I heart D&A | Photo by Melissa Moore/LAist LAist’s freshly minted Ph.D., Melissa, is stepping out of the lab to bring you Scient-IST. Our resident expert will give you the inside scoop on health, science and breaking research. In honor of Breast Cancer Awareness Month, our kick-off columns will focus on the latest in breast cancer studies, activism and more. Who says scientists can’t be celebrities? They’ve got cool gear (PET scanners), adoring fans......

At the June 2008 Undie Run | Photo by Ryan D. Knight Ways for the student body at UCLA to relieve stress during finals week might get harder this year. The university's administration may not let the UCLA Undie go on at the end of each quarter, citing high costs for security and damages and concern that many who run are from other colleges including USC. From a Daily Bruin editorial: The administration has......

After a series of robberies by three suspects around the North Village area of Westwood Village, UCLA campus police saturated the area with undercover officers eventually witnessing a street robbery in progress. "We caught the suspects with a little bit of luck and a little bit of experience,” UCPD Sergeant Robert De Francesco told the Daily Bruin. Both UCPD and LAPD believe the suspects are responsible for at least 13 robberies in the area since......

Two young men are suspected of robbing one person and attempting to rob two others near UCLA campus yesterday evening between 5:55 and 6:35 p.m. The first robbery attempt happened on Levering Avenue near Glenrock Avenue followed by a robbery on Strathmore Drive west of Landfair Avenue about 20 minutes later. At around 6:35 p.m., they attempted to rob someone on Glenrock Avenue north of Levering Avenue. The two males are estimated to be 18......

More than 800 people got sick (13 went to the hospital) after watching the Fresno Bulldogs beat the UCLA Bruins on Saturday at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena. What happened? No, it wasn't UCLA's poor performance. For the most part, it was heat-related. "Paramedics from Los Angeles and Glendale were called in to assist in the response," which the the LA Times reported to be the largest medical response to the Rose Bowl.......

Trojan QB Mark Sanchez celebrates with fans after their win over Ohio State. | AP Photo by Mark Avery The "Collision at the Coliseum" turned out to be the huge mismatch that most predicted, while the Bruins made some personal history that they would rather soon forget. Records broken in Anaheim and the Dodgers extend their lead. USC Trojans defeat Ohio State Buckeyes 35-3: Although built up as a showdown of two National Championship......

UCLA's Rahim Moore (3) celebrates UCLA's win over Tennessee in Pasadena, on Monday(AP Photo/Richard Vogel) Things like this just don't happen over in Westwood. Not in football anyway. A 27-24, " I-do-NOT-believe-what-I-just-saw" overtime victory? No way. Against a ranked SEC team? Nahhhh. Not when third string QB Kevin Craft is still learning his way around the UCLA campus much less his way around the UCLA playbook. A point made painfully clear in his FOUR......

Crossing the campus from your Econ lecture to your Geology lab can be a pain in the ass, especially when time is tight and you're navigating a sea of student bodies plugged into iPods and hunched over text messages. For some, the solution is as easy as the four wheels of a skateboard. But at Cal State Fullertion, if you're on wheels after October 6th, it's going to cost you. The campus has moved to......

We're giving a pair of tickets away (each are worth $49.50 and tickets can bought here) for this Sunday's concert featuring Jack Johnson, Rogue Wave and the Culver City Dub Collective at the UCLA Intramural Field. Why is it at this location? "Jack Johnson and his crew are passionately committed to greening every aspect of this tour in order to minimize environmental impact," the tour information states. In that spirit, to enter the contest, you......

The Daily News got their hands dirty and visited Dr. Cappy Rothman, founder of the reportedly larger sperm bank in the world, California Cryobank. "Based in Westwood, he draws many students from UCLA, though USC also is a contributor. He has satellite depositories in Palo Alto, near Stanford, and in Cambridge, Mass., convenient to Harvard and MIT. 'We try to locate our collecting facilities close to universities that have bright donors,' Rothman said. His sperm......

