Daily Bruin – Page 86

Amid measles outbreak, UCLA needs to improve students’ public health awareness

About two decades ago, vaccinations made measles a disease of the past.

But we’ve brought back the world’s most contagious virus – and it’s all courtesy of ignorance.

Despite being in the information age, Americans have a distinct lack of information about the basics of science and health care. The misconceptions have run amok: People think vaccines cause autism, essential oils have the ability to treat childhood diseases and abortion clinics kill newborns.

This misinformation is itself a virus, permeating and resulting in issues like limited abortion access for university students and the growing popularity of going unvaccinated.

Last year, for example, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention noticed a gradual decrease in vaccination rates for children aged 24 months. Along with this dip, preventable diseases, such as mumps, chickenpox, whooping cough and measles, have made a comeback across the US.

One of these cases was here on campus last month.

The problem isn’t just that social media and the internet can help propagate false facts. Universities like UCLA also treat public health as a logistical requirement. This creates a breeding ground for confusion as there’s no focused and accessible source of information for students regarding health care.

UCLA needs to incorporate public health education into its academic and social atmosphere through collaborating with student-led organizations and establishing a public health course requirement. Without a basic understanding of the essentials of public health, Bruins will be unprepared to make decisions in the future, be it about their own health or even about drafting legislation.

UCLA’s recent measles scare is a significant indicator of the effects of misinformation. The poorly executed quarantine and lack of proper and immediate notification show how students weren’t told just how bad it could have been – they weren’t told much at all. The larger student body was only contacted via email and given no advice for preventing future outbreaks or why it is necessary to catch up on vaccination requirements.

This lack of basic public health knowledge has even manifested in elected officials’ offices. Former California Gov. Jerry Brown vetoed a bill last year that would provide students an on-campus medical abortion pill, citing abortion clinics were on average only five to seven miles away from campus.

However, a study in 2017 showed that abortion clinics more than 30 minutes away from campuses are increasingly inaccessible, since students need to schedule a time to go and often wait a week for an appointment, on top of associated costs. The University of California, however, has not taken an official position on the new Senate Bill 24, similar to the one Brown vetoed, leaving students’ public health choices in the dark.

In fact, the UC and UCLA seem to only have a checklist mentality about public health. UCLA’s approach to improving campus immunity, for instance, consists mainly of the Arthur Ashe Student Health and Wellness Center’s messages informing students they don’t have the necessary vaccines.

But the university doesn’t explain why students should heed those concerns. Diseases like measles can only be eradicated through herd immunity, when a significant majority of the population is vaccinated. The more vaccinated people you have, the more suffocated the transmission is.

Combating false information requires a stronger focus on public health education and accurate scientific information, said Peter Katona, a clinical professor of medicine at UCLA’s David Geffen School of Medicine.

“For example, it’s incredibly difficult to convince a mother to vaccinate her child (if she has) already made up her mind,” Katona said. “This is why we have to connect it to the correct scientific truth – because the students of today will be the parents 10 to 15 years from now.”

Of course, the UC is beginning to crack down on its vaccine requirements and the Ashe center offered free measles vaccines at a vaccination fair Tuesday.

But providing vaccines is often not nearly enough by itself, said Timothy Brewer, a professor of medicine at the School of Medicine.

“To be more active, we need to continue supporting groups that spread awareness in all areas of public health to have an effect,” Brewer said.

UCLA’s community of students and staff are often tasked with being the leaders and visionaries of their fields, spearheading the university’s goal of benefiting society and academia. The university should require students to understand the overarching science behind concepts like disease transmission, the cornerstones of fetal development and the safety of abortions. These are only a few of many essential ideas Bruins should become familiar with during their time here.

And these requirements are much more than another hoop to jump through before graduation. They are a source of credible and personable information for the future doctors, officers and parents in the community. A few pure science classes alone can’t provide all the nuances of these topics.

As Bruins, we have a chance to fight for public health awareness in a meaningful way. We can put preventable public health crises like measles and limited abortion access back where they belong: in history.

USAC recap – May 7

The Undergraduate Students Association Council is the official student government representing the undergraduate student body at UCLA. Council meetings take place every Tuesday at 7 p.m. in the Bruin Viewpoint Room and are open to all students. Watch a live stream of the meetings on the USAC Live! channel on YouTube.

