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Wednesday, 13 February 2013
1. Gov. Brown, BofA chief offer no easy answers for housing woes
Los Angeles Times
Governor Jerry Brown and Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan joined business professor Ken Rosen, of Berkeley's Fisher Center for Real Estate and Urban Economics, at a Berkeley summit on the future of housing in California on Tuesday. Professor Rosen said that "affordability is the best it's been in 50 years," with home prices down 25% from their peak nationally and mortgage rates at record lows. "A lot of people on Wall Street say we should have a boom." Other stories on this topic appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle, Oakland Tribune, and Los Angeles Times. Full Story
2. Work begins on Berkeley museum, film archive
San Francisco Chronicle
Construction has begun on the new Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, scheduled to open in the summer of 2016, at the intersection of Center St. and Oxford, by the western edge of campus. The building was designed by New York firm Diller Scofidio + Renfro. Museum director Lawrence Rinder is interviewed on this topic in Berkeleyside, and another story appeared in the San Francisco Business Times. Full Story
3. The Investigative Unit: The True Costs of Big Time College Sports at Cal
NBC Bay Area Online
NBC Bay Area teamed up with the Investigative Reporting Program at Berkeley's journalism school to study the costs of sports at California universities, including Cal. Chancellor Robert Birgeneau points out that the campus’ contribution to intercollegiate athletics makes up only 0.31% of the University’s $2.3 Billion overall budget—a budget which has also seen growth, despite the decline in financial support from Sacramento. In addition, the university has reduced its funding to the athletic department in recent years, from $10.7 million in 2009 to a projected 4.4 million for 2013. “If we didn’t have those income generated sports, our shortfall would look more like those in the Ivys which are 10’s of millions of dollars,” he says. Full Story
4. Language 'time machine' a Rosetta stone for lost tongues
C/Net
A team of researchers including computer science professor Dan Klein and psychology professor Thomas Griffiths has developed software that can rebuild protolanguages, the ancient languages from which modern languages evolved. "This really is not an attempt to put historical linguists out of a job," Professor Klein says. "It's not like chess where we're seeing if we can one-up the humans. ... It would take a very long time for people to be able to cross-reference every language and every word that we feed into the program. ... Of course in principle a human could do that, but in practice they just won't. Humans are not well-suited to crunching all of this data. Humans are well-suited to other things." Stories on this topic appeared in more than a dozen sources worldwide, including the French Tribune and Science 2.0. Full Story
5. Health Briefs
San Francisco Chronicle
A study by Berkeley molecular and cell biologists has found that the star-nosed mole's unusual snout may hold clues for new methods of treating pain. Full Story
6. Wise Beyond Their Years: What Babies Really Know
Wall Street Journal (*requires registration)
A story about research providing insight into the minds of babies mentions a study co-authored by psychology professor Fei Xu and pending publication, which found that infants have some knowledge of probabilities. Full Story
7. The White House's new College Scorecard is online
Oakland Tribune
President Obama announced in his State of the Union address that a new tool would soon be available to help families figure out "where you can get the most bang for your educational buck." That tool, called College Scorecard, is now available on the White House's Website, and it shows, for example, that a typical UC Berkeley family borrows $17,249 in federal loans for an undergraduate education. Full Story
8. Raising Minimum Wage Would Ease Income Gap but Carries Political Risks
New York Times & International Herald Tribune (*requires registration)
In an article about President Obama's call for Congress to raise the federal minimum wage research co-authored by Berkeley economics professor Emmanuel Saez is cited, showing that inequality has worsened considerably since the 1980s. Full Story
9. Detroit Worker Bonuses Approach Records on Rising Profits: Cars
San Francisco Chronicle
Labor professor Harley Shaiken comments on record profit-sharing checks that U.S. automakers are set to distribute among their employees. “It is a small stimulus program that serves as an example in an economy where jobs are still a central issue,” he says. “And it improves the companies’ competitiveness because better workers are attracted and morale is higher.” Full Story
10. State court overturns murder conviction of Bay Point man in Concord stabbing death
Contra Costa Times (*requires registration)
A state appeals court has thrown out a Bay Point man's murder and robbery convictions because interrogating detectives made him believe he wouldn't get a life sentence if he admitted the killing was the result of a "robbery gone bad." Berkeley law professor Charles Weisselberg says the opinion clarifies how far police investigators can go in deceiving a suspect to garner a confession. "The deception presented here with respect to the consequences of the statement are actually what got (Paul Antonio Westmoreland) life without parole instead of just life," Professor Weisselberg says. Full Story
11. Politics Blog: Tons of Californians arrested at White House climate change protest
San Francisco Chronicle Online
Berkeley poet and English professor Bob Hass was among 48 environmental activists arrested Wednesday after chaining themselves to a fence outside the White House to protest the Keystone XL pipeline. Full Story
12. Op-Ed: Online dating preferences block romance
San Francisco Chronicle
Sean La Guardia, a public policy graduate student, writes about his five-year Valentine's tradition of reactivating his online dating profile, and complains about the "preference" settings used by many. "A 'single Latina' seeking her 'partner in crime' with 'great family values' is not such a stretch to match in the sea of desperate suitors," he says. "But the added requirements of a $250,000 salary, Caucasian origin and a muscular build are a bit over the top. Has she forgotten that the act of online dating forfeits her ability to be picky?" Full Story
13. Newts return to UC Botanical Garden for mating season
Oakland Tribune
Newts are putting on a show at the campus Botanical Garden, as they do every spring during mating season. The clear water of the garden's Japanese pond offers visitors a close-up view, and special "newts explained" docent sessions are set for 2-3:30 p.m. on Sunday, Feb. 17, and Monday, Feb. 18. Link to slideshow. Full Story