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Tuesday, 17 June 2008
1. Former Citigroup exec to work at Cal for free
Contra Costa Times (*requires registration)
June 17, 2008
UC BERKELEY has hired a former top executive with banking giant Citigroup to help the university navigate bad budget years and to compete with much wealthier private schools.
FRANK YEARY, A UC BERKELEY ALUMNUS and until recently Citigroup's head of mergers and acquisitions will serve in a NEW VICE CHANCELLOR'S POSITION, focusing on financial partnerships and strategies. He will donate his $200,000 annual salary to a scholarship fund for needy undergraduates.
YEARY, A MEMBER OF THE UNIVERSITY FOUNDATION'S BOARD since 2001, said he has become increasingly interested in helping his alma mater over the past few years.
"It is a big move, and it's one I'm extremely excited about," he said Monday. "I became aware of the challenges that face public higher education, and Berkeley in particular."...
UC Berkeley was not prepared for the financial challenges of declining government support five years ago, CHANCELLOR ROBERT BIRGENEAU said on Monday. With Yeary and other new additions, the university will be able to deal with obstacles, he said.... Full Story
2. New Berkeley vice chancellor to donate salary
San Francisco Chronicle
June 17, 2008
UC BERKELEY'S NEWEST VICE CHANCELLOR is an international investment banker who will use his expertise and connections to help guide and grow the campus' finances - and forgo a salary.
FRANK YEARY, 44, global head of mergers and acquisitions for Citigroup and a 1985 UC BERKELEY GRADUATE IN ECONOMICS AND HISTORY, plans to donate his $200,000 annual salary to the university, which has received more than $350,000 in gifts from him in the past....
"I have a strong passion about public service and I have an even stronger passion about Berkeley," he said. "If it is true that I can come out and lend my experiences and connections to help, that is a fantastic opportunity to give back to the university."
...He may also teach classes at UC BERKELEY'S HAAS SCHOOL OF BUSINESS.... Full Story
3. Letters to the Editor
San Francisco Chronicle
June 17, 2008
...Taxes needed
Editor -I write as a FACULTY MEMBER OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA to protest the damage state budget cuts are doing to my institution. Fifty-four colleagues in sciences and humanities from six campuses of the university have also signed this letter.
When the California system was conceived, the idea was that higher education should be for everyone. It is neither a frill to be funded by philanthropists nor a privilege restricted to those who can afford it. It is a basic good, comparable to roads, parks and libraries, which citizens support by paying taxes.
Unless the public renews this contract with itself, the university will continue to lay off lecturers, cut teaching assistantships, raise student tuition and fees, drastically underpay clerical and maintenance staff, turn away students from classes because of understaffing, eliminate entire programs and lose qualified faculty to other schools. Indeed, education at every level will continue to be eroded.
Preserving a great university in hard times will require new or increased taxes. Gambling revenues are neither sufficient nor appropriate. I implore California voters to reaffirm the principle of shared payment for shared services. Tell Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to abandon his anti-tax policy and rescue California's fine educational system.
ANN SMOCK, PROFESSOR
UC BERKELEY Full Story
4. UC removes tree-sit ropes, structures at Berkeley Oak Grove
Oakland Tribune
June 17, 2008
Berkeley -- Using a crane today, arborists hired by the university removed platforms, ropes, tarps and buckets of human excrement that tree sitters had been stockpiling in the trees.
The move came a day before a judge is expected to rule on lawsuits that could bring the 18-month tree sit at the Berkeley Oak Grove to an end.
UNIVERSITY SPOKESMAN DAN MOGULOF said today that a group of tree sitters have been stockpiling their urine and feces in buckets and were tossing them down from the trees.
University officials say they removed traverse lines, wood platforms and other items for safety reasons. At least three people have fallen from the trees and been injured since the tree sit began in December 2006.
A crane was onsite removing items, but not people, Mogulof said....
``It's really unfortunate that it's come to this. The university has tolerated more than 280 violations, including weapons, assault and battery. We are now doing everything we can to bring this to a safe and certain end,'' Mogulof said....
[This story also appeared in the Contra Costa Times and San Jose Mercury News. Another appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle] Full Story
5. Sun might hold secret of dark matter
USA Today
June 17, 2008
The identity of the mysterious dark matter thought to pervade the universe has eluded astrophysicists for decades. Now, for the first time a team hopes to look inside the sun for one of the prime candidates....
