SoCal Minds

How those new 'electonic cigarettes' make you suck

From UCR

Hate to be so rude about it, but those newfangled 'electronic cigarettes' make you suck. Harder. For real. And possibly to the detriment of your cardiovascular health. That's what experts in Riverside say after conducting experiments involving eight conventional cigarettes and five 'electronic' brands with a machine that tested what vacuum power was necessary to get a drag off the various kinds of smokes. The e cigarettes, devices that combine a battery-powered atomizer and nicotine, did not deliver uniform doses to 'smokers,' which likely would cause them to inhale more deeply and often to get the 'hit' they need -- a compensatory conduct that could lead to greater penetration of harmful substances into the lungs and cardiovascular system, as experts have seen in the case of 'light' cigarettes, the experts warn.

Machine testing shows that smokers likely take deeper, more frequent puffs with 'e cigarettes'

Lifetime achievement awards for two sci-fi icons

From UCR

He's black, gay, an activist in the Sixties counterculture movement and a writer with a demonstrable talent for turning out science fiction featuring mavericks and outsiders who make startling discoveries about not only far-off worlds but themselves, too. He had a contemporary who would garner even more attention for his writing, his championing of progressive causes like civil rights and authors' protections and his disdain for strait-laced, backwards thinking authoritarians. Now, as part of one of the major science fiction and fantasy programs undertaken at a major university, authors Samuel R. Delaney (shown at left) and Harlan Ellison (shown at right) have been recognized for their lifetime achievements. Delaney has been hailed for both the excellence of his multiple sci-fi novels and his path-breaking efforts as an African-American pioneer in the field; Ellison already is one of the most honored and prolific sci-fi writers who trails only Ray Bradbury and Isaac Asimov as an anthologized author in his field. The two will be presented in February with their Eaton Award for lifetime achievement in sci-fi as part of the major conference, which also will present a student award for a new work and a scholarly symposium.

'Eaton' sci-fi honors for noted authors Samuel R. Delaney, Harlan Ellison

Premier collection of state, westen water info moves south

From UCR & Pepperdine

It's roughly 200,000 technical reports, 1,500 specialized newsletters, 5,000 maps and videos, 2,200 serials, 25,000 land photographs and 4,500 aerial photographs of coastlines, totaling more than 7,000 linear feet. These materials make up the Water Resources Center Archive, what experts call one of the premier collections of information and archives about water development in the Golden State and the West. This prized research and scholarly trove will be moving south from Berkeley to Riverside, where it will be shared by the UC there and CSU San Bernardino. The archive was set up by the legislature in 1958 and provides an invaluable resource to water agencies, governments, environmentalists, engineers, attorneys, historians and researchers. Its new SoCal home will put it nearer to the Water Science and Policy Center and the Water Resources Institute, which also houses the significant Joseph Andrew Rowe Water Resources Archive. Besides the big news about the move of the water information, the folks in Riverside earlier also had learned that they have received a grant from Google to assist with an effort to improve the information describing books published before 1801 and included in the Google Books digitized archive. Over in Malibu, meantime, scholars there now will have online access to the new, Oxford International Encyclopedia of Peace, which, in print covers 2,848 pages and offers 850 A-Z entries by leading scholars on a range of topics related to peace studies.

UC-CSU cooperation brings acclaimed Water Resources Center Archives to Riverside

Google gives grant to upgrade info on digitized books published before 1801

In Malibu, online access for Waves to Oxford encyclopieda on peace

Good morning, sunshine: Do you need more Vitamin D?

From UCR

For everyone who will spend this day cowering under flourescent lights, inside a cubicle farm and out of the blazing heat and sunshine, well, consider this: A scientist in Riverside with considerable expertise on the topic says that half the folks in North America and Western Europe get insufficient doses of Vitamin D and the situation is even worse elsewhere around the planet. He and other experts argue the nutritional standards need to be jacked up so adults get 2000 to 4000 daily IUs of Vitamin D, not the currently recommended 200 to 600 IUs. He says we all need more exposure to the sun, and yes, this might perhaps include some limited tanning for those in some northern climes or for those whose lives are led too much in the indoors; we also need to keep devouring those vitamin enriched foodstuffs. Why the big D? The scientist says there's a growing amount of data to show it plays a big role in fighting cancer and Type 1 diabetes, as well as boosting the immune system.

