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Pregnant moms and depression: Study links rising symptoms to kids’ behavioral issues

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Stuart Wolpert | 

Children whose mothers experience rising levels of depression from the period before pregnancy until the months just after giving birth are at greater risk of developing emotional, social and academic problems during their youth, UCLA psychology researchers and colleagues report.

Their recently published seven-year study, which tracked mothers and their offspring from preconception until the children were 5 years old, is the first to demonstrate how changes in mothers’ level of depression over time may impact early childhood behavior and emotional well-being, the authors said.

“Our findings suggest that increases in mother’s symptoms of depression from preconception to postpartum contribute to children’s lower attention and behavioral control, which can raise the risk of problems across the life span,” said lead author Gabrielle Rinne, a UCLA psychology graduate student. “Parents should know, however, that this can be addressed through early childhood intervention.”

For the two-part study, the researchers first analyzed data on 362 women — most of whom were Black or Hispanic and from low-income backgrounds — collected as part of a study by the Community Child Health Network, a collaboration among health scientists from UCLA and other institutions, along with community partners, that investigated disparities in maternal and child health among poor and minority families.

The women, all of whom already had a young child, were followed through a subsequent pregnancy and were interviewed on four occasions about their symptoms of depression — once before becoming pregnant, twice during pregnancy and again approximately three months after their baby’s birth — with researchers tracking how these symptoms changed over time.

Just under 75% of the women reported low symptoms of depression that didn’t change over the study period, while 12% had low symptoms that significantly increased and 7% had persistently high symptoms.

For the second part of the study, the researchers followed 125 of these women several years later. When their children were 4, or preschool age, the mothers were asked to describe in detail their child’s temperament and behavior — particularly their experiences of emotional distress and their ability to regulate their emotions.

Illustration of blue and pink fishes swimming in opposite directions, used for the cognitive task.

The cognitive task required 5-year-olds to focus on the direction of fishes on a screen. (Image by Anat Prior)

Then, at age 5, the children performed a task requiring focused attention. Looking at an iPad screen showing a series of fish, they were asked to identify the direction the fish in the middle was facing while ignoring the direction of all the other fish. Higher scores on this task reflect a greater ability to concentrate and inhibit attention to surrounding stimuli, Rinne said.

Children of mothers whose depression had increased from preconception through the postpartum period performed significantly worse on the computer task than those whose mothers had reported consistently low symptoms of depression. Interestingly, there were no differences in performance between kids whose mothers had experienced consistently high depression and those whose mothers had consistently low depression.

The findings are published in the Journal of Affective Disorders (free access through June 15).

“This study suggests that a pattern of increasing depression may adversely affect children,” said senior author Christine Dunkel Schetter, a distinguished professor of psychology and psychiatry at UCLA who had a lead role in study design and in interview development. She noted that not all of these kids are destined to experience problems but emphasized that “they are at higher risk of socio-emotional and behavioral issues and problems at school.”

Children whose mothers consistently reported low symptoms of depression, she said, are not at risk.

“Moms who experience depression or stress at multiple times should know the effects this can have on young children,” Dunkel Schetter added. “They can seek evaluation and treatment from a doctor or mental health professional for their children and themselves.”

The importance of getting treatment for maternal depression

“The addition of a child to the family is a significant emotional and psychological adjustment that can involve both joy and distress,” Rinne said. “Maternal depression is one of the most common complications of pregnancy and postpartum.”

In Los Angeles County, she pointed out, estimates of depression during pregnancy and in new mothers range as high as 25%.

Image of Gabrielle Rinne, lead author and UCLA graduate student in psychology

Gabrielle Rinne, lead author and UCLA graduate student in psychology (Image by Danielle Hankinson)

The study’s findings, Rinne said, support “the importance of comprehensive mental health care at multiple periods of the reproductive life course,” beginning even before pregnancy and continuing afterward — especially for mothers who are feeling elevated level of distress at any point.

Los Angeles County resources for maternal mental health care in pregnancy are available here. If a mother is depressed but too busy to see a doctor or therapist, she may be able to find help through evidence-based apps online. Newer forms of digital mental health treatment can also be effective, Dunkel Schetter said.

Study co-authors include Elysia Poggi Davis of the University of Denver, Madeleine Shalowitz of Rush University Medical Center in Chicago and Sharon Ramey of Virginia Tech. Nicole Mahrer, a former UCLA postdoctoral scholar and current assistant professor of psychology at the University of La Verne, and former UCLA postdoctoral scholar Christine Guardino who is now an assistant professor of psychology at Dickinson College in Pennsylvania, assisted in the research.

The study, which was conducted prior to COVID-19, concluded in 2019. It was funded by the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development and the National Institute for Nursing Research, both part of the National Institutes of Health.

This article originally appeared in the UCLA Newsroom. For more news and updates from the UCLA College, visit college.ucla.edu/news.

