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Tuesday, 19 February 2013
1. Synthetic biology: Stanford, UC Berkeley engineering a new frontier
San Jose Mercury News
Berkeley researchers are at the forefront of synthetic biology, a relatively new science that essentially swaps a cell's original operating system for a lab-designed one that can then be put to work for novel purposes. Among the Berkeley-affiliated organizations involved are the BIOFAB lab, which is working on thousands of free standardized DNA parts, and SynBERC, a coalition of research labs. Berkeley chemical engineer Jay Keasling, co-founder of Amyris, is adding genes to yeast or bacteria to make novel biofuels, and Chris Anderson is building a tumor-killing bacteria. "It's like brewing beer or wine," says Professor Keasling, "but instead of alcohol, you have your chemical of choice come out. And it is completely renewable. ... There's no reason why you can't produce petroleum from microbes. ... Or plants to clean up the environment, sucking carbon out of the atmosphere." Full Story
2. Obama Seeking to Boost Study of Human Brain
New York Times & International Herald Tribune (*requires registration)
Chemistry professor A. Paul Alivisatos, director of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, is among six leading scientists who proposed new approaches for mapping the brain, a project endorsed by the Obama administration. “Every dollar we invested to map the human genome returned $140 to our economy — every dollar,” President Obama said in his State of the Union address. “Today our scientists are mapping the human brain to unlock the answers to Alzheimer’s. They’re developing drugs to regenerate damaged organs, devising new materials to make batteries 10 times more powerful. Now is not the time to gut these job-creating investments in science and innovation.” Another story on this topic appeared in NBC Online. Full Story
3. Incomes Flat in Recovery, but Not for the 1%
New York Times & International Herald Tribune (*requires registration)
Economics professor Emmanuel Saez has issued a new analysis showing that incomes rose more than 11 percent for the top 1 percent of earners during the economic recovery, but not at all for everybody else. Professor Saez says he does not expect the trend to have reversed in 2012. Other stories on this topic appeared in CNN Money and CBS MoneyWatch. Full Story
4. Wonkblog: Are bans on plastic bags making people sick? Not so fast.
Washington Post Online
Epidemiologist Tomás Aragón, director of Berkeley's Center for Infectious Diseases and Emergency Readiness, as well as health officer for the city of San Francisco, has responded to a Wharton School paper claiming that food-borne illnesses in San Francisco increased 46 percent after a plastic bag ban went into effect in 2007, with no corresponding increase in neighboring counties. Aragón explains that this is an example of “ecological fallacy,” since it fails to show that the same people who are using reusable bags are also the ones getting sick. Aragón also points out that emergency-room data can be very incomplete, and there’s been no rise in E. coli. Offering an alternative hypothesis, he says the recent rise in deaths related to intestinal infection is largely due to C. difficile enterocolitis, a disease that’s often coded as a food-borne illness in hospitals, and this disease has become more common in many places around the U.S., Canada, and Europe since 2005. Full Story
5. Dear Darwin: When the Sky Fell on Evolution
Wall Street Journal (*requires registration)
A columnist writes an email to Charles Darwin, telling him about earth and planetary science professor Paul Renne's study adding new evidence linking the demise of the dinosaurs with the comet or asteroid that hit the Gulf of Mexico 65 million years ago. Full Story
6. Week in Ideas: Daniel Akst
Wall Street Journal (*requires registration)
A research round-up includes a brief about a software program co-developed by Berkeley researchers that can rebuild protolanguages, the ancient languages from which modern languages evolved. Another story on this topic appeared in Discovery News. Full Story
7. Cell Phones on the Plane: Possible Lift in Ban on In-Flight Phone Calls, But Some are Still Against It
Travelers Today
As regulators consider lifting long-held regulations against in-flight cell phone use, experts are conflicted. Epidemiologist Joel Moskowitz, director of the Berkeley's Center for Family and Community Health, is against the idea, saying: "Looking at brain tumor risk and other kinds of cancer risk, I would say it's a bad idea." Adding that cellphones radiate low power microwaves and that inside a metal container, such as a jet fuselage, microwaves reflect and amplify, he says: "You're going to have very high exposures in certain parts of that container and it's hard to predict even where those hot spots, so to speak, occur." On the other hand, Berkeley physicist Richard Muller says the danger is minimal: "I think it's a great idea. ... I think it's time we did it. The only downside is now I can't escape my cellphone when I'm flying in an airplane." Full Story
8. Key legislative committee to consider Medi-Cal expansion
Los Angeles Times