Two hypothetical particles have become the prime suspects to explain the fundamental make-up of dark matter: so-called axions and WIMPs (Weakly Interacting Massive Particles). Tens of teams are on the hunt for the heavyweight WIMPs, such as the GLAST team, which hopes to detect the gamma rays produced when, hypothetically, WIMPs and their antimatter selves annihilate each other....
A team led by X-ray ASTRONOMER HUGH HUDSON OF UC BERKELEY says, however, that they are onto a promising and new way to search for the axion: Looking inside the sun.
Hudson presented his research at a recent meeting of the American Astronomical Society (AAS) in St. Louis....
For Hudson, solar axions hold another prize, a window inside the sun.
"It would be revolutionary for solar and stellar physics to be able to make use of the axions, if real, to see inside the sun," Hudson said, "and also to study the coronal magnetic field via the conversion process [of axions to photons]." Axions could help astrophysicists to make more accurate measurements of the temperature of the sun's core, for instance. Full Story
6. Stem cells replace damaged mouse tissue
UPI
June 17, 2008
U.S. scientists say they have successfully used stem cells to repair and replace damaged tissue in mice.
THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA-BERKELEY BIOENGINEERS say their achievement sets the path for research on new treatments for age-related degenerative conditions such as muscle atrophy or Alzheimer's and Parkinson's diseases....
ASSISTANT PROFESSOR IRINA CONBOY who led the research said because the findings relate to adult stem cells that reside in existing tissue, the approach to rejuvenating degenerating muscle eliminates the ethical and medical complications associated with transplanting tissues grown from embryonic stem cells....
The findings are reported in the online edition of the journal Nature. Full Story
7. Video: Berkeley brings WiFi to rural poor
Prof shares vision of wireless backbone for Africa
EE Times Online
June 17, 2008
Burlingame, Calif. — ERIC BREWER draws a line in the sand, one that stretches clear across the Sahara Desert from Gibraltar south to Ghana. It represents his vision for a wireless backbone network that could bring a better life to rural Africa using the same WiFi technology popular in San Francisco cafes.
"I want people to think big," said BREWER, A PROFESSOR OF COMPUTER SCIENCE AT THE U.C. BERKELEY who has spent the last five years seeking ways to use WiFi to improve life in rural communities in the developing world.
Brewer shared his views and experiences in a keynote to a group of fellow academics and engineers at an IEEE workshop on wireless mesh networks here Monday (June 11). He describes his work in the video below.
His efforts have resulted in significant humanitarian and technical milestones to date. Brewer and others part of the Berkeley Tier project helped establish remote eye clinics in India that have helped as many as 3,000 people regain vision. They also assisted a team that set the world's record for the longest WiFi link—a 220 mile connection in Venezuela that delivered 6 Mbits/s....
[Link to video] Full Story
8. China boosts biotech
Small San Diego firm is part of collaboration building a plant in Taizhou
San Diego Union-Tribune
June 17, 2008
PacificGMP, a tiny local manufacturer of biotechnology drugs, will announce today that it is expanding to 25 times its size with the help of the Chinese government.
The company, which has an 8,000-square-foot facility in Sorrento Mesa for manufacturing biological agents used in cutting-edge therapies for disease, will join a collaboration that is building a 200,000-square-foot plant in Taizhou, China. The building is expected to be completed in October....
PacificGMP was introduced to its collaboration partners through a UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PROGRAM, QB3, which aims to use its math, engineering, chemistry and physics expertise to drive new health care technologies....
QB3, which seeks to help professors from UC's San Francisco, Santa Cruz and BERKELEY CAMPUSES develop and commercialize their discoveries, asked Glen Rice, former head of the Stanford Research Institute's biomedicine division, to consult with the group on ways to cut development costs for early-stage biopharmaceuticals.
QB3 was particularly interested in developing and manufacturing therapies that target smaller diseases and therefore might not be attractive to deep-pocketed pharmaceutical companies.... Full Story
9. 12 Scientists Will Share $120-Million From Saudis
Windfall goes to energy, environmental research
Chronicle of Higher Education (*requires registration)
June 20, 2008
Bruce E. Logan has a problem, one few researchers face in their scientific careers. He has to figure out how to spend $2-million every year for the next five years. This spring he and 11 other scientists found themselves in that unusual position. The money adds up to $10-million per researcher....