An image of the Madrigal family from the Walt Disney Animation Studios’ “Encanto”Courtesy of The Walt Disney Studios

UCLA botanist Felipe Zapata brings Colombia’s biodiversity to Academy Award winner ‘Encanto’

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An image of the Madrigal family from the Walt Disney Animation Studios’ “Encanto”

The outside walls of Colombian homes are commonly adorned with magenta-colored bougainvillea vines like those on the Madrigals’ house. Image courtesy of The Walt Disney Studios.

Felipe Zapata taps into his life’s work, as well as childhood memories, to give the animated film its distinctive flora

By Madeline Adamo

Image of Felipe Zapata, Assistant Professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at UCLA

Felipe Zapata, Assistant Professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at UCLA

Felipe Zapata can vividly recall driving from Bogota, where he grew up, to Colombia’s Cocora Valley as a child to spend holidays and summers with family. He remembers crossing the rugged terrain of the Andes mountains as well as the descent into the warmer valleys marked by coffee plantations and greener tropical plants with blooms of many colors. The sudden appearance of wax palms, the tallest palm tree in the world, would signal to Zapata and his family that their destination was near.

It was those drives and the beauty of Colombia’s biodiversity — which includes staples such as the platanilla, a close relative of the banana tree; guadua, a neotropical bamboo; the guayacán, a tree with yellow flowers similar in form to the purple jacaranda tree; the yarumo, an umbrella-like tree with impressive leaves; and the presence birds like the great kiskadee and the parrot — that inspired Zapata, an assistant professor of ecology and evolutionary biology in the UCLA College, to become a botanist.

What he didn’t expect was that his research and lived experiences would influence the distinctive landscapes of Walt Disney Animation Studios’ “Encanto,” a film that tells the tale of an extraordinary family, the Madrigals, who live hidden in the mountains of Colombia in a magical house adjacent to a vibrant town.

“Initially, it was going to be mainly about the wax palm,” said Zapata of his early advising on the film. But it quickly sprouted into much more. “All of a sudden it became an exploration of basically all the ecosystems in Colombia, and looking for key plants that you can identify and that they can easily draw.”

Image from “Encanto” of the character Mirabel standing in front of cloud forests

“There’s a kind of magic in these places,” said Felipe Zapata of the wax palms and cloud forests characteristic of the region where “Encanto” takes place.

Zapata, who specializes in the evolution of biological diversity, was soon bringing in his old field guides to familiarize filmmakers and artists with the region (also known as the country’s coffee region) and identifying birds, and native plants that people there would eat. Zapata enjoyed seeing some of his suggestions come to life in the film, from the herbs such as yerba buena and guasca that the character Julieta, who has the power to heal through food, wears in her apron, to the rendering of hummingbirds and toucans that frequent the vivid landscapes that provide part of the visual lushness of the film.

Zapata said he can’t choose one thing he’s most proud of, but that it might be how the representations of the wax palms and cloud forests set the tone for the film’s fantastical theme.

“There’s a kind of magic in these places,” said Zapata, whose Zoom background is wax palms and cloud forests on a cascading Colombian mountainside.

Zapata, who is also on the advisory committee of the UCLA Mildred E. Mathias Botanical Garden, said that he was initially contacted by Disney Animation after the garden’s former assistant director mentioned his name to Disney. The studio had asked if a Colombian researcher at UCLA could consult on biodiversity for the film.

Fast-forward about three years, and Zapata found himself sitting in the Hollywood premiere for “Encanto” among the filmmakers and stars such as Stephanie Beatriz (“Brooklyn Nine-Nine”), Diane Guerrero (“Orange is the New Black”), John Leguizamo (“Ice Age”) and María Cecilia Botero (“Enfermeras”). Also in the audience were members of the Colombian Cultural Trust, a group of Colombian experts who advised the filmmakers throughout the production.

“That was the first time that I saw the movie from beginning to end on a big screen, with the loud music and with multiple people from Colombia,” said Zapata, who is also a member of the UCLA Latin American Institute. “It was really, really exciting to see it.”

Members of the trust consulted on culture, anthropology, costume design, botany, music, language and architecture, as well as many other aspects of the film; the setting was inspired by the Cocora Valley in the early 20th century. Amongst the trust’s 10 members, Zapata was the only botanist.

“Encanto,” which has nabbed three Academy Award nominations, has made quite an impression on Zapata’s family back in Colombia, who went to see it in theaters after its November 2021 release, he said.

“They were so excited. My little cousins were looking for me in the movie — they thought that I was in it,” said Zapata, who was not able to talk about his role with the movie or in the Colombian Cultural Trust until after the film’s release.

Zapata said that filmmakers portrayed Colombia accurately, so much so that he got nostalgic when he saw the film for the first time. One of his favorite parts of the film, besides the complex narrative of the family, was seeing the small detail of the bamboo support beams within the walls of the Madrigals’ home. For Zapata, it evoked memories of the old houses he frequented during his memorable summers in the Cocora Valley.

