UCLA Football 2012 Schedule

Welcome back for another exciting season! This year the Bruins face 5 away games and 7 home games. The times for all the PAC-12 games are not yet set, nor are the television schedules. In general, the times will be set 12 days before the game. UCLA Football 2012 Schedule Thursday, Aug 30 – 4:30 p.m. …

UCLA scientists unlock mystery of how ‘handedness’ arises

The overwhelming majority of proteins and other functional molecules in our bodies display a striking molecular characteristic: They can exist in two distinct forms that are mirror images of each other, like your right hand and left hand. Surprisingly, each of our bodies prefers only one of these molecular forms. This mirror-image phenomenon — known …

MESSENGER sends first data back to Earth – uncovers ice on Mercury

For several years scientists have been begging to test their theories about Mercury, the closest planet to the Sun. You see, the radar signals come back showing ice exists on the planet, but how could ice exist on a planet so incredibly hot? NASA sent the spacecraft MESSENGER to orbit the planet and figure the …

Professors fight crime with math – using data to predict crime ‘hot spots’

I love this story on ‘predictive policing’. Researchers use data to predict “hot spots” for crime and then send it over to the police. The cops on the beat patrol those areas more often and crime drops. Math for the win. The best way to fight crime is to keep it from happening in the …

How a college campus in the middle of Los Angeles is lowering traffic

The rest of Los Angeles may seem as congested as ever, but traffic at UCLA is the lightest it’s ever been since the university began measuring more than 20 years ago. The 2011 commuting report marks the eighth consecutive year that UCLA’s vehicle count dropped. With an average of 102,000 trips daily, the number of …

Q&A with Gary Knell – the new CEO of NPR

An excerpt from the interview: Q: You’re a self-professed “NPR groupie.” What do you listen to? A: Morning Edition is kind of on every day. I’m a big fan of Weekend Edition Saturday, as well as a lot of the music programs. I’m a follower of most all of the programs, so I didn’t walk into the job …

College competition racing Baja off-road vehicles

A group of students in gray shirts file out of a cramped classroom onto the road. Shining flashlights to see through the darkness, they huddle around the frame of a short, black car. One yanks on the pull start. The engine roars to life, and the car takes off down the road, ready for competition. …

Why is Cinco De Mayo not celebrated in Mexico, only the U.S.?

UCLA professor David Hayes-Bautista stumbled upon the answer to a question that for years had puzzled scholars and amateur historians alike: Why is Cinco de Mayo so widely celebrated in California and the United States, when it is scarcely observed in Mexico? As Hayes-Bautista explains in “El Cinco de Mayo: An American Tradition,” his new …

Historical photos of UCLA and Westwood Village from first day of classes to late-1930s

Historical photos of UCLA and Westwood village from the late-1920s to late-1930s, just as the school and campus was being built. The first day of classes in Westwood were in 1929 with 5,500 students and was also the first year the UCLA football team played the USC football team. Thx to KS Bruin

Hybrid surgery, a major new medical trend, reduces need for cutting open

This reminds me of Star Trek as we discover new ways to heal patients without cutting them open. This method involves half-surgery and half-minimally-invasive techniques that also take much less time: They performed a unique, high-risk hybrid procedure that combined minimally-invasive method with traditional surgical techniques. They stopped the massive balloon-like aneurysm, replaced a failed …