February 6, 2013

serving the uc davis campus and community since 1915

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volume 132, number 18

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 6, 2013

Burgers & Brew, Crepeville owners open another restaurant El Toro Bravo opens with similar business plan

By PAAYAL ZAVERI Aggie Staff Writer

The owners of Crepeville and Burgers & Brew have established another restaurant in downtown Davis. Opened in December and located down the street from Crepeville and Burgers & Brew, El Toro Bravo has many similarities to its two sister restaurants.

“I saw that there was a need for a new Mexican restaurant, other than a taqueria, in Davis,” said Derar Zawaydeh, one of the owners of all three restaurants. “What we learned at Burgers & Brew and Crepeville was how to present the restaurant with the environment, and use healthy ingredients in our food.”

Zawaydeh started restauranteering in San Francisco about 30 years ago, and then moved to Davis to open restaurants.

Zawaydeh and his brother are co-owners of Burgers & Brew, Crepeville and El Toro Bravo.

Zawaydeh first expanded to the Sacramento area by opening Crepeville in early 2002. He opened Burgers & Brew in 2007. In addition to locations in Davis, he and his brother have restaurants in Sacramento, Chico and the Sacramento International Airport.

Kyle Larson, one of the managers of Burgers & Brew and El Toro Bravo, said El Toro Bravo reflects the same idea as the other restaurants, but with a different cuisine style — Mexican food. Since the staff overlaps, the service is similar between El Toro Bravo and Burgers & Brew, Larson said.

El Toro Bravo offers daily specials and their price range is similar to both Crepeville and Burgers & Brew. Zawaydeh hopes that business will continue to expand by word of mouth. Eventually, he wants the restaurant to include a bar.

“This translates well into student life,” said Reilly Bennett, another manager.

“Nothing is over $10.”

Zawaydeh said a main concern when opening the restaurant was to keep the food as authentic as possible. He said to do this, they hired a chef who cooks homestyle Mexican food, so that the food couldn’t get any more authentic.

“The result was really good,” Zawaydeh said. “The food is really good and different than a normal taqueria. It’s lighter, but still very flavorful.”

Brian Nguyen and Lucas Bolster / Aggie

PAAYAL ZAVERI can be reached at city@theaggie.org.

The owners of Crepeville and Burgers & Brew opened a new restaurant, El Toro Bravo, in downtown Davis.

News iN Brief

UC Davis ranks No. 5 on Peace Corps’ 2013 list for large California schools UC Davis ranked No. 5 among Peace Corps’ 2013 Top Colleges, tying with UC Santa Cruz.

The University ranks No. 17 nationally, moving up from last year’s No. 23 national spot.

The list classifies colleges that produces the highest number of Peace Corps volunteers. According

to a Feb. 5 news release, there are currently UC Davis alumni serving overseas. The University produced 1,408 Peace Corps volunteers, the release states.

UC Berkeley and UC Los Angeles are tied at the No. 1 spot.

ASUCD implements online lighting repair request form New program allows students to report broken street lamps on campus to increase safety

— Muna Sadek

Couple injured in downtown beating The Davis Police responded to a call at 1:17 a.m. on Saturday regarding an assault on an intoxicated couple by a group of suspects.

The incident occurred at the corner of Second and G Streets. The male victim approached a vehicle filled with a group of men and began an altercation by attacking one of the men through the window.

In response, the group got out of the car and started to beat the male victim. The suspects left in a car described as a blue Nissan Altima.

The couple suffered minor injuries and decided not to file charges.

The police are still investigating the case.

— Claire Tan

E-Fund opens application to students with business ideas ASUCD Entrepreneurship Fund (E-Fund) is beginning its Winter Quarter application cycle.

E-Fund allows students with original business ideas to apply to receive up to $1,500, if their idea is selected.

Today’s weather Partly cloudy High 61 Low 37

Students with ideas that promote a greater good within society or benefit the Davis community are encouraged to apply for E-Fund’s winter cycle. The deadline is Feb. 11.

See E-FUND, page 2

Forecast So much for the nice weather these past few days.

The rain is just in time for midterms to be over!

