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UCLA astronomers have discovered very young stars in an unusual cluster only 150 light years from the Earth. In addition, the astronomers—led by Benjamin Zuckerman, professor of physics and astronomy and graduate student Richard Webb—found a giant planet, or "brown dwarf," with about 20 times the mass of Jupiter orbiting around one of the young stars. The finding was unusual not only because such a close cluster took so long to discover, but also because of the absence of molecular gas and dust particles, the defining characteristic of newly formed stars.
Workers who received long-term radiation exposure at Rocketdyne's Los Angeles-area nuclear research facility are at increased risk of dying from certain cancers, according to a study by Hal Morgenstern and Beate Ritz of the School of Public Health. The UCLA researchers analyzed company records on approximately 4,600 Rocketdyne workers who were routinely monitored for radiation between 1950 and 1993, tracking each worker to determine who had died, when the death occurred and what caused the death. Higher-than-average mortality rates were found from cancers of the blood and lymph system, even among workers exposed to relatively low doses. An association was also made, for the first time, between radiation exposure and cancers of the lung and upper aerodigestive tract.
A research team headed by Yoram Cohen of the School of Engineering and Applied Science has invented a new class of membranes for filtering out chemicals from water. The novel approach combines ceramic materials with polymers. The new membranes are fabricated using a process Cohen patented in 1990, in which tiny polymer hairs are made to grow, forming a brush-like layer on the surface of a porous, glass-like material such as silica, alumina or zirconia. Potential applications include treatment of oily wastewater, removal of organic solvents from contaminated water, and clarification of white wine and other beverages.
In his controversial book, Making Us Crazy: DSM: The Psychiatric Bible and the Creation of Mental Disorders, Stuart Kirk of the School of Public Policy and Social Research argues that American society is increasingly sweeping common human problems into the category of psychiatric disorder. Kirk and coauthor Herb Kutchins of Cal State Sacramento pin much of the blame on the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, or "DSM," an influential reference work used by physicians, insurers, social welfare agencies and courts of law to define and categorize mental illness. A decade-long study of the DSM led Kirk to conclude that in its descriptions of some 300 psychological aberrations, DSM serves to pathologize everyday behavior. Moreover, he concluded that DSM criteria for mental illness has become subject to political whim.
A community's rate of unemployment and per-capita income are the characteristics most likely to predict its gang-related homicide rate, according to a study by Demetrios Kyriacou, assistant professor in the School of Medicine. Kyriacou and his research team examined the homicide rates in 18 Los Angeles communities over a five-year period and sought to correlate them with social, economic and demographic factors.
A UCLA chemist, working with computer scientists from Hewlett-Packard Laboratories, has demonstrated that a refrigerator-sized computer, weighing 400 pounds, with 864 computer chips and approximately 16,000 wires, can withstand more than 220,000 hardware defects—any one of which would kill a Pentium chip—and still outperform, by as much as 100 times, the best modern computer operating with a single, flawless chip. James Heath believes that "Teramac," the largest defect-tolerant computer ever built, demonstrates the fundamental architecture needed to chemically fabricate computers. Chemically produced components offer the promise of smaller, faster, and more efficient computers, but a chemically synthesized crystal, unlike the Pentium chip, is imperfect by nature. "The challenge is how to extract perfect complexity from defective order," Heath says.
The number of serious injuries from the 1994 Northridge earthquake was much lower than expected, a team of UCLA epidemiologists headed by Corinne Peek-Asa reported.
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Originally thought to exceed 1,200, the actual number was 171. Falls accounted for most hospitalizations, followed by being hit by or caught between falling household objects. About 75 percent of those hospitalized were 65 and older.
Residents of Los Angeles communities are prepared to pay to ward off dramatic climate effects caused by global warming, and would spend $10-$15 per month per household to do so, according to a study by Richard A. Berk, director of UCLA's Statistical Consulting Center. Says Berk: "The idea that people are reluctant to spend money on the environment is absolutely wrong."
Researchers at UCLA's Jonsson Cancer Center have found that a three-month diet low in fat and high in soy products, fish oils and a variety of vegetables increased the ratio of omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs) in women's breast tissue. The study, headed by Dr. John Glaspy, marks the first time a specific diet has been shown to change the composition of human breast tissue in a way that could reduce the breast cancer risk. Previous laboratory studies have shown that omega-3 PUFAs are metabolized into hormone-like substances that inhibit cancer cell growth.
A congressionally requested study by UCLA sociologist Laura L. Miller and RAND analyst Margaret C. Harrell concluded that the U.S. military services have succeeded in opening approximately 80 percent of their positions to women, with only small effects on defense readiness, unit cohesion and morale. But, particularly in the Army and Marines, women's eligibility for units and assignments doesn't always equate with immediate, large-scale entry. In addition, they found that the military's unique circumstances—where professional and personal settings blur, and peers are together all day, every day—make gender integration more challenging than in other work settings.
Pockets of molten rock lie deep within the Earth's mantle, where scientists had thought the rock was all solid, never heating up enough to melt, a team headed by geologist John Vidale has found. "Just as temperature varies tremendously at different parts of the Earth's surface, there also seem to be large temperature differences 2,000 miles beneath the Earth, above the core-mantle boundary," says Vidale, who studies the region between the Earth's mantle—a thick layer of rock—and its outer core.
Contrary to popular belief—and the findings of two official investigations—it was not hydrogen that caused the disastrous fire aboard the famous Hindenburg zeppelin, according to a study by William Van Vorst of UCLA's chemical engineering department and Addison Bain, a former NASA researcher. After studying newsreel footage, examining the chemical composition of the "skin" of the airship and delving into the records of the German firm that built the Hindenburg, they found that hydrogen could not have been the culprit; instead, they believe, the material used to coat the airship's skin triggered the electrostatic activity that led to the fire.
In his new version of Macbeth published by the New Cambridge Shakespeare series, English professor A.R. Braunmuller confirms that Thomas Middleton, a Shakespeare contemporary, substituted some of his own lines and added others to the classic. Since Shakespeare apparently made no effort to preserve his work, it is now "impossible to disentangle, with any certainty, Middleton from Shakespeare," Braunmuller says. But, he adds, the Bard had no problem with others revising his classics, even while he was alive to see it.
While combination drug "cocktails" have proven successful in suppressing HIV in newly infected patients, taking them too early may suppress patients' immune response to the virus, according to a study headed by Dr. Janis Giorgi of the UCLA School of Medicine and Dr. Eric Daar of Cedars-Sinai Medical Center.
After more than 16 years of research, geographer Stanley Trimble concluded that channel erosion caused largely by rapid development has been filling Orange County's Newport Bay with sediment that harms the bay's wildlife. Trimble's findings about the impact of channel erosion on one of California's major wetland habitats contradict a federally mandated study from 1981.
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