Shocking news of a knife-attack on two Americans affiliated with the Olympics on the prestigious event's first day have local reverberations, as the victims' identities have been revealed. According to Associated Press reports, Todd Bachman and his wife Barbara were stabbed midday at the Drum Tower (pictured), a popular tourist location, by Tang Yongming, 47, from the eastern city of Hangzhou. Following the stabbings, the attacker committed suicide by leaping from the second level where......

This doesn't even look like a crosswalk, but this is is a scramble crosswalk in Tokyo | Photo by Julie Wolfson/LAist If you felt your neighborhood should deserve one of those new scramble crosswalks, which allows for diagonal crossing at intersections (see a video example here), there's more than just the one in Westwood Village announced the other day (and the older one near USC). Here's the list of ten scramble crosswalks planned across......

This doesn't even look like a crosswalk, but this is is a scramble crosswalk in Tokyo | Photo by Julie Wolfson/LAist Come Thursday, UCLA folk and others will have a new way of crossing the street at Le Conte and Westwood. It's called a scramble crosswalk and is currently in use in Pasadena, Beverly Hills and at Hoover and Jefferson near USC. It's where pedestrians can cross the street from all four corners at......

The Undie Run at UCLA has a cause that is, "hey, school's out, let's get crazy!" The Underwear Affair this upcoming Saturday has a more worthy cause: raising money for prostate, colorectal, cervical, ovarian, kidney, bladder, testicular and uterine cancers. Why these types of cancers? For the most part, these cancers, found below the waist do not get as much exposure due to their location on the body. In terms of buzz about fundraising for......

digg_url = 'http://digg.com/world_news/The_Biggest_UCLA_Undie_Run_Yet'; As tradition in years past with LAist, we visited the tri-annual UCLA Undie Run last month for the Spring Quarter midnight event just prior to graduation. To say the least, the party was massively huge. It took just under 20 minutes for the thousands of students to get through the Strathmore tunnel. The event was so wild that LAist photographer Tom Andrews' camera came to near death in a water balloon......

As we mentioned earlier today, Los Angeles native Baron Davis is headed home and he's bringing his beard and 21 points per game with him. The former Crossroads School and UCLA standout came to a verbal agreement with the LA's other team, making the Clippers suddenly relevant and a playoff contender. Baron credits the community for his decision telling ESPN, "I'm happy with where I'm going. A big reason is because of the impact and......

A trio of hopeful NBA stars who played their college year(s) in Los Angeles were drafted #3, #4, and #5 in the NBA draft tonight. Following the predictable 1-2 draft picks of Derrick Rose (to Chicago) and Michael Beasley (to Miami), O.J. Mayo, who starred as a freshman guard at USC last year was selected by Minnesota with the #3 pick. UCLA teammates Russell Westbrook, a defensive whiz and the first pick in this years......

Bill Clinton canceled his UCLA Commencement Speech scheduled for this Friday due to the "never-ending" labor disputes between University of California officials and American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (it's not the first time for a celebrity to drop their speech for the same issue). But today, Bill Clinton will speak to outgoing eighth-graders from Riviera Hall Lutheran School in Torrance. Why this school? Clinton's nephew Tyler --son of Clinton's brother, Roger-- is......

LA Lakers defeat Boston Celtics 87-81. What an ugly game. Pau Gasol was Ga-soft again. Lamar Odom sat on the bench with foul trouble most of the game. So leave it up to Sasha Vujacic to take up the slack. With 20 points he was the only Laker not named Kobe Bryant to score double-digits. The Lakers were more aggressive as perfectly shown by Jordan Farmar in the second quarter. After getting pushed by......

Coming up on Sunday, June 29 at UCLA is Jewish Geography: Place, Design, Memory, Imagination, a festival presented by Nextbook, an online magazine that also produces events showcasing Jewish culture. Details are available at Nextbook.org, as are $15 passes for the day (no reserved seats for panels, so get ready to stand in line). Among the many notable literary sorts appearing that day are graphic novelist Ben Katchor (Julius Knipl: Real Estate Photographer) and......