Written by Joyce Berthelsen Weather report courtesy of www.weather.com

Brian Nguyen / Aggie

Street lights on campus help keep students and staff safe. ASUCD has implemented a program that allows students to report broken street lights online.

By STEPHANIE B. NGUYEN Aggie News Writer

Students can help make UC Davis a brighter, safer campus with a few simple clicks.

ASUCD, along with the help of Creative Media, implemented an online lighting repair Thursday

Friday

Showers

Partly cloudy

High 55 Low 35

High 54 Low 34

request form that allows students to report broken or dead bulbs or bulbs covered by foliage in street lamps campus-wide.

In the past, students were able to report broken and covered bulbs through the Campus

See LIGHTING, page 2

Shout out to my new Assistant Night Editor, Joyce Berthelsen!

Welcome to the Night Crew team!

Amanda Nguyen

page two

2 Wednesday, february 6, 2013

daily calendar dailycal@theaggie.org

WEDNESDAY Food Addicts in Recovery Anonymous 7 to 8:30 p.m.

Davis United Methodist Church Free yourself from excess weight and/ or obsessional thoughts about food and body image by attending this free meeting with FARA. Food Addicts in Recovery Anonymous is a 12-step fellowship based on the principles of Alcoholics Anonymous.

Meetings are open and free to the public.

Visit foodaddicts.org for other meeting locations.

UAEM Journal Club Meeting 7:30 to 9 p.m.

202 Wellman Join Universities Allied for Essential Medicines if you’re interested in learning about the scientific principles behind biosimilar pharmaceuticals. The UAEM Journal Club will discuss the concept and how access to unbiased information on drugs is important for physicians to make appropriate treatment choices.

THURSDAY TCS Club General Meeting 6:30 to 7 p.m.

115 Hutchison Join Technocultural Studies professor Bob Ostertag as he discusses his decade in Central America involved in the revolutions of the 1980s.

Undergraduate Research, Scholarship & Creative Activities Conference Information Session 3:10 to 4 p.m.

Student Community Center, Meeting Room D Join us if you’re interested in presenting your research at the 24th Annual Undergraduate Research, Scholarship & Creative Activities Conference.

Sex and the Cinema Presents: Skyfall 7:30 to 9 p.m.

123 Sciences Lecture Hall

E-FUND Cont. from front page “Not only does our program give you a little jump start by providing startup capital, we also help you navigate the finer details and provide you access to resources,” Kate Lin, a fourth-year environmental policy analysis and planning major and chair of E-Fund.

For those who may have a business proposal in mind, but want advice from their peers to hone their idea, E-Fund members are developing the Student Startup Society (SSS), which functions as an open forum for students to learn and discuss entrepreneurship.

According to Lin, SSS

Come see a free screening with Sex and the Cinema. This year’s featured movie will be Skyfall, and will feature a trivia quiz with prizes before the film.

FRIDAY Yolo County Animal Shelter Adoption Sale 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. (closed 1 to 2 p.m.)

Woodland Animal Shelter Celebrate “My Furry Valentine” with discounted adoption rates for all dogs and cats from the Woodland Animal Shelter.

Help save a life for the same price as buying a coffee — all adoptions are $5.

For more information or to see pictures of the adoptable animals, go to their Facebook page at facebook.com/YCAS. Shelter.

Roger Geiger Lecture 3 to 4 p.m.

Student Community Center, multi-purpose room Come for an informative lecture and reception with Roger Geiger, the foremost historian on the American research university.

Folk Music Jam Session Noon to 1 p.m.

Wyatt Deck Folk musicians are invited to play together informally during an acoustic jam session. Pull out your fiddles, guitars, mandolins, penny whistles, pipes, flutes and squeezeboxes and join your fellow musicians for a little bluegrass, old-time, blues, Celtic, klezmer and world music over the lunch hour. All skill levels and listeners are welcome. For more information, please call (530) 752-4880.

To receive placement in the AGGIE DAILY CALENDAR, email dailycal@theaggie. org or stop by 25 Lower Freeborn by noon the day prior to your event. Due to space constraints, all event descriptions are subject to editing and priority will be given to events that are free of charge and geared toward the campus community.

is expected to begin next quarter.

