SoCal Minds

Keys to 2010: courage, resolve, commitment

From Cal State Fullerton & USC

Fie on new year's resolutions. Here's to a lot more good old-fashioned resolve, instead, for the start of a new decade. And there's nothing to put a little perspective on what's important in life than to see its fragility and how some folks stand up to its hardships. Take the science lecturer in Fullerton who has learned she has a rare and debilitating disease. It's robbing her of her sight and soon it may damage her body so much that she's unsure how long she has to live. But she's got high goals in sight before worse things happen. A lifetime adventurer, she hopes to scale Mt. Everest while she can.

Meantime, a Trojan expert has advice to those who will tip-toe toward 2010, trepidatious over lordy knows what. He urges his fellow Americans to get over their manufactured fears, to look at data and reality and to stop fretting over the dangers of air travel (you're safer in the sky than in a car, dearies), the risks of terrorism or teen whack-jobs creating school mayhem (you're more likely to be hit by lightening than to be harmed by either) and other sundry, pervasive modern scares.

And if a year end review of a decidedly personal matter turns up the prospect of checking a box on that California driver's license, well, do it now and this year. Agree, that is, to be an organ donor. It's a gift of life and the need is giant, with just 1.200 patients in the Golden State receiving transplants after getting on a waiting list of 20,000. How does this all work, especially for the families whose loved ones are donors? The folks in Irvine offer lots of information.

Photo: Larry, Cindy Abbott atop Russian peak on adventure that ailing lecturer hopes to exceed / by Scott Woolums

Rare, degenerative disease won't stop her peak ambitions 

OK, scaredy cats, time to get over many 'manufactured fears'

Organ donation: an easy gift of life for thousands awaiting aid

Two schools take a part in 2010 Rose Parade

From UCR & Cal Poly Pomona

At a time when black men were scorned and denigrated as less than second-class citizens, a group of dedicated, determined African Americans took to the skies in defense of America. And, as the city of West Covina honors these flyers, known as the Tuskegee Airmen, the scholars in Riverside gave a helping hand to the design of a distinctive New Year's Rose Parade float. The university houses the Western Region Tuskegee Airmen Archive , a growing collection that brings together and preserves material about the pioneers who broke a racial barrier that kept minorities out of military air service. Meantime, the folks over in Pomona are, as usual, fired up over their annual Rose Parade entry, for which they are flogging public support. The school hopes its 'Jungle Cuts' entry will garner sufficient online votes to become the Viewer's Choice parade award winner.

Photo: Designer Paul Rodriguez's planned West Covina float / courtesy Charisma floats

Archive proves invaluable as city float honors Tuskegee Airmen

'Jungle Cut' lobbies for online votes for parade honor

Postings stay light, but catching up a little ...

From USC, UCLA, Caltech, UCI & RAND

The postings will stay holiday light as 2009 dwindles to its close. But to catch up on a few developments:

• Trojan researchers say that intervening and treating people older than 50 for diabetes, hypertension and obesity could help those individuals live longer, better and without significantly increasing lifetime medical spending.

Preventative work found to hold health care cost benefits

• In Westwood, researchers say they have found a molecular switch that could lead to key new treatment for Huntington's, a progressively debilitating disease that afflicts and kills one out of every 10,000 Americans.

In animal studies, molecular switch found to bar Huntington's disease

• In Pasadena, a student project aims to reduce the high cost of medical walkers that would allow bed-ridden children in Third World countries to become ambulatory.

Can a compassionate chemical engineer build a walker cheap enough to aid poor kids?

• In Irvine, a new study says that strict control of blood sugar levels in type 2 diabetics does not necessarily lower the risk of heart attack and stroke, particularly if the patients concurrently have heart disease or hypertension.

New view of blood sugar control, diabetes, heart attack, stroke

• RAND experts say their studies show that specially established state clinics have made strides in securing legal rights for victims of crimes.

Legal clinics helping crime victims secure new rights

Merry, merry and happy, happy. Light posting

Peace on earth and joy to all. Light posting for the next bit, though we'll pop up with an item or two, even as most intellectual institutions in the Southland are clever enough to have shut tight for the holidays. Many thanks to one and all who stop here and continue to support this blog.

What should be NATO's modern global role?

From RAND

Whither the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, the post-World War II political-military-security alliance that has struggled to find its best path since the collapse of the Soviet Union? The organization is supposed to launch next year into a formal process to redefine itself for its 28 partner nations. But researchers in Santa Monica have gotten out ahead of that review and suggested five key options to ensure the alliance maintains the relevance and credibility it needs for the sake of its survival. These include: focusing on Europe; turning attention to persistent threats from the Mideast; concentrating on "fragile states" like Afghanistan; paying most heed to threats emanating not from nations or states but rather  in piracy, cyber and other forms of terrorism; expanding the alliance to encompass liberal democracies globally rather than just the North Atlantic, European nations; some combination of any or all of these.