Note: Both the 2018-2019 council and 2019-2020 council held meetings Tuesday. Both are detailed below.

2018-2019 Council

Agenda:

The council certified the 2019 election results.
The council did not approve Good Clothes Good People’s Surplus Allocation Honorarium Change, which will move surplus funds used to purchase supplies to pay volunteers. Good Clothes Good People is a redistribution center in SAC.
The council allocated a total of $20,000 to contingency fund.

Agenda:

President Robert Watson appointed Cultural Affairs Commissioner Kelechi Iheanacho, International Student Representative Shahamah Tariq and External Vice President Johana Guerra Martinez to the appointments review committee.
Watson appointed Transfer Student Representative Isabel Carmen Oraha, Community Service Commissioner Jonathan Wisner and General Representative Eduardo Velazquez to the constitutional review committee. Oraha will serve as the chair.
The council said they will postpone discussion on CARE Program Director’s leave during next week’s meeting.

Officer Reports:

Watson said he hopes to increase USAC’s publicity to improve voter turnout in future elections.
Campus Events Commissioner Tara Steinmetz said her committee will provide more resources for smaller student groups on campus.
Transfer Student Representative Isabel Carmen Oraha said she is working to transfer her position to be more committee-style.
Several officers said their offices are hiring.

GSA recap – May 8

The Graduate Student Association is the voice of graduate students on campus. The association meets for forum every three weeks and takes positions on current issues affecting graduate students. Forum meetings are at 5:30 p.m. in the Global Viewpoint Lounge in Ackerman Union.

Agenda:

The association approved a resolution in support for Senate Bill 50, which encourages the development of affordable housing within half a mile of public transit stops.
The association approved the appointment of Ernesto Arciniega as the ASUCLA Board of Directors representative.
The association voted to certify the 2019-2020 executive council election results.
The association discussed potential changes to the election code, including allowing slates and candidates to send mass emails to potential voters through listserv, but tabled the discussion until fall quarter.

Officer Reports:

President Michael Skiles said he is working on the GSA budget proposal for Week nine’s forum.

The Quad: Media coverage skewed by biases of journalists, American society

It’s safe to say that popular news outlets like The Washington Post, The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal each publish more than 230 stories a day.

Viewers of the news can often feel overwhelmed with the countless stories told in the media, but only certain stories leave lasting impressions on their audience. In a news and media culture teeming with headlines, how do Americans choose which ones to focus on, and what stories do journalists deem worthy of being told?

Recent investigations like the Mueller Report and tragedies like the Notre Dame cathedral fire or UNC Charlotte shooting are among recent headlines which have garnered attention from the public. Such reports are inarguably important for the public, but the news that gains popularity is commonly recognized by two types of biases: bias toward the event and bias toward the familiar.

Alyssa Choi, a first-year political science student, said, “Usually if it’s more impactful or widespread I try to read it … (news outlets) tend to focus on issues that would touch people’s emotions most often, so I think they cover more tragedies just because that will get the audience’s attention more.”

News outlets have a tendency to focus on immediate and unusual events which would gain more public attention due to the out-of-the-ordinary premise behind the tragedy.

Titled the Studebaker National Tragedy Index, the index assigns tragedies like the Boston Marathon bombing as level one due to its fatality rate of 0.000003% of the population while chronic issues like cancer have a tragedy level of 7, which affects 3% of the U.S. population.

Francis Steen, an associate professor in the Communication department at UCLA, specializes in research regarding the effects of mass media. Steen said selection bias, which is the biased selection of which stories to tell, ties into deeper principles of the motivations of news networks.

“(Selection bias) has to do with news having to position themselves between what people know and what they don’t know,” Steen said. “When journalists are selecting stories, they have to build on what people know.”

Steen’s insight ties into a second bias within news and media – the bias toward what is more familiar. Recent controversy over the comparison of the coverage on the Notre Dame cathedral fire, which had no fatalities, versus the Sri Lanka terror attacks which left nearly 300 killed and hundreds wounded, sparked debate over why news outlets choose to cover certain topics over other – just as serious – events.