“Entrepreneur-minded students, or students who have even the slightest interest in starting their own business, can meet each other, talk about what their interests are and learn a little about how to start a business from guest speakers,” said Lin. “[SSS] will open up opportunities for internships and networking with realworld professionals,” said Ben Trinh, a third-year sociology and statistics major and E-Fund director of business development.

More information on the SSS launch can be found on the E-Fund Facebook page.

— Sasha Cotterell

car keys.

They collect, categorize and maintain not only their possessions, but also their memories. The link between their memory condition and their compulsions Sean is not entirely clear.

Lenehan Unknown is whether their behavior, and brain size, are the product of their memory, or the cause of their memory.

In any case, it seems this ill Price remembers altireless practice of organimost everything. Pick zation is essential to their any date out of her sanity. The repetitions of past, and she can tell you daily life become so familwhat she ate for dinner iar when nothing is edited that night. She can tell you out. Logically, their memowhen she woke up, what ries are inescapable — evday of the week it was and erything presents a cue for what the weather was like. the past.

No matter how munPrice describes bedane, memories stick with ing owned by her memoher. Price has what scienry, finding it hard to move tists call “superior autobioforward. The irrelevant graphical memory.” memories that most peoTo be clear, Price is not ple forget, in order to fowhat you would considcus on the present, are iner a savant. She was nevdelible to her. er diagnosed with a menRemarkably, though, tal disability. the other five subjects who She cannot speed gave interviews insist the through books in an hour, past does not snarl their nor can she recite long thoughts. Memories are strings of arbitrary numdeliberately packed away, bers and symbols. She says ready for access when they memorizing a poem is as see fit. They seem genupainful for her as anyone inely happy in their abilielse. She was never a prodi- ties, even if they are bothgious student. ersome at times.

Simply put, she is an inThe insight these subdependent, competent jects provide could have adult, who profound efhappens to fects on the remember Perhaps we are creating for each treatment of every facet other a more concrete form of Alzheimer’s of her life and other photographic memory ... in absurd brain diseasdetail. es, according Price to McGaugh was the first subject of a and the rest of his team. relatively young study at Similarly, these excepUC Irvine that now intional people can alter our cludes over 30 more conunderstanding of how we firmed cases, as of last year. interact with our memoPioneering this research ries, and how they shape is Dr. James McGaugh, an our identity. expert in neurobiology. He Despite their seemingly was doubtful when he reinhuman qualities, I don’t ceived the first email from think Price and her peers Price, back in 2000. She are all that different from reached out in desperation, the rest of us. We can see tired of her unexplained a great deal of the past, condition. even without their absoUp until then, conceplute memories. tions of photographic It’s not hard to think of memory were always met our phones, our computwith heavy skepticism. The ers, our online profiles — phenomenon appeared their memory capacities more in fictional stories increasing all the time — as than in scientific papers. extensions of ourselves.

Now, with more subjects Further, there are more to study, and more brain than a few of us who restimaging, we’re going some- lessly document life, right where — if not forward. down to the smallest dePreliminary results were tails. It would not take long puzzling. to find someone who postTwo areas of the brain ed a picture of dinner on are significantly larger in Instagram. I plead guilty. those who have superiPerhaps we are creating or autobiographical memfor each other a more conory: The first area is the crete form of photographtemporal lobe, responsiic memory, one that can be ble for storing new memoshared more readily. ries. More notably, the secKnowing the compulond area is the caudate nu- sive organizational roucleus, which plays a role in tines of those with toobsessive-compulsive distal recall, each irresistible order, when overactive. visit to Facebook seems A statistically significant more purposeful — more portion of those studied a necessary maintenance exhibited obsessive-comthan a frivolous waste of pulsive tendencies in one time. way or another.

Ultimately, though, we Price has over 50,000 have the delete button. pages of journal entries.

There is always some conAnother subject, Marilu venience in forgetting.

Henner, details her meticulously organized closet.

If you found this column memorable, tell Bob Petrella describes how SEAN LENEHAN at splenehan@ucdavis. edu. If you didn’t, just forget it. he frequently washes his

Total recall

J

LIGHTING accuracy The California Aggie strives to ensure that all of its facts and details are accurate. Please bring any corrections to our attention by calling (530) 752-0208.

