News in Brief

Law school in nation's top 10 for graduates in prestigious court clerkships

A recent analysis of data from law schools throughout the nation shows that UCLA School of Law ranks in the top 10 in the nation in the number of graduates placed in prestigious federal appellate court clerkships. The Leiter Reports weblog notes that 18 UCLA law graduates will clerk for circuit courts throughout the United States in 2008-09. The two leading law schools in placement were Harvard, with 55 appellate clerkships, and Yale, with 50. According to UCLA Law Dean Michael H. Schill, the number of clerkships obtained by the school's students and alumni has increased by 80% over the past three years. This success results from "a concerted effort among faculty and administrators to encourage talented students to apply for the positions," said Schill, who added that "faculty and administrators in the Office of Career Services have worked tirelessly to prepare students for applying and to promote them to judges throughout the nation." Judicial clerkships are traditionally a steppingstone to many of the most prestigious and coveted employment opportunities in the legal profession, including Supreme Court clerkships, law school professorships and employment in major law firms. According to Eugene Volokh, the Gary Schwartz Professor of Law, and chair of the School’s Judicial Clerkship Committee, "A judicial clerkship is likely the most educational, responsible, and enjoyable job a young lawyer can have. I'm thrilled that so many of our graduates can have this fantastic experience."

Free tickets to Faculty/Staff Appreciation athletics events

Enjoy four free mid-level admissions to Bruin athletics during Faculty/Staff Appreciation events. On Sunday, Jan. 27 at 2:00 p.m. Pauley Pavilion, see the Women's Gymnastics home opener against Pac-10 rival, Stanford University. Show your BruinCard or paycheck stub at Gate 1 of Pauley on the day of the meet for free tix. Feb. 8-10, enjoy Softball’s annual Stacy Winsberg Memorial Tournament at Easton Stadium on UCLA's Campus; the Bruins will take on the likes of Oklahoma and UC Santa Barbara in top NCAA action. Show your BruinCard or paycheck stub at the main gate of the stadium for your four free admissions. For more information on these and other UCLA athletics events, see uclabruins.com.

Sluggish, but no recession

In its fourth quarterly report of 2007, the UCLA Anderson Forecast held steadfast to the basic tenet of its forecast made earlier this year — that the national economy is not technically in a recession, nor is there a national recession on the economic horizon. In California, the central theme of the forecast remains the same as it has been in the past few quarters and mirrors that of the national forecast: Weakness in the vast real estate sector will be the central component of a sluggish economy, but there will not be enough job loss to trigger a statewide recession. On the current WGA strike, the forecast has issued a report which states that, even if the strike were to last through the end of March, the economic impact on the Los Angeles economy would be about $380 million, rather than the prevailing estimate of $1 billion.

A life-saving gift

Robert and Kelly Day have donated $30 million to endow the Department of Surgery through the UCLA Foundation. The combined gift, made through two family foundations, establishes the Robert and Kelly Day Surgical Endowment. "Two years ago, the surgical team at UCLA performed a liver transplant that saved my life," Robert Day said. "We are making this gift to enable these extraordinary people to advance their lifesaving work. The UCLA Department of Surgery is among the best in the nation and has the potential to affect so many lives in a positive way." According to Gerald S. Levey, vice chancellor for medical sciences and dean of the Geffen School of Medicine, the gift will give UCLA a competitive edge in attracting the most promising surgical scholars. Day is founder and chairman of the TCW Group Inc., an investment management firm based in Los Angeles with more than $150 billion in assets under management, and is chairman, president and CEO of the W.M. Keck Foundation, one of the nation's largest philanthropic organizations, with assets of more than $1.5 billion.

