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Wednesday, 20 February 2013
1. Stanford University Is 1st College to Raise $1B
New York Times Online (*requires registration)
The Council for Aid to Education has released its annual college fundraising survey, and UC Berkeley was the leading fundraiser among all public universities in the 2012 fiscal year, taking in $405 million. The UC system raised $1.56 billion, not counting funds raised by the individual campuses. Another story on this topic appeared in the Los Angeles Times. Full Story
2. Nuke Test Sensors Double as Scientific Tools
Discovery News
Earth and planetary science professor Raymond Jeanloz has published a paper recommending that the same sensors used to scan the earth for signs of nuclear weapons tests be used for other scientific projects, including tracking whales, monitoring air pollution, and forewarning of tsunamis. "The concept of connecting arms control monitoring to environmental monitoring has been emerging in the community of specialists who think about this for a while," he says. "We should be thinking about arms control more generally, whether it’s trying to account for warheads stored in various arsenals, tracking the proliferation of nuclear materials, even possible tracking of biological weapons, capabilities and materials. ... One might view all these things are being, to varying degrees, linked to the monitoring of the environment which we would like to monitor for pollution, for health and other reasons. ... We have this infrastructure with lots of sophisticated equipment and these technical people sitting around waiting and listening and looking -- hopefully for nothing. After a while, it’s hard to keep people motivated and they move on to other fields." Full Story
3. Labor and environmental groups join forces on refinery issues
Richmond Confidential
A rare alliance has been formed in the wake of the fire at Richmond’s Chevron oil refinery on August 6, 2012, to stimulate an industry-wide conversation about health and safety. The new labor-community collaborative launched on January 30, and it includes Berkeley's Labor Occupational Health Program, the steelworkers' union, the BlueGreen Alliance, the National Resources Defense Council, Communities for a Better Environment, and the Asian Pacific Environmental Network. According to public health research scientist Mike Wilson, director of the Labor Occupational Health Program: “There’s a whole set of recommendations that we want to see happen.” He believes that the nearly $1 million in fines Cal/OSHA levied against Chevron for what it called “willful” and “serious” safety violations is a small price to pay for a corporation of its size and wealth. However, Chevron has announced it intends to appeal the citations, and since “appeals can last two years," Wilson says, "they don’t have to do anything to abate the violations. It’s outrageous.” Full Story
4. Commission: Pre-K for Poor Students Within Decade New York Times Online
New York Times Online (*requires registration)
An Education Department commission co-chaired by Dean Christopher Edley, of the Berkeley law school, is recommending pre-kindergarten programs for every poor student within 10 years. "We have to stop saying that poverty excuses the achievement gap and recognize there are concrete measures that we can take, starting with early childhood education," Dean Edley says. Other stories on this topic appeared in the Washington Post, Sacramento Bee, and New York Times Online (Reuters). Full Story
5. Letter to the Editor: Expand preschool
Chicago Sun-Times
A response to an article about the effectiveness of preschool mentions Berkeley research: "As the president outlines an ambitious plan to pump federal dollars into an infrastructure to provide preschool for all 4-year-olds, the current reality is that just 3 in 10 are enrolled in a quality program. When we look at the numbers for Latino students — one of the fastest-growing demographics in our state — the disparities are even more stark: Just 1 in 3 Illinois Latino students are enrolled in any preschool program, let alone a quality one, compared to two-thirds of other children, according to research from UC-Berkeley. ... The reasons for this are as complex, but access remains a core challenge: There simply aren’t enough slots or preschool facilities in predominately Latino ZIP codes." Full Story
6. A jump-start for American wages
Washington Post
U.S. companies are beginning to exercise their stockpiles of cash for acquisitions, dividend pay-outs, and stock-buyouts, but this columnist points out: "What is crystal-clear ... is that the funds could be used in a way businesses are not even considering: giving their employees a raise." Arguing for efforts to close the wage gap, he cites a January report by Berkeley economics professor Emmanuel Saez, which found that the income of the wealthiest 1 percent of Americans rose by 11.2 percent during the recovery years of 2009-11, while the incomes of the bottom 99 percent declined by 0.4 percent. Other stories mentioning this research appeared in the Economist Online and Money News. Full Story
7. Op-Ed: The minimum wage and the meaning of a decent society
Baltimore Sun
Public policy professor Robert Reich writes that "raising the minimum wage from $7.25 to $9 should be a no-brainer," tying it not only to economic purpose but human decency. He concludes: "The toughest questions we're facing today -- whether, and how much, to raise the minimum wage; whether, and how, to restrict the availability of guns; whether, and how, to expand health care coverage -- inevitably require us to define what we mean by a decent society." Full Story
8. News
KTVU
Economics professor Jim Wilcox is interviewed in a story about automatic federal spending cuts that will kick in if Congress does not resolve the situation within the next 10 days. He says the uncertainty caused by the looming cuts causes consumers to delay purchases at all levels. "That waiting and failing to spend now is what can lead to unemployment now and difficulties later," he says. Link to video accompanied by caption reading "OAKLAND: Looming across-the-board..." Full Story
9. Jerry Brown asks for changes to state's Medi-Cal expansion plan
Los Angeles Times
Governor Jerry Brown has asked a California Assembly panel to authorize massive expansion of Medi-Cal, the state's public insurance program for the poor. Labor policy analyst Ken Jacobs, of Berkeley's Center for Labor Research and Education, has predicted that more than 1 million additional people will enroll in Medi-Cal by 2019. Another story on this topic appeared on KPCC Online. Full Story
10. Agenda: A Rare Board Committee at HSBC May Become More Common
Financial Times
Economics professor Robert Anderson, director of Berkeley's Risk Management Research Center, comments on HSBC's new committee to improve the company's compliance with money-laundering regulations. “Certainly ... the committee will increase the attention paid to these areas," he says. "However, in order to avoid future problems, it will be critical that the [committee] and ... senior management of HSBC establish a culture in which compliance is mandatory, not optional, and compliance failures carry serious consequences.” Link by subscription only.