California legislation that would dramatically expand Medi-Cal, the state's public insurance program for the poor, is being considered in an Assembly panel. A recent study co-authored by Berkeley's Center for Labor Research found that the plan could add between 240,000 and 510,000 people to the Medi-Cal rolls by 2019. Full Story
9. Cal Coach Punished for Shoving His Own Player
New York Times Online (*requires registration)
Cal basketball coach Mike Montgomery was reprimanded by the Pac-12 on Monday for shoving one of his own players -- star guard Allen Crabbe -- in the chest during a game. "While emotions can run high in competitive environments, Pac-12 coaches are expected to conduct themselves in a manner that will reflect credit on the institution and the conference," Commissioner Larry Scott said. Cal athletic director Sandy Barbour said: "It is unacceptable for our coaches to have physical contact with student-athletes regardless of the circumstances. ... The second-half incident was certainly out of character for Mike Montgomery, and I am confident that something like this will not happen again." Coach Montgomery admitted he "made a mistake," and Allen Crabbe said: "Everything's fine. ... It's under the bridge. He's my coach, no hard feelings. We're just going to keep moving on." Stories on this topic appeared in more than 100 sources nationwide, including KTVU (link to video). Full Story
10. KCBS In Depth: New Dean Settles Into Role at UC Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism
KCBS Radio
Edward Wasserman, Berkeley's new journalism dean, is interviewed. A renowned expert on media ethics, politics and economics, he sees the digital age of information as a time of unlimited opportunity for his students. "People want topical information, topical commentary, they want fact-based narratives, you know they want that and now we can give it to them in a far, far more compelling way," he says. Link to audio. Full Story
11. Russian meteor spurs call to share military satellite data
NBC Online
After the Russian meteor crash, astronomy and earth and planetary science professor Raymond Jeanloz has joined a chorus calling for military satellite data on near-Earth objects (NEOs) to be shared with scientists. "Yes, I think this is an excellent example of how useful it is to have multiple sensors monitoring our planet everywhere, all the time, including the infrasound and seismic components of the CTBTO's International Monitoring System, as well as satellites and telescopes," he says. "Further analysis is needed, but it looks like this was an event with about 100-200 kiloton explosive yield, a rough estimate that needs confirming and refining, ... meaning that it happens on time periods of decades to perhaps a century or so." Full Story
12. Proponents of cellphone unlocking ask the White House for help
Los Angeles Times
Law professor Jason Schultz, a copyright expert, is mentioned in a story about a petition drive soliciting White House support for a cellphone unlocking initiative. Full Story
13. Seawater desalination plant might be just a drop in the bucket
Los Angeles Times
Construction is about to begin on the nation's largest seawater desalination facility near San Diego, a project some hope will help solve California's water woes. However, experts, including resource economics professor emeritus Henry Vaux Jr., are skeptical. "While this Poseidon adventure may work out, I don't look for a lot of that," he says. Full Story
14. Blog: Why American-US Airways deal is good
CNN Online
Business professor Pablo Spiller writes that the merger between American and US Airways is a good thing, concluding: "Overall, this merger, the last of the large airlines' merger wave, has the potential of being not only good for shareholders and airline employees, but to domestic travelers alike. It's not a bad deal." Full Story
15. Depression-era artwork returning to public display
Chicago Tribune
Gray Brechin, founder and project scholar of the Living New Deal, a UC Berkeley-based project to catalog the lasting impacts of New Deal public works sites, weighs in on the U.S. Postal Service's sale of old post offices. Noting that public access to WPA murals could be jeopardized, he says: "You'll find the artwork in these post offices was usually the only artwork in these small towns. ... That's why we're so concerned about what's happening to the post office. That really throws into the air what's going to happen to our artwork." He gives the example of a movie producer who bought a post office in Venice, California, to convert it into a production facility where the artwork could be viewed by reservation only. "That's not public anymore," Brechin says. Full Story
16. Violent entertainment and behavior: Study results are mixed
Los Angeles Times
President Obama announced last month that he will urge Congress to fund research into the causes of gun violence, including the role of entertainment. This article summarizes several such studies to date, including one from 2008 that was co-authored by Berkeley economists, which posited that violent films may actually help reduce violence by distracting potential criminals. They called the phenomenon "voluntary incapacitation." Full Story