miscellaneous

A UCLA student walked the same stage as dozens of big-name celebrities Sunday night at the 85th annual Academy Awards. Tatenda Mbudzi was one of six students from across the country who delivered Oscar statuettes to presenters during the show after winning the “Oscar Experience College Search” contest. As part of the contest, the 25-year-old film student submitted a video explaining how he would contribute to the future of movies… Full story at http://centurycity.patch.com/articles/ucla-student-makes-oscars-appearance

From the Winston-Salem Journal 2/23/13:  Wake Forest University Health Sciences is suing to end a joint venture with the University of California at Los Angeles involving the primate colony in southern Forsyth County, and UCLA is accusing Wake Forest of financially mismanaging the research center. The colony contains 475 vervet monkeys, many of which came from the Caribbean island of St. Kitts. They contain family trees that have been tracked for eight generations by researchers.The Wake Forest group said it is willing to shut down the primate center in the Friedberg community if UCLA doesn’t agree to continue to pay…

From KCET …We told you that researchers at Ric Kamen’s lab at UCLA had found a way to make a non-toxic, highly efficient energy storage medium out of pure carbon using absurdly simple technology. Today, we can report that the same team may well have found a way to make that process scale up to mass-production levels…  The recap: Graphene, a very simple carbon polymer, can be used as the basic component of a “supercapacitor” — an electrical power storage device that charges far more rapidly than chemical batteries. Unlike other supercapacitors, though, graphene’s sturcture also offers a high “energy…

Editorial: Anyone who works for UCLA, or any local public entity, and has been called for jury duty knows that the jury pool in LA County is not a random sample of the population.  Apart from the fact that only citizens serve on juries (but anyone can be tried), public sector institutions are likely to have liberal policies for jury duty and jury leave, unlike many private employers.  Those called who show up (many don’t) are often excused for hardship reasons, or excused from lengthy trials, because of the economic hardship of missing work.  Yours truly’s last experience was being…

A captured miniature Japanese submarine was exhibited in December 1942 at a UCLA-USC football game in the Coliseum.

On the day before Presidents’ Day, here are two presidents visiting UCLA in February 1964: Lyndon Johnson and Mexican President Adolfo Lopez Mateos.

Despite the seeming Valentines’ Day romance of cigarettes (as of 1927) depicted here, UCLA is going smoke free on Earth Day, according to a reminder email circulating today.  The policy was announced last fall: When the policy takes effect on Earth Day (April 22), the use of cigarettes, cigars, chewing tobacco and all other tobacco products, as well as electronic cigarettes, will not be permitted on campus and at sites owned or leased by the University. South campus (the medical complex) has already implemented the ban. For some smokers, UCLA may be asking for the Moon:[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2-KGiwGn1d8?feature=player_detailpage]

Apparently, there was a pre-baby boomer tradition of a ceremony at UCLA for undergraduate women to announce their engagements, as this 1955 photo illustrates.  It didn’t occur on Valentines’ Day (the photo was taken in May), but Valentines’ Day is an appropriate day to show the picture.  At least back then, things would be just wonderful thereafter: