UC leaders cancel executive pension program

The University of California's governing board took steps Thursday to limit the pensions of top-earning executives who had threatened to sue the college system over what they claimed was a promise to increase their retirement packages.
UC's board of regents voted to rescind a policy, adopted in 1999, that would have based the system's share of pension contributions on the executives' full salaries instead of a $245,000 cap allowed under federal tax rules.

UC President Mark Yudof said the university received IRS permission to apply the new formula in 2007 but never implemented it because the go-ahead came as its campuses already were grappling with budget cuts and the need to increase spending on pensions for all employees.
Under the canceled program, financing bigger pensions for about 200 vice chancellors and deans who make more than $245,000 would have cost the university $61 million, according to the San Francisco Chronicle ( http://bit.ly/GYDMps).
Thirty-six senior UC managers notified Yudof in December 2010 that they expected the university system to honor its 1999 commitment. But Yudof argued at the time that the system was not obligated to implement the proposed formula because doing so required final approval from him, the board's chairman and the chair of the regents' finance committee.

UC spokesman Steve Montiel said Yudof asked the board to withdraw the policy "to close the loop and make sure everyone is clear that as far as the regents are concerned, no benefits have accrued and no benefits will accrue in the future."
The Chronicle reported that three protesters were arrested at the regents' meeting Thursday when the chairwoman tried to end the public comment period. Several students had criticized Yudof's efforts to prevent further tuition increases and the regents for meeting during students' spring break.
The board left the meeting room when the protesters refused to stop speaking, and when riot police came in to clear them, many in the crowd stripped down to spring break gear of bathing suits and flower leis, the newspaper reported.
The three people arrested, all UCLA students, were booked on suspicion of obstructing an officer and failure to disperse.


Read more: http://www.lompocrecord.com/news/state-and-regional/uc-leaders-cancel-executive-pension-program/article_cf0bb918-bc43-579a-82a4-0978a3be19b3.html#ixzz1qZWmFVrE

Baylor Women’s Basketball Coach Kim Mulkey Has Bell’s Palsy

Coach Kim Mulkey, who is taking undefeated Baylor University into the Final Four of the national women’s basketball championship in two days, has been diagnosed with Bell’s palsy, the school said.
Bell’s palsy is a form of facial paralysis caused by a nerve dysfunction that results in the inability to control muscles. The condition usually has a rapid onset, often occurring overnight.

“I noticed while we were in Des Moines last week that my tongue felt strange,” Mulkey said yesterday in a statement. “Yesterday I noticed when I smiled, only the left side of my mouth was working. Also, my right eye was drooping and I couldn’t hear properly out of my right ear.”
Mulkey said she missed practice two days ago and went to the doctor after consulting with the team’s trainer, Alex Olson.

“Coach Mulkey is being treated with an anti-viral medication along with oral steroids to reduce the inflammation of the facial nerve,” Olson said.
The Lady Bears are two wins from their second national championship under Mulkey and the NCAA’s first 40-win season. Baylor meets Stanford on April 1 in Denver, while Connecticut and Notre Dame play in the second National Collegiate Athletic Association national semifinal contest.
The championship game is April 3.

Autism rates rise: Disorder affects 1 in 88 children, CDC study finds

LOS ANGELES — Federal health authorities have significantly raised their estimate of the prevalence of autism in children, concluding in a new study of 8-year-olds that 1 in 88 has some form of the disorder.

For the analysis, released Thursday, researchers scoured tens of thousands of health and special-education records in 14 states, looking for an autism diagnosis or the symptoms that would add up to one.

It is the latest in a series of studies by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) showing autism rates climbing substantially in the past decade.

The previous estimate, from 2006, was 1 in 110.

The new figure, based on 2008 data, is sure to fuel debate over whether a growing environmental threat could be at work. But autism researchers around the country said the CDC data suggest that rising awareness of the disorder, better detection and improved access to services can explain much of the surge, and perhaps all of it.

Washington was not one of the states included in the study, and autism is not tracked by state health officials. But Dr. Bryan King, director of the Seattle Children's Autism Center, said the report of growing numbers of children with autism spectrum disorder wasn't news to those who work in the field. "We're up against a tidal wave of need," he said.

More than 1,000 families are on a waiting list for diagnostic and therapy services from Children's, he said. "Families are having to confront the difficulties in accessing services and providers are trying to keep up with the press of humanity at the door."

Nobody knows what causes autism, and there is no blood test or other biological marker. It is diagnosed by its symptoms — social and communication difficulties starting in early childhood and repetitive behaviors or abnormally intense interests — and has come to include a wide range of symptoms.

Milder forms are now recognized. One, Asperger syndrome, describes behavior that in the past might have been seen as peculiar and abnormal but not evidence of illness. Ultimately, a diagnosis comes down to clinical judgment.

Some experts questioned the validity of relying on records to estimate the disorder's true prevalence.

David Mandell, an autism expert at the University of Pennsylvania, said the CDC's numbers primarily reflect the degree to which the diagnosis and services have taken hold in different places and among different groups.

"As the diagnosis is associated with more and more services, this becomes a less and less rigorous way to determine the prevalence of autism," he said, referring to the CDC's methods.

The federal agency found that Utah, which has widespread screening programs, had the highest rate: 1 child in 47. The state was closely followed by New Jersey, which prides itself on its autism services, at 1 in 49.

At the bottom was Alabama, one of the poorest states. Its autism rate fell 20 percent between 2006 and 2008: from 1 in 167 to 1 in 208.

CDC officials acknowledged the limitations of their analysis. In surveillance areas where researchers had access only to health records, and not school records, prevalence estimates were generally lower.

"Our study really is more of a study of demographic differences and population differences," said Jon Baio, a CDC epidemiologist and principal investigator on the report.

The researchers hope, however, that the study will draw attention to the need for more vigorous screening early in children's lives. Research shows that early intervention offers autistic children the best long-term prospects

More than one-fifth of children identified as autistic by the CDC had no autism diagnosis in their records.

Dr. Coleen Boyle, director of the CDC's National Center on Birth Defects and Developmental Disabilities, said children "still aren't being identified enough."

In response to rising concern over the skyrocketing diagnosis rates in the 1990s, the CDC set up a network of surveillance sites nationwide. Researchers do not examine children but instead periodically review records of 8-year-olds.

In its first analysis, using data from 2000, the CDC estimated that 1 in 150 children had some form of the disorder. The latest estimate of 1 in 88 is already being touted as evidence that something in the environment is driving up cases.

"Autism is now officially becoming an epidemic in the United States," Mark Roithmayr, president of the advocacy group Autism Speaks, said at a news conference with CDC officials Thursday.

Others noted that as autism awareness has grown, health-care providers and school officials are more likely to label a child autistic or note autistic symptoms in the documentation that the CDC researchers rely on.

In all, the CDC identified 3,820 children with some form of autism, out of 337,093 in the surveillance areas.

As has been previously established, boys were much more heavily affected: The rate was 1 in 54, compared with 1 in 252 girls.

The rate for white children was 1 in 83, compared with 1 in 127 for Latinos and 1 in 98 for black people — but the data show those minorities have been closing the gap.

"What we're looking at is mostly due to practices and infrastructure and culture rather than some underlying biological phenomenon," said Dr. Daniel Geschwind, an autism expert at UCLA.

Autism often has devastating effects on families, and treatment requires time, skill and patience. Medical expenses for children with autism are six times higher than for children without the disorder. Behavioral therapy, often delivered one on one, can cost as much as $60,000 a year. The advocacy group Autism Speaks estimates autism spectrum disorders cost the United States $137 billion a year.