Zapata, who was able to return home to Colombia last November, says that he’s happy to be able to share his line of work on such a creative platform.

“I always wanted to be able to engage the public and people who are not necessarily biologists,” Zapata said. “I was always looking for opportunities to do it, and this was amazing.”

This article originally appeared in the UCLA Newsroom. For more news and updates from the UCLA College, visit college.ucla.edu/news.

Brookhaven National Laboratory/DOE

UCLA, partners win Department of Energy grant to boost diversity in field of nuclear physics

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Image of the DOE’s new Electron-Ion Collider in New York

Trainees will have the unique opportunity to conduct research related to the DOE’s new Electron-Ion Collider in New York (pictured), where scientists hope to determine the structure of quarks and gluons, the building blocks of matter. Image credit: Brookhaven National Laboratory/DOE

By Stuart Wolpert

The UCLA Department of Physics and Astronomy has received federal government funding for a pilot program designed to help low-income, first-generation and historically underrepresented undergraduate students from across California pursue graduate degrees and careers in nuclear physics, with the aim of increasing the diversity of scientists in this field.

The $500,000 grant from the nuclear physics program in the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Science will support training, mentorship and hands-on research experiences for students, including internships at national laboratories and the opportunity to work on research related to the DOE’s cutting-edge Electron-Ion Collider, said associate professor of physics Zhongbo Kang, who is heading the program at UCLA.

The grant-funded program is a collaboration among UCLA, UC Riverside, the Lawrence Berkeley and Lawrence Livermore national laboratories, Cal Poly Pomona and the Cal-Bridge program, a statewide network of nine UC, 23 CSU and more than 110 community college campuses that seeks to create greater opportunities for underrepresented minorities in STEM fields. The undergraduate trainees are selected through Cal-Bridge.

Associate professor of physics Zhongbo Kang, who is heading the grant-funded program at UCLA and coordinating trainees’ work on the Electron-Ion Collider. Image Courtesy of Zhongbo Kang

“The UC and CSU systems are among the largest engines for social mobility in the United States and play a key role in providing opportunities to students from disadvantaged backgrounds,” said Kang, who is a member of both the Mani L. Bhaumik Institute for Theoretical Physics and the Center for Quantum Science and Engineering at UCLA. “Their student bodies contain the largest pool of low-income, first-generation and underrepresented minority students in the nation, and we are in an excellent position to tap into this pool and broaden the nuclear physics pipeline.”

During each year of the two-year program, four trainees will join research groups at UCLA or UC Riverside and will intern for 10 weeks during the summer at either Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory or Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. At UCLA, the nuclear physics group conducts theoretical research under Kang’s leadership and experimental research under professor of physics Huan Huang. Trainees will be integrated into one of these groups based on their research interests and will work with the professors and a team of undergraduates, graduate students, postdoctoral scholars and staff scientists.

DOE’s Electron-Ion Collider: The future of nuclear physics

The chance to conduct research related to the nascent Electron-Ion Collider, or EIC — the DOE’s flagship research project for the future of nuclear physics — is a one-of-a-kind opportunity for the trainees, Kang said, and he hopes the experience will help them see themselves as members of the EIC community. The massive facility, to be built on Long Island, New York, will use electron collisions with protons and atomic nuclei to produce images of quarks and gluons — the elementary building blocks of matter. In California, scientists will be working on the physics undergirding the collider and developing the facility’s detectors. The next few years will be a critical period for the design of the detectors.

“Given that the EIC experiments will likely start in about 10 years and run until mid-century, the students will see that they could become deeply ingrained with the project,” said Kang, who will coordinate the EIC research training programs with the California EIC consortium. “Our goal is to establish a Ph.D. bridge to the EIC program by training a cohort of students from diverse backgrounds that will be in an excellent potion to apply to graduate school. The EIC project provides an excellent platform for training the next generation of scientists.”

The undergraduate trainees will present their research results at conferences and participate in the meetings and workshops of the American Physical Society’s Division of Nuclear Physics and the California EIC consortium. They will learn to work effectively on large research projects, communicate results to other scientists and general audiences, learn software skills to run large-scale physics simulations and develop technical expertise in data science and machine learning.

The first trainees began the program this month. The $500,000 grant is part a larger, $3 million DOE effort to broaden and diversify nuclear and particle physics through research traineeships for undergraduates.

“The ability to fulfill our mission to discover, explore and understand all forms of nuclear matter relies on the availability of a highly trained, diverse community of investigators, researchers, students and staff,” said Timothy Hallman, the DOE’s associate director of science for nuclear physics. “The goal of this program is to help broaden and diversity this community to ensure that it is drawn from the broadest possible pool of potential nuclear and particle physicists within the U.S.”