Jae Jin Lee, a first-year international development studies student at UCLA, said, “In terms of international news, the culture surrounding the news is more focused on a Eurocentric type of view. A famous cathedral burning up will be of more interest than a terrorist attack in a South Asian country … People when they see that just think ‘oh, that’s what happens in those types of countries.'”

Graphs comparing the airtime of the Mueller coverage, Notre Dame fire and Sri Lanka attacks illustrate news networks like CNN, Fox and MSNBC as being saturated with coverage regarding Mueller with the Notre Dame fire as the next leading headline. However, the Sri Lanka attacks which, despite leaving more than 300 killed and hundreds wounded, had less than half the coverage of the Notre Dame fire in certain networks.

Such statistics exemplify the common biases journalists have when covering certain topics, thus perpetuating a narrow and saturated news section to their audiences. In the case of choosing headlining stories, the length and popularity of certain event coverage is highly dependent on relatability, a term which ties into the concept of communicative potential.

“Communicative potential is the willingness of an audience to pay attention. Audiences are motivated by things that are interesting and discouraged by things that are difficult,” Steen said. “You have to give them a lot of background to make sense of what’s happening. It becomes more expensive – cognitively more expensive – for audiences to figure out what’s going on, and unless it is a very interesting story, you lose them.”

Similarly to Steen’s insight, Choi said the lack of attention with urgent issues has to do with the lack of exposure to certain countries, ultimately pointing to a problem not only in the media, but American culture as a whole.

As consumers of the news, it is important to stay informed on all facets of activity. When news sources begin to fall into the habit of choosing whichever story sounds more interesting or easier to understand, the information fed to the general public becomes skewed.

“Audiences drive what the news organizations give you, so if you demand something else, you help create a pressure to create different news. This is the power of the reader.” Steen said.

The Quad: The story behind the remains of a Nazi property in the hills of LA

Nestled in the hills of Santa Monica along a popular hiking trail – not far from the mansions of Hollywood’s elite and about six miles away from campus – lie the remains of an antisemitic enclave rumored to have been a hotbed of Nazi activity in the United States.

Inconspicuously located at the bottom of a 500-step descent, the graffiti-ridden remnants are just as mysterious as they are eerie. Who lived there? What were they doing?

Nobody knows for sure.

A journey down the rabbit hole gives onlookers a small peak at the inner workings of the Nazi mentality and highlights the virulent nature of the activity of the Third Reich, which spread from the bogs of Berlin to the slopes of Santa Monica.

In 1933, Winona and Norman Stephens, sympathizers of the Silver Legion of America, purchased the plot of land under the pseudonym “Jessie M. Murphy.” They believed that the Nazis would defeat the American army in World War II and would need a self-sustaining community from which to initiate their escapades in the United States, according to the Huffington Post.

The group with which the Stephens duo affiliated modeled itself after Hitler’s Brownshirts. They advocated for a “Christian commonwealth” governed by the two “L’s” – loyalty to the United States and liberation from materialism. The way to achieve such things, the Silvershirts believed, was to remove Jewish people from all positions of power as, according to them, Jewish people were a “predatory people.”

Not only did the Silver Legion expect victory from the Nazis in Europe, they assumed that they would gain such momentum in the United States that they would require a bomb shelter, a large water tank, a power station, a workshop and plenty of land on which to grow food.

Here lies one of the mysteries of the fascist American dream. If the Nazis expected that their popularity in Europe would follow them halfway across the globe, then why would they need their land to be self-sustaining? Would they not usurp land and resources from those who they deemed inferior the same way they had before? And if that wasn’t the plan, what business would they have secluding themselves in the backyard of one of their most prominent enemies?

As for the inhabitant of the estate, a man named Herr Schmidt who claimed to have metaphysical powers, came from Germany to rule. According to oral histories, Schmidt reasoned that the stronghold was necessary because after the Nazi victory, anarchy would break out across America and the Nazis would need a place to wait it out before emerging to impose order.

The Stephenses believed this premonition and bankrolled construction worth $4,000,000. Interestingly, despite their tendencies toward white supremacy, they hired an African-American architect named Paul Revere Williams who, aside from planning the buildings that actually came into fruition, had blueprints for a four-story mansion with 22 bedrooms, five libraries and several dining rooms.

