SoCal Minds

Sound the alarm, beware the evil red palm weevil

From UCR

Beware that evil weevil, say experts in Riverside, who last week brought together scientists and growers in an emergency meeting to discuss prohylactic measures that need to be taken to prevent a widening infestation of red palm weevils (as shown in photo at right). The nasty bugs, considered one of the planet's most damaging pests to the palm trees that are so iconic in California, have been confirmed in a Laguna Beach discovery. Palm weevils, which bore fatal trees into their host trees' trunks, have flourished as plants get shipped and traded internationally. They can survive and thrive as eggs, larvae or pupae hidden in palms. Officials plan an education campaign, as well as a weevil eradication program.

Experts plan campaign against pest, a lethal killer of iconic Southern California flora

A catch-up lagniappe with a soupcon from all over

From Cal State Fullerton, RAND, CSUN, Loyola Marymount, UCLA, UCR, UCI, Claremont Graduate University, Chapman

Let's play fast catch up. With apologies that the press of fuller time employment for actual pay has cut into the posting here -- and may continue to do so -- here's stuff from around the area worth a gander:

The Bruins open their spiffy, new Terasaki Life Sciences building today, a major facility named after the emeritus surgery prof, transplant pioneer and key developer of tissue typing technology who also donated $50 million to the school.

Also of note in Westwood: a $2.9 million study on gum disease among diabetics with emphasis in new genetic techniques that will let researchers better understand whether changes in health affect body systems and allow certain types of bacteria to flourish. Bruin scholars also will join colleagues from five other schools in a major new scrutiny of climate change in the Southwestern United States, a region that experts predict will be among the most affected by issues related to global warming.

In Fullerton, a researcher has put together nearly $7 million in grants to study and boost the health of Asian Pacific Islanders, some 870,000 of whom live in Southern California and must deal with particular challenges with obesity and cancer. Other research on campus recently has targeted Asian American women and their reproductive health, particularly since some of the student-assisted work found that this group of females, while sexually active, used contraceptives less and were unlikely to undergo routine testing for disorders affecting women. And yet another Titan scholar has become a surprising expert for highly personal reasons on the topic of suicide among people, especially young women, of Asian descent; suicide is the second leading cause of death among Asian American women ages 15 to24 and women of Asian descent in this age group, joined by those older than 65, have the highest suicide rates across all racial-ethnic groups, experts say.  

In Santa Monica, the think tank folks have found thatGood Samaritans could get better, more cost effective results if only they would work harder to coordinate all those after-school programs aimed at helping kids; the full report available here details how, in principle, five cities have proved they can help more urban youngsters reach their fullest potential through the after-school programs if sponsors work together. Other researchers, meantime, have raised questions about the market for residential wind and flood insurance, coverages that were found tragically lacking and still have not been put back together five years after Hurricane Katrina.

In Riverside, itty-bitty guppies have told a tale of species' resilience after a poor, early start in life, while in Orange, little sea slugs, jolted by electricity and shocked by nasty lobster attacks, have provided intriguing insights into brain activity and memory.

In Claremont, researchers have created a computer model to help figure how to reduce public conflicts over the location of power lines and other transmission facilities for advanced but remote solar and wind power plants, while in Westchester, student broadcasters are celebrating the resolution of a frequency dispute so that campus radio station KXLU (88.9) can be heard without interference in eastern Los Angeles, including by underground hipsters in Silverlake, downtown and Pasadena.

 

Another advance with miracle material graphene

From UCR

Just days ago, two scientists in Britain captivated the planet and won a Nobel Prize in physics for their creation of a decidedly low-tech but smashing, one carbon atom-thick new material called graphene, which, by the way, initially got produced with little more than a lot of patience and persistence, some ordinary pencils and the stickiness of cellophane tape. Just a blink ago, some researchers in Riverside then already were making headway with putting graphene to work in super fast, super efficient new kinds of computers that rely on the substance and the mere spin of electrons. Following so far? Because now researchers say they have built and successfully tested an amplifier using the miracle material. Which matters why? Well, get this, it could, experts say, lead to more efficient electronic chips in devices used to collect road tolls and, yes, in improvements to those Bluetooth headsets -- you know, the thingys that people wear in their ears so they look like Star Trek characters and conduct mysterious conversations with invisble parties as once only the homeless and deranged used to?

Amplifier built, tested showing substance's promise in better electronic circuits, devices

On 3 campuses, big pushes for advances in nano world

From UCR, UCSB & UCLA

While certain television shows boast how their plots get 'ripped' from the day's headlines, folks in Riverside and Santa Barbara clearly are showing how they're staying at the fore of startling developments in the newest of materials. It was, for example, just days ago that most of the planet got cued in to this new, sheet of cool stuff that's just one carbon atom thick, and, bang, here are Inland Empire researchers saying that graphene -- the material that won two scientists a Nobel Prize in physics -- will play a key role in swifter, more efficient computers. The post tackles more of the technical details of how spinning, dancing electrons combined with graphene may produce the dazzling new computers but suffice to say that the path-breaking work in this area is occuring in the nanoscale.