This article originally appeared in the UCLA Newsroom. For more news and updates from the UCLA College, visit college.ucla.edu.

Image of Farwiza Farhan with baby elephantCourtesy of Farwiza Farhan

Farwiza Farhan wins UCLA’s Pritzker Award for environmental innovators

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By David Colgan

Conservationist receives $100,000 for work to protect Indonesia’s species-rich Leuser Ecosystem

Image of Farwiza Farhan with baby elephant

Farhan works to protect the Leuser Ecosystem, the last place on Earth where tigers, elephants, rhinos and orangutans live together in the wild. Photo Credit: Courtesy of Farwiza Farhan

The UCLA Institute of the Environment and Sustainability presented the 2021 Pritzker Emerging Environmental Genius Award to Farwiza Farhan, who seeks to conserve wildlife in ways that also sustain humans living on the Indonesian island of Sumatra. Farhan was honored during an online ceremony on Nov. 18.

Farhan works with communities and courts to protect the Leuser Ecosystem — the last place on Earth where tigers, elephants, rhinos and orangutans live together in the wild. She founded and leads a nonprofit organization called HAkA. The name stands for Hutan, Alam dan Lingkungan Aceh, or Forest, Nature and Environment of Aceh; its goal is to ensure sustainable development plans serve humans and wildlife in Indonesia’s Aceh province.

“My desire to protect the forest initially comes from my love of wildlife, but the force that keeps me going is the strength of the people I work with,” Farhan said.

The Pritzker award, which is presented annually, carries a prize of $100,000 that is funded through a portion of a $20 million gift to UCLA from the Anthony and Jeanne Pritzker Family Foundation. It is the field’s first major honor specifically for innovators under the age of 40 — those whose work stands to benefit most from the prize money and the prestige it conveys.

Farhan, 35, fights ecological threats with teams who spend time living among communities around the Leuser Ecosystem to better understand their needs. Recently, she mobilized community leaders in the region to file a civil lawsuit against a development plan that could legitimize road and hydropower schemes, rights to farm oil palm trees and new settlements in the ecosystem.

She also oversees a team that patrols and intercepts would-be wildlife poachers. Since it began, the group has reduced poaching in the region by 95%.

The Pritzker Award is open to anyone working to solve environmental challenges through any lens — from science to advocacy to entrepreneurism. There were three finalists for the 2021 prize, and all are focused on regional or local challenges.

The other finalists were David Diaz, an advocate for active transportation and environmental health in California’s San Gabriel Valley, and Chook-Chook Hillman, who brings traditional Karuk tribal perspectives to bear on ecological problems in the Klamath River basin in Northern California and Oregon. A panel of UCLA faculty members selected the finalists from among 18 candidates who were nominated by an international group of environmental leaders.

Image of Farwiza Farhan in the field, holding binoculars

Farhan is the founder of HAkA, an organization dedicated to ensuring that sustainable development plans serve humans and wildlife in Indonesia’s Aceh province. Photo credit: Courtesy of Farwiza Farhan

Farhan was chosen as the 2021 honoree by a panel of five distinguished judges: Kara Hurst, head of worldwide sustainability at Amazon; Anousheh Ansari, CEO of the XPRIZE Foundation; Chanell Fletcher, executive officer of environmental justice at the California Air Resources Board; Los Angeles City Council member Kevin De Léon; and Lori Garver, CEO of the philanthropic organization Earthrise Alliance.

“Today we are in the midst of an existential crisis that human beings have never experienced before,” De Léon said in a video message to Farhan. “Your work as a researcher and forest conservationist is crucial to reversing the impacts of climate change and biodiversity loss.”

The announcement of Farhan as the winner was made by Tony Pritzker, who founded the award and is a member of the Institute of the Environment and Sustainability’s advisory board.

“Congratulations to David, Farwiza and Chook-Chook for having the courage to lead your communities and the next generation of environmental leaders,” Pritzker said.

This article originally appeared in the UCLA Newsroom. For more news and updates from the UCLA College, visit college.ucla.edu/news.

Barbra Streisand to fund forward-looking institute at UCLA focused on solving societal challenges

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Picture of Barbra Streisand

Courtesy of Barbra Streisand

“Building upon her decades of work as an artist and activist, Barbra Streisand’s visionary act of generosity will enable UCLA scholars from many different fields to collaborate on research that will move society forward,” UCLA Chancellor Gene Block said.

The Barbra Streisand Institute includes 4 research centers that address her concerns:

the Center for Truth in the Public Sphere
the Center for the Impact of Climate Change
the Center for the Dynamics of Intimacy & Power Between Women & Men
the Center for the Impact of Art on the Culture

These centers will be housed in UCLA’s Division of Social Sciences.

