Day: April 1, 2011

UC Irvine News Brief: UCI's Transit Week will promote public transportation

Student group arranges series of events, including a roundtable discussion, “How to Improve Transit,” and an Orange County Transportation Authority demo bus.

Charles Jock

Leader of the pack

Charles Jock uses a simple strategy for running an 800-meter race — start fast and make his competitors chase him. If they can catch up, fine. “Then they deserve to win,” says the junior UC Irvine track star. “But if they do, they’ll experience some pain.” Fortunately for Jock, few people can catch him in his signature […]

Tomo No Kai selling $1 origami cranes to benefit Japan

Origami effort aids Japan

Fundraiser taps into Japanese culture to send UCI’s best wishes to earthquake, tsunami victims.

Sharper images

Hindsight, unlike many people’s vision, is always 20/20. Laser eye surgery has become so common, it’s easy to forget that just three decades ago a promising new treatment was greeted with skepticism and even fear. “When the ultrashort pulse laser came along, we were excited that it was a more controlled, delicate way of cutting […]

Lauren Wong helps Luiseno tribe member Grace Galvin plant a garden on the reservation

Giving others a break

During last month’s spring break, as most college students recovered from finals by lounging in the sun, 14 UC Irvine undergraduates toiled under it at the La Jolla Indian Reservation, in northern San Diego County. They helped the Luiseno tribe plant a community garden, haul trash and pick California white sage for an upcoming Earth […]

Karen Rook

All the lonely people

UC Irvine psychologist Karen Rook can trace her interest in how loneliness affects the elderly to her childhood, when she saw a much-loved, once-robust grandmother decline markedly after losing her husband. Unable to manage the family farm on her own, her grandmother moved into an apartment. After breaking her hip in a fall, she ended […]

Dr. Nitin Bhatia (left) and Dr. Samuel Bederman use the SpineAssist robot to place spinal implants during a recent surgery.

Expanding the role of robots

Lourdes Medina had a common problem: relentless back pain and sciatica caused by a herniated disk and an unstable spine. The solution, however, was anything but common. At UC Irvine Medical Center, she underwent the first robot-assisted spinal surgery on the West Coast. Within a day of her March 15 operation, the 32-year-old Los Angeles woman was […]