Can electrons' spin, 21st century graphene material combine in super, new computer?

And that world, coincidentally, is where the National Science Foundation has put up $6 million in a five-year, significantly boosted grant for experts in Santa Barbara to keep struggling with the issue of how nanotechnology affects society. This project, combining engineers and scientists with experts in the social sciences and humanities, calls for research, education and outreach to the wider public on how nanoscience -- controlling matter at the molecular and atomic level -- affects an array of areas including energy, health, water, food and the environment.

In Santa Barbara, a $6 million boost to study on how nanoscience affects society

To those exploring new frontiers in the medical or scientific applications of nanotechnology, the mere microscopic presence of detrius like bacteria or even the most itty-bitty viruses can be deadly to their work. A level of cleanliness that exceeds any ordinary household godliness is a must for researchers fabricating materials at the molecular and atomic levels. So there's good news for such scientists, start-up entrepreneurs and researchers with an $8 million expansion of 9,700 square feet of squeaky sanitary space in Westwood. The 24/7-available cleanroom areas -- open to investigators from universities, industry and the government -- also include pricey high tech tools like an 'electron-beam writer.' Those who wish to perform 'proof of concept' and other  research  in the facilty must undergo approval and training before they can access the facility, supported with the help of Intel, ASML, Micron Technology and International Rectifier. The Bruins note that the cleanspace's proximity will be a boon to experts in their engineering and medical schools.

An $8 million doubling of clean space for nanotechnology research 

A call for help for struggling, poor com college students

From UCR

It's a volatile, academically parlous and unhappy mix -- schools with the least resources and students with the greatest needs. It's a situation that researchers in Riverside say needs immediate and long-term remedy if the Golden State truly wants to see community colleges fulfill their highest, best goal of serving as a real educational gateway allowing students to change their lives and to help make California a great place in the 21st century. The problem lies in the lack of attention, focus, money and other resources -- as well as the thinking and planning -- so com colleges can support their students, some 6 million of them taking credit courses nationwide, with another 3 million to 5 million enrolled in academic-building classes including education in English as a second language. Educators and administrators, the experts say in an issue of an academic journal, must grasp how huge are the obstacles confronting com college students, who, often hold down multiple jobs, come from poor and struggling families and lack the academic backgrounds and skills that might let them better seize educational opportunities. The very jobs that the students hold to survive, especially in the dire economic situation prevailing now, can hold them back from learning more and thriving in the sheltered academic world, the experts say. They urge com college administrators, for example, to help working students by scrutinizing the academic schedules to see they include plenty of night and weekend classes; to ensure that libraries and labs stay open in nontraditional hours; and to work so campuses offer plenty of counseling, health care -- and child care, too. 

Schools with the least asked to help most -- an unhappy mix, scholars say

A push for lighter, greener, cheaper power for U.S. forces

   From UCR

With all the back-breaking, parlous labor they already perform, don't America's military forces deserve a lightening of their considerable load? That's, physically, what a Riverside researcher hopes to do for 21st century, high-tech fighters under a $6.25 million Defense Department grant that will be spread among folks at several institutions nationwide. The Pentagon has asked the scientists, including Yushan Yan, the chair of the environmental and chemical engineering department (shown in photo at left), to develop a lighter, greener and longer lasting power source for use by U.S. armed forces. U.S. fighters, equipped with everything from GPS devices to night-vision goggles, now lug as much as 30 pounds in batteries so they can be powered up for as long as 72 hours on missions. Researchers hope to develop new fuel cells that could slash that load by 80% and extend the field power provision up to five times -- all with devices that use lower cost, more environmentally conscious materials. As with all technology developed for the military, experts also see that any advances also soon would sweep to benefit the private sector and ordinary civilians, too.

In Riverside, search is on for new fuel cells to cut weight of power for high-tech U.S. fighters 

New advances in fighting cancer, disease at celluar levels

From Caltech, UCSB & UCR

While global combat rarely produces very pleasant results, as readers in this space well know, there's an increasingly successful war going on at a totally different level as researcher go cellular and molecular to battle diseases like cancer. And in Pasadena, Santa Barbara and Riverside, scientists are reporting key advances in their work with tiny, tiny, tiny seeming aspects of cells and their lives but with big potential.