Widely recognized as an icon in multiple entertainment fields, Streisand has attained unprecedented success as a recording artist, actor, director, producer, screenwriter, author and songwriter. She is the first woman to direct, produce, write and star in a major motion picture, the first woman composer to receive an Academy Award, the only recording artist who has achieved No. 1 albums in six consecutive decades, and the first woman to receive a Golden Globe Award for Best Director.

Alongside these achievements, Streisand has long been a staunch supporter of civil rights, gender equality, and upholding democracy. She has also been a leading environmental activist, funding some of the earliest climate change research at the Environmental Defense Fund beginning in 1989.

“It is my great pleasure to be able to fund an institute at UCLA, one of the world’s premier universities,” Streisand said. “This will be a place where future scholars can discuss, engage and argue about the most important issues of the day; where innovators will speak truth to power, help save our planet, and make glass ceilings for women an anachronism; and in the process give us a chance to have a brighter, more promising future.”

Streisand has been awarded two Oscars, five Emmys, 10 Grammys including the Legend Award and the Lifetime Achievement Award, a Tony Award, 11 Golden Globes including the Cecil B. DeMille Award and two Best Picture Awards for “Yentl” and “A Star Is Born,” three Peabody Awards, and the Director’s Guild Award for her concert special — the only artist to receive honors in all of those areas. Streisand also received the National Medal of Arts, the highest honor given to artists by the U.S. government, as well as the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor.

A devoted philanthropist, Streisand has supported cardiovascular research and education at Cedars-Sinai since 2007, and in 2012, the Barbra Streisand Women’s Heart Center at Cedars-Sinai was renamed in her honor.

Streisand also established the Streisand Chair in Cardiology at UCLA in 1984. In 2014, the Barbra Streisand Women’s Heart Health Program was established at the university, where the latest research examines stress and the connection between the heart and the mind.

“The future Barbra Streisand Institute will bring to bear the full range of UCLA’s social sciences expertise on the most pressing societal issues of the day, guiding policy and informing solutions to benefit all,” said Darnell Hunt, dean of social sciences in the UCLA College.

Ahead of the formal establishment of the institute, which will occur when the full gift amount is received, the work will be housed at the UCLA Center for the Study of Women. The center is internationally renowned for research in areas including women’s empowerment, environmental sustainability, women’s health, public policy and politics, and arts, culture and narrative storytelling. Streisand’s gift extends the center’s robust research on critical issues that affect women and society overall.

“This incredible gift will have an impact on our university for generations, and it is an auspicious moment for us to mark the second century for UCLA,” said Dr. Eric Esrailian, UCLA faculty member, co-chair of the UCLA Second Century Council and longtime friend of Streisand who will be collaborating on programming for the Barbra Streisand Institute.

The first area of study and advocacy will focus on truth in the public sphere, a subject which Streisand is especially passionate about. Speakers and research will delve into urgent and existential threats to democracy, and examine how lies and the proliferation of disinformation can destroy a civic sense of decency, as well as entire countries.

Streisand says, “While it’s easy to reflect on the past, I can’t stop thinking about the future and what it holds for our children, our planet and our society. The Barbra Streisand Institute at UCLA will be an exploration into vital issues that affect us all…and the fact that my father, Emanuel Streisand, was an educator makes this Institute even more meaningful to me.”

This article originally appeared in the UCLA Newsroom.

UCLA No. 1 rankings U.S. News & World Report.

UCLA ranked No. 1 public university for fifth straight year by U.S. News & World Report

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UCLA No. 1 rankings U.S. News & World Report.

UCLA has again been named the nation’s top public university in U.S. News & World Report’s annual “Best Colleges” rankings, which were published today.

This is the fifth year in a row UCLA has been ranked No. 1.

“UCLA’s ranking as the top public university in the country five years running reaffirms what we already know: that this is a place where students of all backgrounds can thrive, where we invest in and support excellent teaching and where we set students up for success after graduation,” said UCLA Chancellor Gene Block.

Since Block became chancellor in 2007, UCLA has risen from the No. 4 public university in the United States to the top of the U.S. News rankings.

“I hope every member of our community takes pride in what this ranking represents,” the chancellor said.

UCLA was the only school among the top 20 national universities overall to be ranked highly in social mobility, which measures the number of Pell Grant recipients and the six-year graduation rate for these students.

In addition, UCLA was named the No. 1 public institution among the best colleges for veterans.

Five other UC campuses were among the top 10 public universities in the overall rankings: UC Berkeley (No. 2), UC Santa Barbara (5, tied), UC San Diego (8), UC Irvine (9) and UC Davis (10, tied).

The U.S. News & World Report rankings are based on 17 measures, including graduation rates, student-faculty ratio, social mobility and the average federal loan debt of graduates, as well as schools’ academic reputation, as determined by a peer assessment survey of presidents, provosts and deans of admissions at U.S. colleges.

Why UCLA is ranked No. 1 year after year​​​​

This article originally appeared in the UCLA Newsroom.

