UC to study effects of low water levels
SACRAMENTO “”mdash; Gov. Gray Davis delayed a plan to collect
water from North Coast rivers in giant bags and float them south
for sale in San Diego.
Davis signed a bill, written by Assemblywoman Patricia Wiggins,
D-Santa Rosa, requiring fish habitat studies before the water can
be collected and towed away.
Alaska Water Exports’ has asked the state Water Resources
Control board to let it pump 14,000 acre-feet of winter and spring
runoff each year from the Gualala and Albion rivers in Mendocino
County. The water would be piped out to sea to fill fiberpoly bags
the length of three football fields, and tugboats would then tow
them to Southern California.
The bill Davis signed Friday delays those plans, requiring the
University of California to study how reduced water flow would
affect salmon and steelhead. Some of those species are protected by
the Endangered Species Act.
Wiggins said the studies could take at least five years to
complete, but Alaska Water Exports president Ric Davidge said they
could be done in two.
The U.S. Supreme Court has ordered Southern California to reduce
its reliance on water from the Colorado River, so the region is
seeking other sources.
UCR team studies human ancestors
RIVERSIDE “”mdash; The traces left behind by ancient animals may
hold the key to determining when macroscopic bilaterians — animals
that are symmetric about a central axis, with a body divided into
equivalent right and left halves, and with an anterior-posterior
polarity (e.g., this includes worms, ants, and ranges up to humans)
— first appeared.
A team led by Dr. Mary Droser, professor of geology at the
University of California, Riverside, studied “trace”
fossils, e.g., burrows, trails and tracks left behind by the
earliest bilaterian animals. Results from their study suggest that
bilaterian animals did not appear until approximately 555 million
years ago.
Grant to help fight bioterrorism
BERKELEY “”mdash; A new $2.8 million federal grant will help
University of California, Berkeley, researchers battle
bioterrorism, infectious disease outbreaks and other emergent
public health threats through a new Center for Infectious Disease
Preparedness.
The three-year grant, announced Thursday, Sept. 26, establishes
UC Berkeley’s School of Public Health as the site of one of
four new academic centers for public health preparedness. The
academic centers are funded by the Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention in collaboration with the Association of Schools of
Public Health.
UC Berkeley and the other three new centers ““ at the
University of Michigan, University of Oklahoma and University of
South Carolina ““ will join 15 others funded last February as
part of the $2.9 billion bioterrorism initiative launched by
President George W. Bush earlier this year.
Children may be riding unsafely
BERKELEY “”mdash; A new study of adult drivers and child
passengers by the University of California, Berkeley, found that
most of the children were not properly restrained in child safety
seats. Moreover, it reveals that a significant number of children
were not secured at all.
The study, released Tuesday, Sept. 24 by the campus’s
Traffic Safety Center, was conducted to collect baseline data on
child safety-seat use as part of a larger child passenger safety
initiative at California’s public hospitals and health care
systems.
Researchers surveyed 515 adults who were leaving a public
hospital or clinic in California for the first time with a new
baby, or who were coming to the hospital or clinic for routine
pediatric exams for children ages six and under. They then
accompanied the adults to the cars to observe how they secured the
children in child safety seats. In all, researchers observed 463
children from October 2001 to June 2002.
Briefs compiled from Daily Bruin wire reports