptus grove.
A judge recently ordered Anne Wolff to chop down 28 eucalyptus trees on her property in Larkspur because, he said, they pose a danger to her neighbors. She has refused and challenged the ruling in the state Court of Appeal in San Francisco....
Property disputes over nuisance trees have raged for centuries, but most of the conflicts do not involve plots as large as Wolff's grove, which contains 45 trees on about a third of an acre. Still, the same legal principles apply, said RICHARD FRANK, A PROPERTY RIGHTS EXPERT AT UC BERKELEY.
"The basic traditional rule of property is that what you do on your property is pretty much your own business," Frank said. "The exception is that you can't maintain your property in such a way as to cause a hazardous condition or a nuisance to your neighbor."... Full Story
19. Blog: When does oversight overstep?
Scientist Online
November 16, 2009
When vascular biologist John Cooke of Stanford University received a grant in 2007 from the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM) to launch stem cell research in his lab, he never expected the agency to take back the money -- especially not when his research was just starting to take him in some exciting new directions.
Within a year of starting the experiments on human embryonic stem cells (hESCs) he had outlined in his grant application, Cooke's group developed a protein-based strategy for generating induced pluripotent stem cells that they hope "will be a paradigm-shifting approach to vascular regeneration." The problem was that this was not what he had originally proposed to do.
Cooke's award was a SEED grant -- Scientific Excellence through Exploration and Development -- CIRM's attempt to jump start research in hESCs, and by nature, fund exploratory basic research. The SEED grant Request for Applications (RFA) called for "new ideas and new investigators...to carry out studies that may yield preliminary data or proof-of-principle results that could then be extended to full scale investigations." But after reading about this change of direction that Cooke clearly -- and proudly -- laid out in his first annual progress report, CIRM officials terminated the grant....
ELLEN ROBEY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY, also a 2007 SEED grant recipient, said she was surprised when she got a phone call from her project manager requesting more detail on her annual progress report. "I was used to the NIH system where the progress reports are really kind of a formality -- you get the sense that no one even looks at [them]," she said. The CIRM project manager was satisfied with the additional information Robey provided, and she was able to keep her grant. But, she admits, "I wasn't aware that they were revoking or taking away grants."... Full Story
20. Law Blog: The Google-Books Settlement: A Lawsuit Ripe for . . . Congress?
Wall Street Journal Online (*requires registration)
November 17, 2009
The deadlock over the Google books settlement moved a little late last week when Google agreed to relinquish some control over the fate of so-called orphan works. ...
“Nobody should get a license to orphans without congressional action,” said PAMELA SAMUELSON, A PROFESSOR AT UC-BERKELEY SCHOOL OF LAW. “This is a legislative matter — you shouldn’t use a class action for that.”... Full Story
21. Could Plastics Chemicals 'Feminize' Boys' Play?
Small study suggests a link, but others question a connection
MSN.com
November 17, 2009
A new small study raises the prospect, but doesn't prove, that there's a link between pregnant women's exposure to common chemicals called phthalates and the type of toys their male children prefer to play with when they reach preschool age.
Boys with the highest potential exposures to two types of phthalates were slightly more likely to play with games and toys such as dolls that society considers more appropriate for girls, the study found.
The study was small -- it included just 74 boys -- and it's possible that factors other than phthalates could explain the differences in how the boys behaved. But its lead author, Shanna H. Swan, a University of Rochester professor of obstetrics and gynecology and environmental medicine, said it's clear that "these common chemicals have the ability to alter the development of the male fetus."...
What to do about phthalates? "The message is to be aware that there are chemicals in our homes that have the potential to affect the way our hormones function," said KIM HARLEY, ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR OF HEALTH EFFECTS AT THE CENTER FOR CHILDREN'S ENVIRONMENTAL HEALTH RESEARCH, UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AT BERKELEY. Full Story
22. Hungry in America; a growing problem
San Francisco Examiner
November 16, 2009
According to government statistics 49 million Americans are going hungry. What is even more heart wrenching is that 17 million of these are children. President Obama promised during the campaign to eliminate childhood hunger in America by 2015. Many of the families that ran out of food before they could afford to buy more, earned above the poverty level. Hunger and malnutrition is a huge issue with lifelong consequences.
Much of the food in America is grown in California. What should be a concern to everyone is that many of the fields are not planted and orchards are drying out from lack of water. The local farmers call this a Congress created, "Dust Bowl."...
The San Joachin Valley was once a natural Dust Bowl. It was made green by a system of irrigation dams and canals built during The Great Depression. The historian Kevin Starr calls it," The most productive unnatural environment on earth."
The San Joachin Valley by itself produces more than any other individual state. In 1992 Congress passed new federal standards for maintaining ecosystems. Increasing amounts of water have been set aside for wild life restrictions. A U.C. BERKELEY analysis claims that the economic impact of these water restrictions could top $ 48 million dollars.... Full Story
23. Fresh Air Op-Ed: 'The I's Don't Have It'
NPR
November 17, 2009
In his most recent commentary, linguist Geoffrey Nunberg contemplates the practice of counting words, noting that it has become "a favorite way to track a trend, uncover a hidden meaning, or cut a long text down to size." Nunberg points to the healthcare bill that passed through the House, and notes that a word count might suggest why a feminist group might find fault in a 1,900-page document that only uses the word 'women' eight times, or how other critics could see the abundance of the word 'shall' in the bill as illustrative of the government's attempt to control its citizens.
Word-counting has become a popular practice in the analysis of politicians who are, more often than not, judged critically by their choice of words. But Nunberg says that while word-counting is a credible practice, it should be the first step rather than the last. As psycholinguist Jamie Pennebaker notes, there is a significant difference in the "graceful I", which connotes deference and modesty, and the narcissistic "imperial I." Counting words isn't very revealing if you aren't listening to them, too.
[Link to audio] Full Story
24. Starting Car2Go - Smart Move for Daimler
CNBC Online
November 17, 2009
Start your engines.
Or in this case, the engine of the car you are sharing. The popular programs are about to see major automakers jump into the game. Today Daimler is launching car2go in Austin, Texas. But make no mistake, this is just the start of automakers and rental car companies either jumping into or expanding their car sharing programs. ...
According to the folks at the UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA BERKELEY 323,681 people belong to one or more of the 26 car share programs around the U.S. You may have heard of programs like Zipcar, but there are many others that are not as well known.... Full Story
25. Belichick’s No-Punt Bet Gets Him Into Freakonomics Hall of Fame
Bloomberg
November 17, 2009
A decision by New England Patriots coach Bill Belichick that cost his team a win over undefeated Indianapolis earned him the praise of “Freakonomics” co-author Steven D. Levitt, who said the call probably was the right one....
Levitt cited a study by DAVID ROMER, PROFESSOR AT THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA-BERKELEY, which said coaches often get too conservative on fourth downs. In an analysis of more than 700 regular-season NFL games from 1998 through 2000, teams had 1,068 fourth downs where averages suggest they would have been better off going for a first down. They kicked in 959 of those situations, according to Romer’s study.... Full Story