Yuri Shprits, a UCLA research geophysicist, said limiting the duration of a round trip to the red planet would help reduce the amount of dangerous radiation to which astronauts are exposed.

Will it be safe for humans to fly to Mars?

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Mission would be viable if it doesn’t exceed four years, international research team concludes
By Stuart Wolpert
Yuri Shprits, a UCLA research geophysicist, said limiting the duration of a round trip to the red planet would help reduce the amount of dangerous radiation to which astronauts are exposed.

Yuri Shprits, a UCLA research geophysicist, said limiting the duration of a round trip to the red planet would help reduce the amount of dangerous radiation to which astronauts are exposed. Photo Credit: NASA

 

Sending human travelers to Mars would require scientists and engineers to overcome a range of technological and safety obstacles. One of them is the grave risk posed by particle radiation from the sun, distant stars and galaxies.

Answering two key questions would go a long way toward overcoming that hurdle: Would particle radiation pose too grave a threat to human life throughout a round trip to the red planet? And, could the very timing of a mission to Mars help shield astronauts and the spacecraft from the radiation?

In a new article published in the peer-reviewed journal Space Weather, an international team of space scientists, including researchers from UCLA, answers those two questions with a “no” and a “yes.”

That is, humans should be able to safely travel to and from Mars, provided that the spacecraft has sufficient shielding and the round trip is shorter than approximately four years. And the timing of a human mission to Mars would indeed make a difference: The scientists determined that the best time for a flight to leave Earth would be when solar activity is at its peak, known as the solar maximum.

The scientists’ calculations demonstrate that it would be possible to shield a Mars-bound spacecraft from energetic particles from the sun because, during solar maximum, the most dangerous and energetic particles from distant galaxies are deflected by the enhanced solar activity.

A trip of that length would be conceivable. The average flight to Mars takes about nine months, so depending on the timing of launch and available fuel, it is plausible that a human mission could reach the planet and return to Earth in less than two years, according to Yuri Shprits, a UCLA research geophysicist and co-author of the paper.

“This study shows that while space radiation imposes strict limitations on how heavy the spacecraft can be and the time of launch, and it presents technological difficulties for human missions to Mars, such a mission is viable,” said Shprits, who also is head of space physics and space weather at GFZ Research Centre for Geosciences in Potsdam, Germany.

The researchers recommend a mission not longer than four years because a longer journey would expose astronauts to a dangerously high amount of radiation during the round trip — even assuming they went when it was relatively safer than at other times. They also report that the main danger to such a flight would be particles from outside of our solar system.

Shprits and colleagues from UCLA, MIT, Moscow’s Skolkovo Institute of Science and Technology and GFZ Potsdam combined geophysical models of particle radiation for a solar cycle with models for how radiation would affect both human passengers — including its varying effects on different bodily organs — and a spacecraft. The modeling determined that having a spacecraft’s shell built out of a relatively thick material could help protect astronauts from radiation, but that if the shielding is too thick, it could actually increase the amount of secondary radiation to which they are exposed.

The two main types of hazardous radiation in space are solar energetic particles and galactic cosmic rays; the intensity of each depends on solar activity. Galactic cosmic ray activity is lowest within the six to 12 months after the peak of solar activity, while solar energetic particles’ intensity is greatest during solar maximum, Shprits said.

This article originally appeared in the UCLA Newsroom.

A school of kelp bass. A new database created by scientists from UCLA and other institutions covers about 70% of all animals that live in the California Current, off of the west coast of North America.Photo Credit: Zack Gold

Scientists create genetic library for mega-ecosystem in Pacific Ocean

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UCLA-led research improves value of environmental DNA for fisheries and conservation along the California Current

By David Colgan

A school of kelp bass. A new database created by scientists from UCLA and other institutions covers about 70% of all animals that live in the California Current, off of the west coast of North America.

A school of kelp bass. A new database created by scientists from UCLA and other institutions covers about 70% of all animals that live in the California Current, off of the west coast of North America. Photo Credit: Zack Gold

The California Current extends nearly 2,000 miles from Canada’s Vancouver Island to the middle of the Baja Peninsula in Mexico. It brings cold water from the North Pacific Ocean to the west coast of North America and is home to numerous and abundant species because of the upwelling of deep nutrient-rich waters.

The current supports a large marine ecosystem that is home to species ranging from orcas to abalone. It is the basis for $56 billion in annual economic output and more than 675,000 jobs.

Now, UCLA ecologist Paul Barber and colleagues from UCLA and three other institutions have created a library of DNA “barcodes” that identify 605 species in the California Current, including 275 that had not previously been catalogued. The database covers about 70% of all animals that live there, including 99.9% of monitored species that are important to conservation and fisheries.

The barcodes aren’t actual black-and-white stripe patterns like the ones on food packaging in grocery stores. Rather, they are sequences of letters (A, T, C, and G) that spell out the unique order of amino acids (adenosine, thymine, cytosine and guanine) that identify each species’ DNA.

