Fascinated by China? Check out the China Beat blog, recently named one of the "Best of the China Blogs" by The Wall Street Journal. Contributors include UC Irvine history professors Kenneth Pomeranz, Yong Chen and Jeffrey Wasserstrom (pictured). Based at UCI and edited by doctoral student Kate Merkel-Hess, the news and analysis blog features posts on a variety of topics, including contemporary Chinese life, the 2008 Olympic games and Chinese/Tibetan relations. Other contributors include graduate students Nicole Barnes, Pierre Fuller, Xia Shi and Maura Cunningham. The China Beat: Blogging How the East is Read can be found at thechinabeat.blogspot.com.   More »

The California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology (Calit2) has launched an experimental blog that allows visitors to experience a day-in-the-life account of the institute’s inner workings. The new site – Calit2.Life (life.calit2.net) – collects comments, notes, updates, insights and observations from contributors at Calit2’s UC Irvine and UC San Diego divisions. Inspired by the Internet phenomenon of “lifecasting,” where content providers typically use continuous video streams to show what’s happening in their daily lives, Calit2.Life builds on the concept by using text, images and video to chronicle everyday events within the institute. The posts include an update about how a descendant of Calit2's HIPerWall – a 200-million pixel, high-resolution display wall – recently made an appearance at a prominent audio-visual and information technology showcase in Las Vegas.   More »

Adriana Briscoe, ecology and evolutionary biology associate professor, uses the beauty of butterflies and their spectacular biology to attract and mentor underrepresented minorities in science. For her efforts, she has won a $10,000 Diversity Award from the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology. Guy Fogleman, executive director of FASEB, said Briscoe was chosen from an exceptionally strong pool of scientists. The award is funded by the Burroughs Wellcome fund. Her research has made major contributions to the understanding of butterfly vision as a model for the evolution of color vision.   More »

Each year, the nation’s top law firms spend 3 to 5 percent of their time on pro bono work. That figure has inspired UC Irvine sociology graduate student Steven Boutcher to study the influence law firms have on social movements through the causes they choose to represent. Boutcher has received a $10,600 award from the National Science Foundation to analyze pro bono cases taken on by top firms over the past 10 years and determine whether patterns exist in the types of causes firms represent. "A significant chunk of social change is driven by elite lawyers in large law firms," says Boutcher, who notes that pro bono work has more than doubled across the nation's top 200 firms since 1998.   More »

Ever dream of being the next Howard Stern? Imus? KUCI 88.9FM, the radio station of UC Irvine, will offer an eight-week DJ training class starting Tuesday, July 8. Participants will be trained in basic radio engineering, podcasting and audio editing software. KUCI was one of the first radio stations to broadcast via the Internet and one of the first iTunes podcast stations. The station offers diverse programming, including political talk, classical music, punk, reggae, world, experimental, indie, goth, jazz, rock, and folk. For more information, contact KUCI training director Brian Quon at training@kuci.org or general manager Mike Kaspar at gm@kuci.org or 949-338-0646.   More »

To better reflect its expanded role in patient care, UC Irvine Healthcare’s anesthesiology department has changed its name to the Department of Anesthesiology and Perioperative Care. Chair Dr. Zeev N. Kain (pictured) explained the department’s anesthesiologists provide comprehensive care throughout surgery, which along with the use of anesthetics includes preparing patients for surgery, caring for them afterward and treating both acute and chronic pain. “Our name change marks the beginning of an exciting time in which our stellar physicians and researchers explore new opportunities to increase perioperative care for all our patients,” Kain said.   More »

When it comes to faculty gender equity, academia earns a “needs improvement,” according to a new UC Irvine study. "Gender inequities and discrimination toward women in academia exist both at the individual and institutional level,” said Kristen Monroe, political science and philosophy professor and director of the Interdisciplinary Center for the Scientific Study of Ethics and Morality, who interviewed female faculty at UCI for the study. She found the culture devalues the authority of women in high-level positions and leaves little room for flexible work-family alternatives, and the issues are not unique to the campus. Published in the June issue of the American Political Science Association’s Perspectives of Politics, the study was funded in part by the National Science Foundation ADVANCE program, which seeks to increase the representation and advancement of women in academia.   More »

David Snow, Chancellor's Professor of Sociology at UC Irvine, will receive the 2008 Lee Founders Award from the Society for the Study of Social Problems at the society’s annual meeting in Boston Aug. 1. Snow is widely recognized for his work on homelessness and social movements. His 1993 book, Down on Their Luck: A Study of Homeless Street People, co-authored with Leon Anderson, received a number of awards, including Best Book of the Year from the Pacific Sociological Association. He’s now studying homelessness in Los Angeles, Paris, Tokyo and Sao Paulo, and plans to publish his findings in a book.   More »

