Comments by UC Davis community members regularly appear in a wide variety of media outlets around the country. Among the recent citings in prominent publications:

Law professor Martha West was quoted in several major publications on May 18 and 19 about her finding that the University of California's hiring of women faculty members is lagging. The study, conducted by West and three other UC Davis professors, is titled, "Unprecedented Urgency: Gender Discrimination in Faculty Hiring at the University of California." The report said that a dramatic drop in females hired occurred after the UC regents passed a resolution to end affirmative action in the UC system in 1995. "Basically, white male faculty breathed a sigh of relief after Prop. 209 and said, 'Well, we don't have to worry about that,'" West said in the San Francisco Chronicle on May 18. "When they don't worry about hiring women, somehow women don't get hired."…

Research findings from a M.I.N.D. Institute team that included institute research director David Amaral and immunology adjunct associate professor Judy Van de Water were cited by several publications on May 6, including Newsday and the Australian Broadcasting Corp. The team found that a group of autistic children had 20 percent more antibody-producing B cells than control children. The researchers said that their discovery was an important step in determining a biological indicator of the disorder. "If one could detect at birth those who are vulnerable and understand the trigger, it might be possible to prevent them from experiencing the trigger," Amaral said in the Los Angeles Times. But, Van de Water cautioned, "We still have a long road to say what role this immune dysfunction may play in autism."…

Music department chair Pablo Ortiz was quoted in a May 19 San Diego Union-Tribune article about the Star Wars mystique that has existed through the years. Ortiz has taught a class called "Star Wars and Wagner," focusing on the connections between Lucas' saga and the works of composer Richard Wagner. "It speaks to something that's very deeply ingrained — it's like the collective subconscious of the Western world," Ortiz said of the hero stories that underlie both Lucas' and Wagner's works. "It's something that comes back to you in the bedtime stories that people read to you as a child. It comes back in the knights and King Arthur and all those things. It's a story that keeps coming back."…

Graduate School of Management professor Robert Smiley was quoted in an April 27 New York Times story on the wine industry's marketing strategies. Smiley said many factors deter the average American from drinking wine. He pointed out that only about 10 percent of Americans drink wine regularly. Consumers "go to Safeway and see hundreds of different bottles, which makes them confused and nervous," Smiley said…

Geology professor Donald Turcotte commented on a new Internet earthquake forecast in the May 19 Sacramento Bee. The site, created by seismologists with the U.S. Geological Survey in Pasadena, is based on a computer model that forecasts the locations and intensities of aftershocks throughout the state. The online service, however, is not meant to predict massive tremors, but simply their aftershocks. "Rightfully, they're a very conservative organization," said Turcotte, who also works in the earthquake prediction field…

Wildlife, fish and conservation biology department chair Dirk Van Vuren was quoted in a May 22 Los Angeles Times story on efforts to revive a bald eagle population on Catalina Island. DDT, a toxic substance that is slow to break down in the environment, was deposited in the birds' habitat by Montrose Chemical Corp. from the 1940s until it was banned in the 1970s. However, efforts to bring back the eagle population have had limited success because DDT remains in fish that the birds eat, causing eggs to be laid with thin shells. Some groups are now talking of abandoning the project. Van Vuren is opposed to such action. "Actions by Montrose caused the extirpation of bald eagles from the Catalina Island ecosystem, and settlement funds should be used to undo this damage," he said. ...

Associate economics professor Oscar Jorda was quoted in a piece on federal interest rates released by Reuters News Service on May 24. Jorda, a visiting scholar at the Federal Reserve, said a rule of thumb indicates the U.S. central bank will continue to raise interest rates for another year. Jorda pointed out that since 1984 the Federal Reserve has typically increased or decreased interest rates by 3.75 percent over two years. "Suppose we take the 3.75 percent rule of thumb and apply it to the latest round of Fed increases," he said. "It would mean that the FOMC would continue to increase the funds rate up to 4.75 percent by June 2006." — By Mike Sintetos