The research is published today in Molecular Ecology Resources.

The new database will enable researchers, conservationists, fisheries and wildlife managers to understand what is happening to species and ecosystems much more quickly and cost-effectively than current methods. It can be used to identify hotspots where certain species need to be better protected; and it might help authorities better police the fishing industry for catching species that are illegal to harvest.

The resource is based on the use of environmental DNA, or eDNA. Environmental DNA is genetic material that organisms shed into their environment. Using emerging and fast-improving methods, researchers can collect a sample of ocean water and find out what species are around by the DNA they leave behind. To do so, they need to be able to match that DNA to already-identified samples, said Barber, the study’s senior author.

“It’s like a crime scene where there is lots of forensic evidence, like blood or hair,” he said. “It isn’t useful unless you have a potential match in a database.”

To date, species have mostly been detected manually — scuba divers swim through the waters to count animals by hand; fish eggs and larvae are counted under a microscope — and researchers must identify species by their physical characteristics.

That labor-intensive process can limit research and delay action that might be needed to protect marine ecosystems and fisheries. With eDNA and a robust genetic library, researchers can identify species with scoops of water that can be analyzed in a couple of weeks, said Zack Gold, a former UCLA doctoral student who is now a researcher at the University of Washington and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Plus, the technique keeps divers out of harm’s way.

The new genetic library could be a boon for managing fisheries. Samples of eDNA can be used to determine how many eggs are being produced by important species of fish so a healthy population can be maintained. Many fish eggs can’t be identified without genetics.

It also could even be used to make sure people are getting what they order when they go out to eat. Previous research by Barber and others found that 47% of sushi in Los Angeles restaurants is mislabeled, meaning that diners are occasionally eating endangered species instead of the fish they believed they were buying.

Although eDNA databases must be tailored to individual ecosystems and species, the new paper lays out best practices for future libraries around the world. Such libraries will become even more important to scientists as eDNA research becomes more sophisticated. Currently, one limitation of the practice is that while scientists can use the samples to determine which species are present, it’s not clear whether they can use it to determine how many individuals of each species are present — a measure called “abundance” — in any given area.

That may soon change.

“We have pretty good evidence that we’ll soon be able to use eDNA to measure abundance, accounting for the little differences for each species,” Gold said.

Barber said measuring abundance would be especially useful for fisheries.

“By developing this database, we now have an effectively complete set of genetic sequences for most of the commercially harvested species,” he said. “Without that, you can’t even ask questions of abundance.”

This article originally appeared in the UCLA Newsroom.

Professor Barbara Fuchs speaks with Pedro Sánchez, the president of Spain, on UCLA’s campus

Spanish government to honor UCLA professor for promoting language and culture

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Professor Barbara Fuchs speaks with Pedro Sánchez, the president of Spain, on UCLA’s campus

Professor Barbara Fuchs speaks with Pedro Sánchez, the president of Spain, on UCLA’s campus

The Cervantes Institute, a Spanish government agency dedicated to promoting Spanish around the world, has chosen Barbara Fuchs, UCLA professor of Spanish and English, to receive its inaugural Ñ Prize, honoring her work disseminating Spanish language and culture through theater and literature.

The president of Spain, Pedro Sánchez, will join Fuchs on July 22 at UCLA as part of an event to announce the first Instituto Cervantes branch in Los Angeles, which will be the seventh such center in the United States. In October, Spain’s King Felipe VI will present the bronze Ñ Prize to Fuchs in person in Madrid.

Fuchs, a professor in the Spanish & Portuguese department and also the English department, currently serves as president of the Modern Language Association. She has served as the director of the UCLA Center for 17th- and 18th-Century Studies and UCLA’s William Andrews Clark Memorial Library. In 2014, she founded Diversifying the Classics, an initiative to promote awareness and appreciation of Hispanic classical theater.

“In a region with 4 million Spanish speakers, there was nevertheless a sense that ‘the classics’ still primarily meant Shakespeare,” Fuchs said. “But the classics come in different flavors. In addition to Shakespeare in the park, we can have Lope in the park and Sor Juana in the park. It will be incredible to have a partner like the Instituto Cervantes to collaborate with in Los Angeles.”

The July 22 event will be opened by UCLA Chancellor Gene Block.

“I am proud of the rigorous and creative work of Professor Fuchs,” Block said. “She has brought much-needed awareness of the richness and depth of Hispanic classical theater and helped make that important cultural heritage accessible to our communities.”

Diversifying the Classics includes a collaborative translation workshop that makes Hispanic classical plays available in English. In 2018, the program launched the biennial La Escena festival, the first Hispanic classical theater festival in Los Angeles. The project also sponsors Golden Tongues, an adaptation initiative that pairs Los Angeles writers with Spanish source texts.