Improved campus portal search engine

A new campus search engine, accessible from the campus home page (www.ucla.edu) and available to other campus sites, has been launched. "We want campus users and visitors alike to be able to search all UCLA web sites simply and effectively," said Don Worth, executive director of Administrative Information Systems (AIS). The new search uses the Google appliance. Unlike free versions of Google used on some campus sites, the new campus-wide search is both hardware- and software-based. This allows AIS to include sites that are technically outside the ucla.edu domain, Worth said. Examples of UCLA sites outside ucla.edu include uclahealth.org, uclaextension.edu, uclabruins.com (athletics), and uclastore.com. "When the public thinks of UCLA, they think of all that UCLA offers — not 'except the hospital,' 'except Extension,' or any other exceptions. That's the way our search engine needs to operate," Worth said. Comments on the new search may be e-mailed to aisportalteam@ais.ucla.edu.

Cancer cells have that softer 'feeling'

A multidisciplinary team of UCLA scientists have succeeded in differentiating metastatic cancer cells from normal cells in patient samples using leading-edge nanotechnology that measures the softness of the cells. Conventional diagnostic methods detect about 70% of cases where cancer cells are present in the fluid, missing about 30% of cases. Employing one of the most valuable tools in the nanotechnology arsenal, the research team used an Atomic Force Microscope (AFM) to measure cell softness. Since the cells being analyzed were less than half the diameter of a human hair, researchers needed a very precise and delicate instrument to measure resistance in the cell membrane, said James Gimzewski, professor of chemistry and biochemistry, a member of the California NanoSystems Institute and also one of the study’s senior authors. "We had to measure the softness of the cell without bursting it," he said. "Otherwise, it's like trying to measure the softness of a tomato using a hammer."

Glitch in brain causes distorted self-image

Although they look normal, people suffering from body dysmorphic disorder, or BDD, perceive themselves as ugly and disfigured. New imaging research done at UCLA recently revealed that the brains of these people look normal but function abnormally when processing visual details. Reported in the December edition of the journal Archives of General Psychiatry, the UCLA findings are the first to demonstrate a biological reason for patients' distorted body image. "Our discovery suggests that the BDD brain's hardware is fine, but there is a glitch in the operating software that prevents patients from seeing themselves as others do," said Jamie Feusner, principal investigator and assistant professor of psychiatry at UCLA's Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior. "Now that we've identified a possible physical cause, down the road we may be able to pinpoint ways that patients' brains can be retrained to perceive faces more accurately." Individuals with BDD fixate on an imagined flaw in their appearance or a slight physical abnormality. To fix their "problem," they tend to pursue plastic surgery — sometimes repeatedly. They often feel ashamed, depressed and anxious, increasing their risk of suicide.

Gift funds largest telescope in the world

The California Institute of Technology and UC have received a $200-million commitment over nine years from the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation toward the further development and construction of the Thirty-Meter Telescope (TMT). Funding will be shared equally between the two universities, with matching gifts from the two institutions expected to bring the total to $300 million. When built, TMT will be the largest telescope in the world and enable astronomers will be able to locate and analyze the light from the first stellar systems born soon after the Big Bang and determine the physical processes governing the formation and evolution of galaxies like our own Milky Way. The telescope design is being developed by a U.S.-Canadian team that includes UC, the California Institute of Technology and the Association of Canadian Universities for Research in Astronomy, with completion of the design development expected by arch 2009.

New research may lead to better climate models

Some 150 scientists from more than 40 universities in nine countries are starting a coordinated program aimed at gaining new insights into the Earth's climate and the complex, interconnected system involving the oceans, the atmosphere and the land. The program will study the southeastern Pacific Ocean, the marine area off South America's west coast — a region where the interplay among low clouds, strong low-level winds, coastal ocean currents, surfacing of deep water, the Andes Mountains, aerosols and other factors shape the regional climate and affect global weather in ways that are poorly understood. Chairing the program, known as VOCALS (VAMOS Ocean-Cloud-Atmosphere-Land Study) is UCLA Professor of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences C. Roberto Mechoso, "Our research should produce a better understanding of the southeast Pacific Ocean system and improve our global computer climate models, which would lead to more confidence in climate forecasts, including predictions about global warming," he said.