LACMA is free today with live music and art workshops. / Photo by pink_fish13 via LAist's flickr pool. There are plenty of non-grilling-related events going on about town, so if you’re not firing up a BBQ today, might want to check a few out. FILM The ArcLight in Sherman Oaks is hosting a “Summer at the Drive In” series – and tonight the summer lovin’ begins with Grease. See pre-Pulp Fiction John Travolta dance......

Interesting interview with Menotti Go next weekend to UCLA to see the Medium, an opera by Gian Carlo Menotti, who sadly passed away last year. Seating is extremely limited, but you guys are in for a treat because its playing four days in a row, it’s FREE, and it’s in English. You can also join us in our dubious distinction as the oddest group of people ever (see the comments). The opera is structured......

"I was sitting in Starbucks studying when all of a sudden these dudes started playing music outside the window and all these people started mobbing around them," explained UCLA student and LAist contributor Henry David. "I was like zoits 'it's the Kooks!'" And so it began: The Kooks invaded Westwood after an unannounced stop in Venice. About 150 people packed out in front of the Village Theatre as the famous band pulled up like rockstars......

More than 100 students from UC Irvine, UCSB, UC Riverside and UCLA attended to protest Wednesday at UCLA. After a meeting of the UC Regents, a group of them were arrested by campus police. When they were released later that night, they sent out this statement regarding their position: The UC Regents Committee on Finance voted overwhelmingly to increase student fees by 7.4 percent for the 2008-2009 school year. This was all done on......

Photo by ~db~ via the LAist Featured Photos pool on Flickr SALSA & MERENGUE DANCING Dance Downtown kicks up its heels tonight for the first installment of the summer-long Friday night series. Free admission to anyone who feels like trying a little salsa out on the Music Center Plaza. Beginner lessons are at 6:30, and a live DJ provides the tunes from 7:15-10. 6:30-10 p.m. // Music Center Plaza // 135 North Grand Avenue,......

Notice that all of the San Fernando Valley is covered except Studio City and Toluca Lake. Other parts of the city that fall into the hot zone are on the Eastside and South LA | Map via Dept. of Water & Power This map shows summer average daily temperatures for the microclimates of the City of Los Angeles and was performed by the Department of Atmospheric Sciences at UCLA. The two temperature zones were......

Photo of the now destroyed Mann National courtesy of Los Angeles Times photographic archive, UCLA Library. Copyright Regents of the University of California, UCLA Library. Is Westwood making a comeback? The LA Times thinks so, in today's article on the burgeoning real estate development in UCLA's backyard. But isn't this a story we've heard a million times before? It goes something like this: Westwood used to be a great pedestrian area, then it fell......

Photo by Jean-Pierre Stoop, courtesy of UCLA Live Having broken into the international dance scene in 1987, Belgian choreographer/director/filmmaker Wim Vandekeybus is bringing a quasi-retrospective of his work to UCLA Live and Royce Hall for two performances of Spiegel on Friday and Saturday, May 2-3. Translating the title as "Mirror," the ninety minute intermissionless work includes excerpts from his groundbreaking What The Body Does Not Remember (1987) and six of his twenty subsequent creations.......

Albert Hofmann, the Swiss chemist who discovered LSD, died at his home near Basel, Switzerland on Tuesday. Hofmann synthesized lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD-25) in 1938 and five years later became the first person to experience a full-blown acid trip. On April 16, 1943, Hofmann inadvertently absorbed a little LSD-25 compound in his fingertips at the Sandoz laboratory (now Novartis) where he worked. In a note to the lab director he described what happened next:“I was......

The LA Times Festival of Books offered something for everyone this weekend. The many panels, author interviews and signing booths were exciting for bookish nerds like us. If you weren't into the bookish side of the book festival, however, there was plenty to whet your appetite. Literally. The food court was full of smoked meats and organic treats and live music could be enjoyed from many open plazas on the UCLA campus. There was even......