Voice of OC, July 2, 2024
How Much Do Fireworks Impact Orange County’s Air Quality?
Concentrations of particulate matter 2.5 spiked an average of three to five times their normal volume in the air on July 4, 2022 in Southern California, with some cities spiking 15 times their usual level according to an academic study from UCI focused on Santa Ana that was released last year. Shahir Masri, an associate specialist in air pollution exposure assessment and epidemiology at UC Irvine, one of the authors of that study, said while Fourth of July is the worst night for pollution, the whole month of June also sees higher spikes in air pollution.
LAist, July 1, 2024
What happens when you keep a plot of land in permanent drought?
I visited the site in late spring with Steven Allison, a microbial ecologist at UC Irvine who’s leading the Loma Ridge Global Change Experiment. For about two decades, they’ve been taking regular soil moisture samples, cataloging vegetation and capturing microbes so they can compare the state of the plots to what’s happening across the surrounding landscapes.
Stateline, June 28, 2024
Despite what some politicians say, crime rates are decreasing
Although national data suggests an overall major decrease in crime across the country, some criminologists caution that that isn’t necessarily the case in individual cities and neighborhoods. … “It looks good for the nation as a whole, but even with these great reductions, there are cities in the United States that have likely experienced increases that bucked the trend,” Charis Kubrin, a criminology, law and society professor at the University of California, Irvine, told Stateline.
WFTS, June 28, 2024
Lung Institute in Tampa guilty of selling patients “valueless” treatments for incurable lung disease
Medical ethicists believe this Florida case and its multi-million-dollar verdict is a reminder to consumers about an industry with promise but not yet the evidence to treat widespread diseases and disorders. “There’s enough evidence to do them in clinical studies, but we shouldn’t think of these as treatments to be sold in the marketplace just yet,” explained Dr. Leigh Turner, a medical ethicist at the UCI School of Public Health in Irvine, CA who also provided testimony on behalf of the patients.
The Wall Street Journal, June 28, 2024
America’s Frozen Housing Market Is Warping the Economy
Workers are reluctant to accept job offers in another state if it means sacrificing low housing costs, so labor mobility has taken a hit. One study by economists at the University of California, Irvine and UC Berkeley estimates that the lock-in effect discouraged 660,000 moves to a new zip code over the year through June 2023.