In the Rose City, for example, researchers have worked with cells from an aggressive form of brain tumor (glioblastoma), and those from a form of bone tumor (Ewing's sarcoma) and from prostate carcinoma. They're deploying RNA molecules that target these specific cancer cells, enter them and then change shape, disrupting the cancer's internal processes and killing them. They say this narrowly focused attack on only cancer cells could provide better treatment without debilitating side-effects associated with traditional, broader chemotherapies.

In Santa Barbara, scientists also are mounting molecular attacks against cancer and other illnesses by constructing complex nanoparticles, polyhedrons of varied geometric shape that self assemble into new shapes but are all designed to bind to different parts of human RNA and attack disease; the researchers say their approach employs only natural compounds, and, thus, prospectively will be greener and safer.

Other of their colleagues in Santa Barbara, meantime, are scrutinizing a roundworm protein that binds cells together and causes them to work with each other in communities; by better understanding the 'Fer' protein, the researchers also hope to learn why some cells are not bound by it and go off on their own and continue to multiply -- a crucial, growth and spreading process associated, for example, with cancer.

And, as long as the day's topic is developments in cellular research, there's also news from Riverside that a biochemist has figured out why crucial cells involved in important research die when they are cultivated on a singular basis. His work may prove significant to those who need to grow human pluripotent stem cells, the amazing, transformational tissues that are under major study for their potential role in new treatments for spinal cord injuries, Parkinson's disease, burns, heart disease, diabetes, arthritis, and other ailments.

In Pasadena, aggressive cancers targeted with killer molecules

In Santa Barbara, building nanoparticles from natural compounds to attack disease

Why might a celluar 'glue' of a roundworm offer a key to fighting cancer?

In Riverside, insights into what kills valued stem cells used in key new research

Feeling a tad mousey about exercise? Might a pill help?

From UCR

Listen up, counch-dwelling, unmotivated and slothful folk: Some mighty mice in Riverside have some lessons to offer us all about exercise, genetics and potential pharmaceutical remedies for the inability of so many of us to get moving, researchers say. In experiments that began in the early 1990s, they began to isolate and breed lab critters based on their capacity to run in those little wire wheels. No, not because they were hoping to find the quintessential, Dilbert-like corporate drone. The researchers say they have proved that the wherewithal for exercise and activity is an inherited, genetically based trait, with lab mice that were high runners producing offspring that also were high runners. This kind of generational study often gets done only among short-lived species, such as fruit-flies or other insects and happens less often among vertebrates. But researchers say they saw gender-based differences in the generations of lab mice most inclined to be athletic, that is that voluntarily chose to take a spin in the ol' wheel: females achieved daily distance by speed alone, whereas males ran fast and long. Hmmm. So what might this mean for two-legged sluggards? Researchers say it may lead to a pill to target genes so people get more active and enjoy it, too.

Capacity for activity found to be inherited trait, with prospect of pharmaceutical adjustment

They're a-Twitter about new tracking of online trends

From UCR

If the tale can be told in a cyber haiku of 140 characters or less, will it really matter 10 seconds beyond, much less to history? Hmm. Let's try: Two Riverside students have built web site that lets Twitter fans track trends over time to see the most current, frequent and long-running. Got it? Twend It launched by Nick Difillipo and Tim Kelleher (shown in photo at left, with Kelleher on right) on May 13 so its collective memory, at the moment, seems elegantly equivalent to an intellectual Tweet. But if the historical or marketing or commercial possibility of, um, longer term tracking of what the online crowd's abuzz about gets ya all a-Twitter, have at it.

Do folks who communicate in 140 characters or less care about the longer term?

Why, look: Who isn't rating or ranking schools just now?

From UCLA, UCR, Claremont McKenna & Harvey Mudd

Well, alrighty, then. Be careful. An innocent's eye could be lost to a stray brass button flying off the praise-swollen bosoms of the administrators and alums of various area schools as the (silly) season of published ratings drags on. We pledged at this site to ignore these rankings, even when Trojans inched ahead of Bruins in a certain newsweekly's tally. Is there any point, besides arguments in a bar, about these scorings, which, in their usual more sensible moments, those in the Ivy Towers work so hard to bad mouth and downgrade. So we're not going to reach and report how the folks in Riverside have gotten a Top 20 ranking from the Goldwater Institute for their administrative-financial rectitude. And when cats in Claremont cite their standing in surveys on workplace pay or in grad school placement, we're just going to turn away. Or when the kind folks in Westwood compile a whole lot of their bragging rights, not the least of which is a rating of institutions around the globe by Shanghai Jiao Tong University, we'll zip past it, too? Lastly, when some other folks on the eastern edge of the metropolis tout their focus on community service and the role it plays to win their school national attention, well, we'll just skip over a certain iconoclastic DC outfit's views on how schools stack up for their contribution to the public good. How 'bout it?