I lost my job as a teacher because I was once a call girl

Melissa Petro used sex work to pay her way through university, then gave it up for a job she loved as a teacher in the Bronx. But when she wrote about her experiences of prostitution, she was lambasted and then forced to resign. Here, she tells her story.
There is a stereotype that current or former sex workers are so highly sexualized that all we think about is sex, but I've found that it is people with no experience in the sex industry whatsoever who can't get our business off their minds. In my experience, there was nothing sexy about prostitution. In the Huffington Post article that cost me my career as a public school teacher, I described my lifestyle as a prostitute as "physically demanding, emotionally taxing and spiritually bankrupting" and went on to say that "I hope to never again make the choice to trade sex for cash even as I risk my current job and social standing to speak out for an individual's right to do so." That risk proved far more real than I'd expected.

I became a sex worker at 19 while living in Mexico. At the time of my enrollment, Antioch College had what they called co-op, a program wherein students alternated academic terms on campus with terms of work or volunteer experience anywhere in the world. I was in Oaxaca on co-op, volunteering at a pre-school for indigenous street kids. It was my first time out of the States. One day at a grocery store, the credit card I had been living on was denied, having hit its limit. It was strip or go home, back to the claustrophobic suburbs I had worked so hard to escape. Going home did not seem like an option. Sex work, on the other hand, seemed an enticing option for reasons I could not then explain.

I would work in the sex industry as a stripper and, for a brief stint, as a call girl on Craig's List, on and off for nearly a decade, conducting ethnographic research on the industry and, eventually, writing in the first-person. From the beginning, writing and speaking about my experiences was my way of making sense of my chosen profession.

For many years, sex work was a solution. I could work and go to school. I could travel, live and work all over the world, participating in unpaid internships taken for granted as part of the undergraduate experience. As an undergraduate, I worked at two domestic violence shelters and as a rape crisis counselor. I went on to work in nonprofit development, grant-writing for a Somali women's health organization in London, UK and, later, for a nonprofit that ran after-school programs for disadvantaged girls here in New York City, where I eventually made my home. In graduate school, I worked as a consultant for a high-profile feminist organization while also working as a research assistant in the Pediatrics Department of a public hospital. During this same time, I sold sex.

Sex work defines the people who do it like no other occupation. Associated with deviance, drug use, mental illness and disease, to be labelled a "prostitute" is to be cast as the lowest of the low. No matter the realities of our experiences, we are thought of as victims and as inherently damaged, either before or as a result of our profession. Sex workers are considered a danger to society, unfit for serious public service. Worst of all: once a sex worker, always a whore.

Eventually, for me, it proved to be too much. Despite all it had afforded me, sex work was a far from perfect occupation. The stigma associated with the profession only exacerbated the rigors of the work.

Early 2007, I quit sex work for good and went back to school, earning a second Masters - this time in Childhood Education - and becoming a certified elementary school teacher. I worked as a teacher in New York City's South Bronx, teaching the visual arts and creative writing to kids in Kindergarten through to fifth grade for just over three years. At the same time, I continued to write and began publishing stories and articles about my former occupation. I wrote without pseudonym or apology, feeling it my Constitutional as well as human right to not have to hide my identity or suppress my opinion.

Though it's not surprising that the two identities came together, all my experience of social stigma hadn't prepared me for the response. On September 27, 2010, some weeks after I had published an op-ed in The Huffington Post, I woke up to a headline front and center on The NY Post: "Bronx teacher admits: I'm an ex-hooker." Instigated by the Post's front-page exclusive, I was ridiculed in the national press, publicly shamed by my former employer and ultimately forced to resign from the career that I worked hard for, and that I loved.

I've had many jobs in my lifetime. Still, the former occupation that concerns some potential employers most is the one not on my resume. Yes, I was a prostitute before I was a teacher. So what? The truth is that I'm far from unique. The truth is that there are many people like me, who choose or have chosen sex work in circumstances other than force - circumstances more complicated than the bogeyman pimp. My so-called advocates will tell you that we don't exist. I'm here to let you know that we do.