Nearly 400,000 Russians die each year due to heart disease, but a study by a recent UC Irvine graduate found that about 5 percent of such deaths could be avoided by the year 2025 if the country strengthens its environmental standards. "A poor environment can lead to a number of cardiovascular-related health problems, resulting in death at a younger age," says Natalia Milovantseva, a Demographic and Social Analysis program graduate. "In Russia, if laws for air, water and environmental quality continue to go unenforced, the cost will be measured in lives lost." A Russian native, Milovantseva received the 2008 Southern California Edison Award for Research on Energy and the Environment in recognition of her study. The $1,000 award will help fund her next research venture as she moves on to the UCI School of Social Ecology's environmental analysis and design doctoral program in the fall.   More »

Like Margaret Mead before him, UC Irvine associate professor of anthropology Tom Boellstorff understands the value of cultural immersion. But instead of Samoan villages, Boellstorff spent two years "living" in the online virtual world of Second Life, a community where businesses, homes, money and relationships are created through the click of a mouse. What he learned about human culture is detailed in his new book, "Coming of Age in Second Life: An Anthropologist Explores the Virtually Human," available now at the campus bookstore. The book is reviewed in the current issue of Scientific American and will be officially released June 18 following a virtual celebration in Second Life's Cetus Gallery District.   More »

The Beatle’s “Hey Jude” was probably playing on Dave Tomcheck’s transistor radio when he started working as a student programmer at UCI in 1966. Today, 40 years later, he is vice chancellor for space management, and he joined hundreds of long-time colleagues at the Annual Staff Service Awards in Aldrich Park. Service awards are granted in 5-year increments, and honorees this year have contributed a total of 6,920 years. Tomcheck (pictured right, with Chancellor Michael V. Drake) was saluted as the only 40-year employee. “The thing that makes the engine run on this campus is the people who are here today,” said Chancellor Drake. “No one represents the heart of UCI more than Dave.”   More »

Diane Pataki, associate professor of Earth system science and ecology and evolutionary biology at UC Irvine, has been named the 2008 James B. Macelwane Medalist by the American Geophysical Union. Named after the seismologist who served as AGU president from 1953-‘56, the medal recognizes significant contributions to the geophysical sciences by an outstanding young scientist. Pataki researches land-atmosphere interactions, biogeochemistry and global change biology. She will receive her award at the AGU fall meeting in San Francisco.   More »

UC Irvine anthropology professor Kristin Peterson will travel to France, Nigeria, Cameroon, Ghana, Malawai and parts of the U.S. to begin a National Science Foundation-funded study of the ethical and scientific issues surrounding international clinical drug trials. Peterson will perform a three-year study on the implementation, effectiveness and perception of a 2004 clinical trial for the HIV drug Tenofovir. The trial was shut down due to ethical and scientific questions surrounding the study, and Peterson and her research partners will examine the causes for its termination. A preliminary survey revealed some disturbing information, according to Peterson. "Four out of five participants who signed informed consent forms didn't actually know they were part of a study," she says. "Many viewed the program as free healthcare and mistakenly understood that the 'preventative' drug would keep them from contracting HIV."   More »

Is personal Internet use at work strictly the domain of low-paid employees? A recent study co-written by UC Irvine political science professor James Danziger offers some surprising findings about who spends the most time surfing the Web on company time. According to the study, "cyberslacking" is more frequent among those with higher workplace status. In particular, highly paid managers and professionals, as well as employees with greater workplace autonomy, spend substantially more time online for personal purposes during the workday than those below them in the workplace hierarchy. The study also found men are more likely to use the Internet for non-work purposes than women. The study appears in the Journal Cyberpsychology and Behavior.   More »

UC Irvine has been named a Cornelia de Lange Syndrome Research Center of Excellence for its achievements in research related to this childhood disease. "The research overseen by Drs. Anne Calof (pictured), Arthur Lander and Thomas Schilling has changed the landscape of what we know about CdLS," said Liana Fresher, executive director of the Cornelia De Lange Syndrome Foundation, which made the designation. "Their work brings new hope to the families and professionals who care for individuals affected by the syndrome." UCI biologists helped discover the gene for the syndrome, a disabling, multisystem genetic disease that affects about one in 10,000 children.   More »