5 options sketched for future of European military alliance

Click here for the full RAND report

Sniffing out a unique part of India's religious life

From USC

While Westerners, especially at this time of year, really come to comprehend the ancient importance of materials like frankincense and myrrh, a Trojan religions expert is tracking hard the sense and sensibilities involved in a whole different realm of scents -- all the fragrances, perfumes and incenses connected with India's faiths and cultures. He's spent a dozen years on a tome that will, among other things, trace through Medieval Sanskrit texts the significance of oft-precious and incredibly costly substances that created odors that had huge import and complex meaning in Indian life. But why did Indian faithful put such preeminence on burning exotics, such as rare aloeswood from Southeast Asia, as part of their rites, rituals and religions? How did resin from a hard-to-find wood, infected with a parasitic fungus, enhance prayer?

In scents of temples, he seeks to explore sense, sensibility of Indian religions

Mexican media star? Si, he's in Claremont

From Pomona

One of Mexico's most esteemed commentators, an analyst who is featured on CNN Espanol, Telemundo and Univision, appeared in 2008-2009 in 88 broadcast interviews and in more than 250 print news or news feature stories. He became the go-to guy to explain in Spanish the U.S. presidential race, American foreign policy toward Mexico and Latin America, as well as political developments across the region. He just was chosen for honors, from out of 7,000 entries, in Mexico City by a half-century old, prominent Mexican journalism group. And, oh, by the way, this media guru happens to be a history and Chicano studies prof in Claremont.

Photo: Prof. Miguel Tinker Salas, honored by Mexican journalists / PBS

Top journalists' group in Mexico honors history, Chicano studies prof at Pomona

They're dialing up plans for a math hotline

From Harvey Mudd College

Get ready, set, OK, high schoolers in the Claremont area: Soon it will be time to play stump the whiz kids while getting invaluable assistance with that math homework. With a $125,000 grant and the organization of a Pomona hometown gal, the campus full of aspiring physicists, chemists, scientists and others with incalculable, mad-crazy computational skills will be asked to serve as volunteers to staff a toll-free math hot line to help local high school kids with their studies. The Homework Hotline will be modeled after a successful effort at an Indiana college specializing in engineering, science and math education. Some 30 Hooiser volunteers man phones for three hours on Sunday through Thursday nights, and, since the program's inception in 2002, they've answered some 280,000 calls. Proponents of the program in Claremont say that a local homework hotline could be a real boon to area preps, especially those from poor, disadvantaged homes.

Photo: Pomona native Gabriella Gamiz-Gomez will organize new homework hotline / Harvey Mudd College

College whiz kids, $125,000 grant will aim to aid high schoolers with math homework

Synthetic red blood cells showing new promise

From UCSB

They're soft, flexible and they not only carry life-giving oxygen but also can serve as a highly effective means of transporting therapeutic drugs and substances that can assist in the diagnostic process. They're promising synthetic red blood cells developed jointly in Santa Barbara and Ann Arbor. Researchers say they're perfecting a process in which they can engineer the cells, starting with a correctly shaped and sized polymer base and "painting it" with up to nine layers of hemoglobin and other proteins so the finished product mimics the natural one, with the enhancement of its capacity to carry beneficial drugs and other substances, say, dyes for detetction in diagnostic imaging. A key element of the synthetic cells is their squishiness, which lets them squash as real red blood cells do through minuscule passages and then to spring back to their original shape. Researchers say they also can engineer the synthetics to model diseased versions of the red blood cells such as those that might be found, say, in sickle-cell anemia. 

Photo: synthetic blood cells, with 5 micron bar (lower right) showing scale / UCSB

Engineered cells not only mimic the real, they also carry well drugs, other substances

Two appeals for seeking a higher, middle ground

From UCSB & Pepperdine

With the Senate wending its way to action on a package of health care and health insurance reforms, the connected contentious nature of the political process has made it seem more challenging than ever to negotiate, compromise and take socially responsible action. But an expert in Santa Barbara says that, historically and philosophically speaking, it's proper and democratic to disagree on tough issues -- and that doing so in a reasoned, reasonable way is a good thing not a bad one as many seem to think now. He says that public policy and life gets too complicated for reasonable people to always reach consensus on a course of action; they'll always be disappointed in a democracy if they expect that idealized accord. Meantime, in Malibu, an expert has been honored for his research on corporate social responsibility. He makes a complex, nuanced argument as the whole planet reels from economic avarice and ignominy of historic porportion: Shareholders' interests, he says, aren't the only needs that deserve consideration. In a changing world, companies may turn lower profits but act more responsibly and they will do fine if society recognizes the trade-off entailed by the path that turns away from enriching a paltry few to doing a greater good for many more.    

New praise, in public policy, life for reasoned, reasonable disagreement

A lauded argument for corporations to abjure avaricious profit, seek social good