In May the researchers made a pilgrimage to the source of the generous grants: King Abdullah University of Science and Technology, a graduate research institution better known as Kaust. It is scheduled to open in Saudi Arabia in September 2009, thanks to $10-billion of King Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz's fortune. The new Kaust investigators are expected to visit for at least three weeks every year during their grant periods....
But many parts of the investigators' work lives are likely to change. The Kaust-financed freedom extends to the types of questions they pursue in their laboratories and provides the chance to hire more people as graduate students and research associates. Many of the scientists will also receive a break from some of their teaching requirements to allow them to focus on their research.
Not all of the Kaust investigators are getting that break. PAULO J.M. MONTEIRO, A PROFESSOR OF CIVIL AND ENVIRONMENTAL ENGINEERING AT THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AT BERKELEY, will not only teach the same number of courses but will begin serving as chairman of a University of California committee on international education.
How will he fit it all in? "You know," he says, "you sleep less."... Full Story
10. Op-Ed: The Supreme Court Goes to War
Wall Street Journal (*requires registration)
June 17, 2008
Last week's Supreme Court decision in Boumediene v. Bush has been painted as a stinging rebuke of the administration's antiterrorism policies. From the celebrations on most U.S. editorial pages, one might think that the court had stopped a dictator from trampling civil liberties. Boumediene did anything but. The 5-4 ruling is judicial imperialism of the highest order.
Boumediene should finally put to rest the popular myth that right-wing conservatives dominate the Supreme Court. Academics used to complain about the Rehnquist Court's "activism" for striking down minor federal laws on issues such as whether states are immune from damage lawsuits, or if Congress could ban handguns in school. Justice Anthony Kennedy -- joined by the liberal bloc of Justices John Paul Stevens, David Souter, Ruth Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer -- saves his claims of judicial supremacy for the truly momentous: striking down a wartime statute, agreed upon by the president and large majorities of Congress, while hostilities are ongoing, no less....
Because of the advancing age of several justices (Justice Stevens is 88, and several others are above 70), the next president will be in a position to appoint a new Court that can reverse the damage done to the nation's security.
[Link by subscription only] Full Story
11. A new China appears amid quake rubble
Some of the change in the wake of the catastrophe may be short-lived, but some, such as the focus on the individual, outpourings of empathy, and an openness to foreign aid, appear lasting, analysts say.
Los Angeles Times
June 17, 2008
Beijing — One month after a massive earthquake killed nearly 70,000 people, some of the effects of the crisis may hardly outlast the rubble, even as other seismic shifts irrevocably shake the Chinese government and society....
One lasting change, however, is the prominent focus in recent weeks on the individual in a culture that has long emphasized collectivism....
Also significant, some add, is a more pronounced sense of national identity seen in the earthquake's wake. This has reinforced a sense of unity -- "We Chinese" is now frequently heard....
This sense of collective identity could lead to gradual political reform -- "We Chinese" deserve a less corrupt system and school construction that won't so easily buckle in an earthquake. But it also could lead to a strengthening of the status quo, analysts said -- "We Chinese" shouldn't change our Communist government since it responded so well.
"It's complicated and the direction isn't clear," said XIAO QIANG, HEAD OF THE CHINA INTERNET PROJECT AT UC BERKELEY. "But what is clear is that there's much more 'We Chinese' this and 'We Chinese' that."... Full Story
12. Linguist explains Obama's appeal
Philadelphia Inquirer
June 17, 2008
Since his emergence as a best-selling political theorist almost 10 years ago, LINGUIST GEORGE LAKOFF has consistently argued that Democrats are hopeless at communicating their ideas - and their values - in a compelling, persuasive way.
Republicans, on the other hand, have become masters of what Lakoff calls framing - presenting political ideas as emotionally engaging narratives that appeal to our deepest values.
Enter Barack Obama.
The 46-year-old Democrat, the party's presumptive nominee for president, comes as close as anyone to being Lakoff's ideal politician....
Obama's conviction that the nation's politics should spring from empathy contrasts sharply with the accepted theory that self-interest motivates political action. Given this, Obama's candidacy has the potential to radically alter how we think of politics.... Full Story
13. Day to Day: Politics & Society
The Connection Between Gender Roles and Sex
NPR
June 16, 2008
Same-sex couples are helping researchers understand heterosexual relationships. Alex Cohen talks with UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA BERKELEY PSYCHOLOGY RESEARCHER SARAH HOLLEY about how same-sex couples define gender roles in their relationships, and whether gender roles are linked to biological sex.