“We’ve offered performances after which a Latinx student will ask us, ‘Why did I never hear of this in high school?’ That’s heartbreaking,” Fuchs said. “Spanish isn’t just the everyday language for the home, it’s also the language of art and culture. In the U.S., conversations about diversity in theater and the classics have primarily been about who performs the plays, but they should extend to what plays are presented.”

The Cervantes Institute’s Ñ Prize is granted to individuals or institutions that have promoted Spanish in the world or have a career of special dedication to its international dissemination.

Fuchs’ research played a vital role in a 2019 Instituto Cervantes exhibition in Madrid, said the institute’s director, Luis García Montero. The exhibition featured women writers during the Spanish Golden Age in the 16th and 17th centuries, and Montero praised Fuchs’ historical research as a “fundamental reference” for the exhibition.

“Looking back has allowed Barbara Fuchs to teach us a lot about our theater, the benefits and difficulties of multiculturalism, our relations with the Anglo-Saxon culture, the picaresque and the presence of women — an essential look to complete the truth of our history,” Montero said.

Fuchs’ publications include “Passing for Spain: Cervantes and the Fictions of Identity,” “Exotic Nation: Maurophilia and the Construction of Early Modern Spain,” and “Knowing Fictions: Picaresque Reading in the Early Modern Hispanic World.” She is co-editor of “The Golden Age of Spanish Drama” and “Representing Imperial Rivalry in the Early Modern Mediterranean,” among other works. She has translated into English 11 comedias, eight of them with the UCLA Working Group on the Comedia in Translation and Performance. She is also the author of multiple articles on the literature and culture of early modern Europe, with a transnational focus.

In addition to her work as a translator, she has served as editor of Hispanic Review and, since 2017, as editor of the series, “The Comedia in Translation and Performance.” Fuchs taught previously at the University of Washington and at the University of Pennsylvania, and has received numerous fellowships, including from the Guggenheim and Andrew W. Mellon Foundations.

Editor’s note: This story was updated July 22 with pictures from the event.

This article, written by Alison Hewitt, originally appeared in the UCLA Newsroom.

A photo of UCLA professor Renee Tajima-Peña.

Renee Tajima-Peña wins Peabody for ‘Asian Americans’ docuseries

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A photo of UCLA professor Renee Tajima-Peña.

UCLA professor Renee Tajima-Peña, series producer of “Asian Americans.” (Photo Credit: Claudio Rocha)

“Asian Americans,” the five-part miniseries created for PBS by Renee Tajima-Peña, UCLA professor of Asian American studies, has received a Peabody Award.

The series, which aired in spring 2020, tells stories of struggle, progress and solidarity from the perspectives of multiple Asian American communities, highlighting their national, ethnic, religious, political, linguistic and cultural diversity.

Tajima-Peña’s production company shares the Peabody with the Center for Asian American Media, public broadcaster WETA-TV, postproduction house Flash Cuts and the Independent Television Service. The series was honored by the Peabody Awards for “its revelatory storytelling as a demonstration of activism and solidarity in the American story and fight for justice and dignity.”

“We’re all thrilled not only by the award, but the recognition that this history matters, at a time when we’re in the throes of a backlash to ethnic studies and to a perspective of American history that acknowledges the central role of systemic racism,” said Tajima-Peña, who is also the director of the UCLA Center for Ethnocommunications.

An Academy Award–nominated film director (“Who Killed Vincent Chin?”), she said she also feels like the current moment is powerful in the fight for racial justice and equity.

“Other people are really hungry to understand who we are today by understanding our past,” Tajima-Peña said. “Over the last 15 months, we’ve seen stereotypes of Asian Americans weaponized, as either the perpetual foreigner and walking virus, or the model minority deployed as a wedge against other people of color. In all the episodes of ‘Asian Americans,’ we tried to connect those fault lines from our arrival as immigrants to the current moment, and to center the resilience and activism of Asian Americans in resisting systemic racism.”

Watch award-winning actress Sandra Oh announce the Peabody recognition for “Asian Americans.”

Two years in the making, “Asian Americans” was a very UCLA-centric project. Grace Lee, an alumna of UCLA’s School of Theater, Film and Television, directed two of the episodes. Several other alumni were crew members on multiple episodes. And David Yoo, a professor of Asian American studies and history and vice provost of the UCLA Institute of American Cultures, served as lead scholar on the project.

Respected for its integrity and revered for its standards of excellence, the Peabody represents a high honor for creators of television, podcast/radio and digital media. Chosen each year by a diverse board of jurors through unanimous vote, Peabody Awards are given in the categories of entertainment, documentary, news, podcast/radio, arts, children’s and youth, public service and multimedia programming. Founded in 1940 at the Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Georgia, the Peabody Awards are based in Athens, Georgia.

This article, written by Jessica Wolf, originally appeared in the UCLA Newsroom.