11. Cyber-war between U.S., China
San Francisco Chronicle
Information professor Steven Weber is quoted in a column about cyber-war between the U.S. and China, pointing out that if the situation does constitute war, we're already neck deep in WW III. According to various reports, Russia, Iran, North Korea, Romania and other nations actively conduct cyber-attacks. "It's a cyber-war of all against all," he says. Full Story
12. Police hiring boom hits Bay Area departments
San Jose Mercury News (*requires registration)
After years of budget cuts and layoffs at Bay Area police departments have coincided with increasing crime rates, rehiring has begun. Police unions have argued the cuts are directly tied to the crime increases, but experts, such as Berkeley law professor Franklin Zimring, are less sure. He says it's not clear if those increases are troubling trends or "just variation that can come down as easily as it goes up." Full Story
13. Boeing Engineers Approve Deal as Strike by Others Planned
Bloomberg
Labor professor Harley Shaiken comments on labor negotiations by engineers and other workers at Boeing Co., as the company works toward fixing the battery faults that grounded the global 787 Dreamliner fleet. “In an engineering company, what’s vital is good relations with the engineers,” he says. “You want people inspired by what they’re doing, not at odds with the company management.” Full Story
14. Smallest planet yet found outside solar system
USA Today
Astronomers searching for planets outside our solar system have discovered the tiniest one yet, about the size of our moon. Astronomy professor Geoff Marcy, who wasn't involved in this discovery but who is "one of the founding fathers of the planet-hunting field," says the find is "absolutely mind-boggling," adding that it "raises the specter that the universe is jampacked, like jelly beans in a jar, with planets even smaller than Earth." Full Story
15. Dolphins Can Call Each Other, Not by Name, But by Whistle
Science Now
Berkeley ornithologist Karl Berg, a specialist in parrot calls, comments on a study of dolphins, which found the animals can call each other by whistling. "It is fabulous," he says, noting that the dolphin findings are "strikingly similar to recent work on parrots," which also imitate each other's vocalizations, sometimes as a way of negotiating foraging or roosting decisions. Full Story
16. Real Estate Deals of the Year finalists announced
San Francisco Business Times
UC Berkeley's building at 1608 4th St. and the Energy Biosciences Building are listed as finalists in the San Francisco Business Times' 2012 Bay Area Real Estate Deals of the Year. The winners will be announced at an awards ceremony on March 20. Full Story
17. Cal Coach Says No Excuse for Shoving Player
New York Times Online (*requires registration)
Men's basketball coach Mike Montgomery apologized Tuesday at his weekly news conference for shoving star player Allen Crabbe during a game this past weekend. "It's obvious I made a mistake and I feel very badly about it," he said. "There's no place in sports that you can basically put your hands on one of your student athletes. Got a little carried away in the heat and emotion of a basketball game so I apologized to Allen, I apologized to the team. I feel very badly. In 30-plus years of coaching it's never happened before. It's something I deeply regret. It's not going to happen again." Full Story
18. Answer Sheet Blog: Five habits of great students: Lessons from top-ranked STEM school
Washington Post Online
Teachers at High Technology High School in Lincroft, New Jersey, the top-ranked STEM high school in the nation, write about the five habits of great students – the kind who gain admission to "prestigious schools" like Berkeley. Full Story