[Link to audio] Full Story
14. A Bounty of Midsize Planets Is Reported
New York Times (*requires registration)
June 17, 2008
There is a lot of new territory out there in the cosmos, but nothing you would want to pitch camp on — yet.
About a third of all the Sun-like stars in our galaxy harbor modestly sized planets, according to a study announced Monday by a team of European astronomers.
At a meeting in Nantes, France, Michel Mayor of the Geneva Observatory and his group presented a list of 45 new planets, ranging in mass from slightly bigger than Earth to about twice as massive as Neptune, from a continuing survey of some 200 stars....
In a terse statement, Dr. Mayor’s main rivals, a group of planet hunters led by GEOFF MARCY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY, and Paul Butler of the Carnegie Institution of Washington, said they were doing their own survey, to be completed within a year.
“Our survey will check the Swiss report that 30 percent of stars have super-Earths or Neptunes orbiting closer than Mercury does the Sun,” the group said in an e-mail message.... Full Story
15. The Web Time Forgot
New York Times (*requires registration)
June 17, 2008
Mons, Belgium — On a fog-drizzled Monday afternoon, this fading medieval city feels like a forgotten place. Apart from the obligatory Gothic cathedral, there is not much to see here except for a tiny storefront museum called the Mundaneum, tucked down a narrow street in the northeast corner of town. It feels like a fittingly secluded home for the legacy of one of technology’s lost pioneers: Paul Otlet.
In 1934, Otlet sketched out plans for a global network of computers (or “electric telescopes,” as he called them) that would allow people to search and browse through millions of interlinked documents, images, audio and video files. He described how people would use the devices to send messages to one another, share files and even congregate in online social networks. He called the whole thing a “réseau,” which might be translated as “network” — or arguably, “web.”...
Although Otlet’s proto-Web relied on a patchwork of analog technologies like index cards and telegraph machines, it nonetheless anticipated the hyperlinked structure of today’s Web....
Some scholars believe Otlet also foresaw something like the Semantic Web, the emerging framework for subject-centric computing that has been gaining traction among computer scientists.... Like the Semantic Web, the Mundaneum aspired not just to draw static links between documents, but also to map out conceptual relationships between facts and ideas. “The Semantic Web is rather Otlet-ish,” said MICHAEL BUCKLAND, A PROFESSOR AT THE SCHOOL OF INFORMATION AT THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY.
Critics of the Semantic Web say it relies too heavily on expert programmers to create ontologies (formalized descriptions of concepts and relationships) that will let computers exchange data with one another more easily. The Semantic Web “may be useful, but it is bound to fail,” Dr. Buckland said, adding, “It doesn’t scale because nobody will provide enough labor to build it.” ... Full Story
16. Business Technology Blog: Firefox Takes Aim at Nonexistent Record
Wall Street Journal Online (*requires registration)
June 17, 2008
As the Internet becomes increasingly important to the way we work and live, it almost makes sense for a Web browser to have its own holiday. Almost.
Mozilla, a nonprofit software maker, has dubbed today “Download Day” for its new Firefox 3.0 browser. The new version of Firefox – which will be launched at 10 a.m. Pacific Time – claims over 15,000 improvements, including faster page loading, increased security and handy features such as one-click bookmarking and a “smart” location bar that makes it easier to find Web sites....
Firefox enthusiasts laud its speed, intuitive design and myriad add-ons, which they say make the open source browser more customizable than Explorer. The new version “is now the fastest browser I have ever used,” JINGHAO YAN, A U.C. BERKELEY UNDERGRAD AND WEB DEVELOPER FOR THE HAAS SCHOOL OF BUSINESS, tells the Business Technology Blog.... Full Story
17. Cal's Anderson says yes to NBA draft
Oakland Tribune
July 17, 2008
On Sunday evening, Ryan Anderson and his family shut down the NBA draft discussion, whipped up a big dinner-time breakfast and sat down to watch an old movie, "The Courtship of Eddie's Father.''
On Monday morning, the courtship of RYAN ANDERSON ended with the CAL FORWARD deciding to bypass his final two years of college eligibility and remain in the NBA draft, a university spokesman said.
Anderson's decision just before the noon deadline on Monday came after two weeks of individual workouts with NBA teams across the country and leaves new CAL BASKETBALL COACH MIKE MONTGOMERY without the Golden Bears' centerpiece.... Full Story