The Wall Street Journal, March 21, 2024

Big Corporate Mergers Get Fresh Tax Scrutiny in Washington

A progressive Democrat and a populist Republican are teaming up to attack big mergers, offering a new proposal that would remove a cornerstone of the corporate tax code and potentially reshape dealmaking. … “I don’t think that this is an earthquake in what’s going to happen in the M&A market. I think it’s a tremor at best, because a lot of deals are taxable as it is,” said Victor Fleischer, a former Senate Democratic tax aide who is now a law professor at the University of California, Irvine. “Bigger deals could be affected.”

Inside Higher Ed, March 21, 2024

Universities Build Their Own ChatGPT-like Tools

UC Irvine publicly announced their own AI chatbot—dubbed ZotGPT—on Monday … Offering their own version of ChatGPT allows faculty and staff to use the technology without the concerns that come with OpenAI’s version, Andriola said. “When we saw generative AI, we said, ‘We need to get people learning this as fast as possible, with as many people playing with this that we could,’” he said. “[ZotGPT] lets people overcome privacy concerns, intellectual property concerns, and gives them an opportunity of, ‘How can I use this to be a better version of myself tomorrow?’”

Los Angeles Times, March 22, 2024

Column: Biden’s big speech didn’t move the needle, nor have rising wages. But these 3 things might

The greater concern for Biden may be that his job approval numbers haven’t budged, even as rising wages and falling inflation have started to make Americans less gloomy about the economy. As political scientists John Sides of Vanderbilt University and Michael Tesler of UC Irvine wrote this week, “at this early date, approval ratings actually predict the eventual outcome better than polls do.” … Typically, as Sides and Tesler wrote, a president’s approval numbers go up at least a few points during an election year.

USA Today, March 21, 2024

Telescope images capture galaxies far far away: See photos

Physics and astronomy professor [emeritus] Herbert W, Hamber considers himself a “backyard astro-photographer,” although his photos are far from amateur. The University of California, Irvine professor makes the trek to San Diego County’s northeast desert where he spends three to four nights at a time capturing overnight images of the cosmos. … Hamber heads inland to Borrego Springs where the Steele/Burnand Anza-Borrego Desert Research Center is located. During his most recent visit to the research center, the professor captured a series of striking images of nebulas and galaxies. Hamber spent his career as a physicist, teaching physics and astronomy at the University of California, Irvine.

Forbes Health, March 20, 2024

Best CBD Gummies Of March 2024

Once absorbed, CBD interacts with cannabinoid receptors that are part of the endocannabinoid system. “Endocannabinoids are chemical messengers that play a variety of roles in the body,” explains Daniele Piomelli, Ph.D., the director of the Institute for the Study of Cannabis at the University of California, Irvine and an anatomy and neurobiology professor at the university’s medical school. “They work by binding to receptors present on the surface of neurons and many other cells. When bound to endocannabinoids, these receptors regulate appetite, pain, memory, the response to stress and the ability to store fat (among other things).”