While the Nazis may have been living in an alternate reality in which they won the war, nobody else was. The day after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, law enforcement stormed the ranch and arrested Nazi sympathizers, including Schmidt, who they believed to be a Nazi spy. The Stephenses sold the property to the Huntington Hartford Society who later turned it into an artists’ colony.

In 2016, the City of Los Angeles, which bought the property in 1973, demolished the most decrepit parts of the infrastructure to ensure that it didn’t collapse spontaneously and injure hikers.

The fact that the ranch is located near a hiking trail is coincidental, but its proximity to Hollywood is not. Seeing that there were many successful Jews in the entertainment industry, the Silver Shirts strategically selected a location bustling with the very people they sought to eradicate.

Even from afar Hitler was concerned about the Jews dominating the studios of Hollywood. That’s why Joseph Goebbels, Hitler’s minister of propaganda, worked with the German consul in Los Angeles to ensure that Jewish producers could not make any movies that might have swayed the American public opinion against Hitler’s ideology. As a result, the number of American films shown in Germany declined by almost 50% between 1933 and 1936, forcing Jewish producers to contend with the German consul if they wished to maintain their salaries and reputations.

Murphy’s Ranch was far more than a post-war sunshine getaway for the Nazis. It serves as a sinister reminder that the atrocities of Hitler’s regime were not as far removed as we might have thought. And sadly, neither are today’s forms of anti-Semitsm.

According to the Anti-Defamation League, California accounted for the highest number of anti-Semitic incidents in 2018. In October, fliers blaming the Jews for sexual assault allegations against Brett Kavanaugh circulated around two UC campuses. In the same month, an Irvine synagogue was vandalized with anti-Semitic graffiti. In April, a synagogue shooting in Poway, the second in a year, left one dead and three injured.

The thing about Nazism and anti-Semitism is that they sprout on the fringes of society and they fester and evolve faster than anyone can bat an eyelash. They continue to surface in far more violent forms than a spooky ranch in the middle of nowhere built on the fallacy of a foundation that the oppressor is the one who wins.

The Quad: Benefits of spring cleaning, using KonMari method to find what ‘sparks joy’

Jenn Nguyen used to keep all of her school assignments, letting them pile up and accumulate dust at home.

When she came to UCLA, the first-year psychology student began using organization expert Marie Kondo’s decluttering methods to spruce up her room and get tidier – and get rid of all those dusty papers.

“A cleaner and more organized room allows me to get more work done,” Nguyen said.

Whether students are scrambling to find summer internships or getting ready for summer beach days, spring signals a time for change and growth – and especially spring cleaning.

Spring cleaning’s been around since the earliest days of civilization – its origins are debated, but it’s likely that it has its roots in holidays like Passover or Nowruz, during which celebrants often declutter their households. But this spring, with the popularity of “Tidying Up with Marie Kondo,” spring cleaning – and Kondo’s KonMari cleaning method – have been on people’s minds a little bit more lately.

Kondo’s minimalist approach to decluttering your living space based on what “sparks joy” achieves just that. From YouTube videos on professionally organizing one’s possessions to Twitter memes about what “sparks joy,” many are reassessing the value of their belongings.

Broken down into four steps, the KonMari method is a decluttering system that serves to pare down one’s belongings and organize their living space. She teaches her readers to tidy up your space all at once rather than in intervals. Every item is then sorted into categories. In each pile, one must decide whether each item sparks joy for them or not. If not, that item is thrown away or donated.

Her philosophy, although simple, has garnered immense popularity with numerous people revamping their living space and donating their unwanted belongings. With the urge to purge, many have donated their excess possessions to donation centers or thrift stores in overwhelming amounts.

According to The Washington Post, Goodwill centers in the D.C. area experienced a 66% increase in donations for the first week of January this year as did other donation centers across the country.

Kondo’s organization tips not only aid in refreshing one’s living environment but also promote a clearer state of mind that offers greater happiness and less stress. A disorganized space can often be distracting, forcing our brains to juggle multiple stimuli and thoughts at once.