Melissa Petro is a freelance writer living in New York. She has written for The Huffington Post, Salon, Daily Beast, Reality Check and elsewhere. She is a regular contributor at xoJane and was a guest blogger at Bitch Magazine, where she authored a column critically analyzing representations of sex work in the media. She teaches creative writing at Gotham Writers Workshop and for The Red Umbrella Project, an organization that empowers sex workers to represent themselves.
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Scientists believe that eating the placenta is good for you

The entire animal kingdom does it, but most humans become squeamish and pull their faces at the very notion. But now, scientists are suggesting that mothers—and perhaps even fathers—would benefit from eating parts of the placenta following child birth. Yum.

A team of researchers from the University at Buffalo has been studying afterbirth ingestion in other species to work out why they do it—and why it might be beneficial for humans. They point out that eating the placenta provokes an increase in mother-child interaction, promotes hormone release that stimulates caring instincts, attenuates pain—in both sexes— and even increases the possibilities for future fertilization.

Mark Kristal, one of researchers, intends to conduct a full-blown trial to investigate the positive effects of eating afterbirth. Don't worry, though—the results might mean we can get around the need to eat the stuff. "The outcome of such a quest need not be an exhortation for women to eat afterbirth, but for scientists to isolate and identify the molecule or molecules that produce the beneficial effect and use it to design pharmacological tools," Kristal explained to EurekAlert!.

Why do some foods taste Bad to some people and good for others?

People who have a lot of papillae—the bumps on our tongue, most of which house our taste buds—often find flavors overwhelming. They’re “supertasters,” and as such they add cream to their coffee and order food mild instead of spicy. Subtasters, on the other hand, have low papillae density and prefer their chicken wings “atomic.”

Individual taste, however, isn’t simply about papillae; it also has to do with our buds’ ability to detect different molecules. Although our brains can recognize the same five tastes—bitter, sweet, salty, sour and umami (savory)—the suite of chemicals that can trigger those signals varies from one person to the next. Alexander Bachmanov, a geneticist at Monell Chemical Senses Center in Philadelphia, says that humans carry a range of 20 to 40 genes dedicated to bitter taste receptors.

Different sensitivities to bitter tastes probably arose from evolutionary pressures in different parts of the world. Most toxic plants taste bitter, and nomadic groups that came into contact with a variety of plants would have, over time, developed a variety of receptors. People from malaria-infested parts of the world tend to carry a gene that makes them less sensitive to some bitter compounds, specifically those that contain cyanide. Researchers speculate that cyanide, ingested at low levels, fights malarial parasites while leaving the host unscathed. Juyun Lim, a sensory scientist in Oregon State University’s Department of Food Science, says that we have a natural aversion to bitterness and certain odors: “Most people don’t like beer the first time they try it.”
ARE YOU A SUPERTASTER?
To find out, put blue food coloring on your tongue. Blue dye doesn’t stick to taste papillae, so if your tongue doesn’t get very blue, you’re probably a supertaster. The bluer it gets, the greater the chance you are a subtaster. More hot sauce!

2 college students killed in Miss. over weekend

STARKVILLE, Miss. (AP) — Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant is expressing his sorrow at the deaths of two college students in the state over the weekend.

John Sanderson

Late Saturday, 21-year-old John Sanderson of Madison, Miss., was shot to death in a Mississippi State University dormitory, though the killing appears to be isolated. Three male suspects fled the building in a blue Crown Victoria.

Early Sunday, a 19-year-old freshman at Jackson State University died from being shot in the face and killed at an off-campus apartment pool party. Police identified the victim as Nolan Ryan Henderson III of Atlanta. Police have no motive or suspects.

Bryant said in a statement Sunday that he and his wife Deborah were "saddened to learn that Mississippi lost two college students this weekend." He said he's spoken with university leaders and instructed the state public safety commissioner to assist in the investigations.