In Riverside, an expert call for sizable boost by adults in intake of a key vitamin

For Inland Empire librarians, a million dollar opportunity

From UCR

Even as the Los Angeles budget crisis has forced all too many of them onto the chopping block, librarians, or a potential lot of new ones, look like a million bucks to folks out in Riverside. The experts in the university's library science program hope to recruit 25 librarians who lack degrees but are now working in Inland Empire libraries to help them earn master's degrees. The aim is to improve the diversity of the regional librarians while also looking to the future and upgrading library services in the area. Advocates of this effort note that linguistic and cultural barriers have kept library patrons from taking full advantage of the vast array of information and services now provided by the many different libraries -- many of which are participating in this grant program -- in the sprawling and hugely diverse area. At the same time, it is difficult for working librarians to earn advanced degrees, which take considerable time, energy and money. The $974,259 grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services will provide recipients with scholarships of up to $24,900, as well as mentoring, internships and other academic opportunities. 

Grant aims to diversify, upgrade librarians, library services in sprawling region

A buzz on updating bee data, fears on ice caps, seafood

From UCR, ALOUD & Zocalo

Man may be king of the beasts but the evidence abounds that his environmental conduct can be just this side of beastly, though there are worries under way about species from bees to fish and the oceans as a whole:

• For all the buzz about the decimation of bees around the globe, what's really known about man's best winged-friend, the key ally in the cultivation of myriad kinds of invaluable crops? Scientists have collected almost 1 million records on various kinds of the little buzzers in 10 databases scattered across the U.S. But the accuracy and usefulness of all that information will get a boost from experts in Riverside, who will cooperate with scientists across the region (including at the UCs in Berkeley and Davis and at the Los Angeles County Natural History Museum) and the country to double-check, scrub, organize and centralize all the bee info. The aim is to ensure that experts, in examining valuable records that have been collected on the insects for as long as two centuries, can best predict the risks to bees and their 'pollination services,' in the face of climate change, habitat loss and other threats.

In Riverside, a cooperative push to upgrade 1 million records on man's best winged-friends

• In downtown tonight at 7, in a free and open conversation (for which reservations are required), a biologist and space scientist will discuss with an accomplished environmental journalist just what may occur when an inevitable consequence of climate change occurs. Peter D. Ward, an astrobiologist who works with NASA, argues that even if the present environmental carnage were to come to an abrupt halt, the rising of the world's seas due to the melting of polar ice caps will not cease. He has conjured some dire scenarios of what may ensure on 'The Flooded Earth,' including the abandonment of a lawless island Miami, guerrilla warfare in Canada and chaos and devastation in spots like Bangladesh. Must it be this way?

Dire scenarios, a call to action about climate change, the 'Flooded Earth'

• On the Westside, three folks who not only know a lot about eating but also sustainability and cuisine will take on a whopper of a topic, asking in a free, open talk (with reservations recommended) on Wednesday night at 7:30 on whether the ravenous destruction of the oceans and everything that lives therein soon will make seafood a culinary delicacy? The Brothers Gold -- Jonathan, the iconoclastic and Pulitzer-winning LA Weekly food critic (shown at right in Rena Kosnett photo celebrating his winning journalism's top award), and Mark, the noted environmentalist and head of Heal the Bay -- will join with Michael Cimarusti, a lauded master chef of seafood and the food force behind the top-rated Providence restaurant.

A whopper of a worry -- will seafood soon be a culinary rarity?