In a study published by the Princeton Neuroscience Institute, scientists discovered the chaos reflected in your surroundings impedes the brain’s ability to process information and focus on the task at hand. The brain’s visual system becomes overwhelmed with simultaneous stimuli vying for neural representation.

In turn, one’s accuracy to complete a task can suffer. A study of 80 people at the University of Navarra reported that people made more mistakes in a messy space than in a tidy one.

Royson Lin a third-year cognitive science student said the KonMari method has worked wonders for his apartment space and lifestyle. After reading about it on Twitter, Lin went on to read all of Kondo’s books and watch her Netflix series before implementing it into his own space.

Initially, Lin said he experienced difficulty with throwing away things he knew his parents would value more than him, but also created clutter around the household – in particular, he struggled to throw away a uniform from a charity organization that he and his mom worked for throughout his childhood.

“I did not feel a strong attachment to (the uniform) but I know my mom did and I felt bad,” Lin said.

After sorting out his personal happiness and external factors, he not only pared down his collection of clothing to one drawer of his dresser but also began prioritizing his personal happiness in other facets of his life.

“But it has also helped me decide what things I want to do with my own life instead of being afraid or forced by my parents,” Lin said.

However, implementing Kondo’s method is easier said than done. For some, getting rid of items that simply do not bring pleasure can be difficult to justify. In an INSIDER article, clinical psychologist Marla Deibler said each person values their possessions differently and does not have to clean their clutter to feel happy – some may revel in clutter while others do not.

Nevertheless, the KonMari Method requires time, energy and commitment. One must fully devote themselves to the task and truly evaluate their values in order to reap its benefits. Whether it means blocking out a few days or asking more introspective questions, reorganizing your living space can be an achievable goal and in turn, the catalyst to living a self-motivated, joyful life.

“Trust yourself and the decisions you make. You know what makes you happy or not,” said Lin. “It has brought me inner peace and the ability to choose happiness first.”

Caffeine could boost development of solar panels with greater efficiency

UCLA researchers found caffeine might improve the stability of a new material for solar panels.

Yang Yang, a UCLA professor of material science and engineering who led the research, said his team has been studying a solar cell material called perovskite for six years as an alternative power conversion material to traditional silicon solar cells. Solar cells are parts of solar panels that convert light energy into electricity. Yang’s team recently discovered caffeine could improve the stability of perovskite, which could push the material closer to commercial usage.

Yang said that compared to conventional silicon solar cells, perovskite solar cells are cheaper to develop and have the potential to convert solar energy to usable energy more efficiently.

“The preparation of perovskite is very simple. We dissolve it into liquid and paint it on a plane, and the perovskite film will form in seconds,” Yang said. “However, growing silicon crystal requires costly technology and high temperature.”

Although perovskite is an attractive option for solar cells, the material is unstable under heat and moisture and cannot last 20 to 30 years like conventional materials can, Yang said.

Rui Wang, a UCLA graduate student on the research team, said he began to wonder if caffeine could increase the stability of perovskite materials while he was drinking coffee with a colleague.

“I drank about three cups of coffee in a day and noticed that the boiling degree of caffeine is 300 degree Celsius, which is higher than the operational degree of a solar cell,” Wang said. “I googled the structure of caffeine and found two special structures in the molecule that were known to make perovskite stable, so we tried it.”

Jingjing Xue, a UCLA graduate student on the research team, said the researchers added a drop of caffeine into the perovskite solution before developing the perovskite film like they normally did. When they tested the stability of the perovskite film on a hot plate, the material remained stable for up to 55 days.

“The reason behind this increase in stability is that certain structures of the caffeine molecules binds to the perovskite molecules,” Xue said. “This means that the decomposition of perovskite molecules requires more energy, which slows down the crystallization process to form more stable crystals.”

Researchers have been studying silicon solar cells for over 40 years, but only began studying perovskite 10 years ago, Wang said. Researchers have already increased the energy conversion efficiency of perovskite solar cells from 3.8% to 24.2%, which is comparable to those made of silicon.

Wang said the team will work on increasing both the stability and the efficiency of perovskite solar cells to make them ready for commercial use in three to five years.

Yang said the team will also look for more materials that share similar structures with caffeine that might further increase the stability of perovskite.