A Peruvian expedition to protect Calif. avocados

From UC Riverside

California growers supply 95% of the avocados gobbled up across the U.S. in guacamole, California rolls, and other culinary delights. But what really has American officials fretting is one, tiny South American diner on the favored fruit: Stenoma catenife, aka the avocado seed moth. University entomologists have headed for the summer to Peru to go on the offense-defense to collect avocados from orchards and vendors, searching for the moths and other pest species that might threaten California harvests, valued in excess of $300 million annually. State crops twice before were attacked by bugs then unknown (and since identified); the state Avocado Commission is funding the Peru preventative research, which includes nabbing not only harmful invaders but also critters that prey upon them and that could prove useful in battling them if they head north. Another reason for jumping on potential insect pests? They chomp up not only avocados but also have been known to attack bay laurels and eucalyptus trees.

Photo: Scientists gather avocado pits on Peruvian pest-fighting trip / Hoddle lab, UCR

Tiny pests down south could be the pits for a coveted state crop

How to bug disease-bearing little skeeters to death

From UCR

Let's sing the praises of Bacillus sphaericus (Bs) and Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt), two brilliant little bugs that scientists in Riverside have won almost $2 million to cultivate, study and propogate in special ways even more. Why? With a little engineering, these bacterial strains and others of their ilk can be genetically merged to increase the toxicity of certain proteins they produce. Specifically, those substances get gobbled up by mosquito larvae. And it, well, eats the guts out of the nasty insects, fast. It doesn't harm anything else, can be dispersed safely and widely and those mozzies can't swiftly develop resistance to it,  as they do with other pest-killing substances. Advances in this vector control technology, the experts say, could be key to curbing filarisis in India, malaria in Africa, India and Central and South America, and various viral diseases transmitted by mosquitoes around the world. They note that that the kill rate for their recombinant bacteria in Culex mosquitoes runs in the range of 95% to 100%.

In Riverside, a genetic engineering of bacteria that destroy mosquito larvae innards

Bankers' greed, regulators' blunders blamed for crash

From UCR

In the careful, cautious and conservative academic world, where feet often seem to be shuffled and findings and conclusions are muttered and mumbled, what would provoke descriptions of the work well-known political scientist with sharp language like 'pervasive failure,' 'failed policies,' 'reckless and predatory behavior,' and more? Well, of course, regulatory expert John W. Cioffi (shown at right) is describing his take on how unchecked Wall Street venality and its overseers' blind blundering led to the current economic collapse and crisis. He demurs on the theories that the Great Recession was triggered by a financial market crash or a liquidity crisis, instead calling the system meltdown, 'the largest banking run in history that revealed the insolvency of the shadow banking system.' He notes that the financial malaise ripped through the system, traveling along regulatory fault lines, from areas with the least outside oversight and supervision to the heart of the American economy. He denounces both Republicans and Democrats, the public and private sectors and all those who not only failed to heed the ample warnings that deregulation of the U.S. financial system not only was not working but was heading the country to a crash. He also warns that current reforms may prove to be too timid and fail to get back in check the still untrammeled avarice in America's financial system. 

In look back to causes of economic meltdown, a warning about timidity of reforms

Fracas with publisher a sign of grim university finances

From UCLA

With the Bruins alone facing a $200 million budget shortfall and figuring how to handle a financial crisis, guess it's unsurprising that things have gotten tense and even more disputatious in the academic world these days. As evidence, just consider the now public tussle between the UCs and a major scholarly publisher of august science magazines, the Nature Publishing Group. UC faculty and administrators assert that the publisher, whose best known title is 'Nature,' has sought a 400% hike in the cost of the schools' online subscriptions, meaning a $1 million cost systemwide; the Californians also note their robust role with this publishing group as authors and peer-review participants and how that adds to the journals' bottom line. Nature, of course, disputes the UC information and the positions that folks from the school have taken, including some movements for the grave step of dropping Nature and the other journals and boycotting participation with them. (Kudos, by the way, to the Bruin publicists for including links to the views of the other side in their online coverage of this fracas.)The UC folks note, in light of the state budget crisis, that they have successfully negotiated with other publishers and reduced costs by $1 million; they also have slashed their print and online subscriptions of 'Scientific American' in an earlier budget tiff with the Nature publishing group over costs.

Bruins, UC system in budget battle with publisher of 'Nature'