Janelle Bitker Editor in Chief Hannah Strumwasser Managing Editor

Rebecca Peterson Opinion Editor Joey Chen Copy Chief

Jonathan Wester Business Manager

Brian Nguyen Photography Editor

Caelum Shove Advertising Manager

Janice Pang Design Director

Muna Sadek Campus Editor

James Kim Asst. Design Director

Claire Tan City Editor Elizabeth Orpina Arts Editor Adam Khan Features Editor Matthew Yuen Sports Editor

Amanda Nguyen Night Editor Joyce Berthelsen Asst. Night Editor Irisa Tam Art Director

David Ou Hudson Lofchie New Media Director Science Editor One Shields Ave. 25 Lower Freeborn, UCD Davis, CA 95616 Editorial (530) 752-0208 Advertising (530) 752-0365 Fax (530) 752-0355

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Cont. from front page Safety Lighting Walk hosted by ASUCD and the UC Davis Police Department (UCDPD). However, the event only took place once a year and the turnout was low.

Now, students can request lighting repairs themselves online simply by providing the street lamp identification number. The request is then submitted directly to Power and Lights Superintendent Damon Williams.

Paul Min, ASUCD Senator and third-year philosophy major, has been involved in the collaboration from the start.

“It’s an online resource that students can use on their own time instead of going through a third party,” Min said. “The form can be filled out in under a minute, it’s student-friend-

on the countertop.

But right as he was about to scan it, some cops walked in and got in line behind me. I could tell the cashier immediLeo ately got a little nervous, Ocampo and in an effort to seem professional and lawabiding he asked me another one of the most annoying questions possible, “Do you have your ID?” I didn’t even know you have to be 18 to legalometimes the unily to buy a lighter, and verse develops this it was silly because the nasty sense of hucashier was obviously mor and does everything younger than me. possible to keep you I had neither my ID from getting high. nor the balls to start an The other night some argument in front of a friends and I were cravbunch of cops, so I lied ing a little privacy so we and told him I had left decided to head out to it in the car and that I the middle of nowhere would be right back. for a smoke. After drivI knew he knew I ing around for about 15 was lying, and I knew minutes, we finally setthe cops had heard the tled into a secluded litwhole thing. I could feel tle spot in the corner of them all staring at me as some almond fields.

I slowly picked up all my It was dark and eerinickels and dimes. In my ly quiet, and the whole rush I dropped a bunch situation reminded of noisy coins, and as me of those immature suspicious as it probably high school days before made me look, I didn’t any of us had our own bother to pick them up. place and had to wanI pretty much ran out der around town to keep without looking back. from getting caught.

I was pissed off and We were parked in tired and I was sure no the dark and while one one else would want to of my go back friends inside The weather was perfect and the store, was rolling up a there was a fat blunt in front which blunt, the meant of us ... rest of us we would continhave to ued an ardrive back gument we’d been havhome or to some other ing all day about whethgas station. This whole er there was any major, thing was taking too noticeable difference damn long. between sativas and inBut as I was reflecting dicas. We were all suron everything that had prisingly passionate and gone wrong that night, political about the subI noticed a little book of ject, but in the end we matches hanging out on reached a typical stoner top of a rusty pay phone. compromise and decidThere were three ed that weed in genermatches left, and they al, regardless of the type, were a little moist, but was delicious. they were literally our At that point, my friend only chance so I took finished rolling. He turned them anyway. and asked us one of the Back inside the car evmost annoying questions eryone else was as fruspossible, “Did anybody trated as I was. We all bring a lighter?” agreed that enough had The weather was perbeen enough, and that fect and there was a fat we should spark up and blunt in front of us, but hotbox then and there. we couldn’t do anything I tore out a match about it because we had and struck it against the all been too busy argumatchbook, but nothing about pointless shit ing happened. It was too to remember to pack the wet. essentials.

I tore out another We all just sat there for match, but it was just as a while, feeling lost and wet as the first and it endheartbroken. We tried to ed up falling apart. make fire, but eventuI tore out the last ally quit after a couple match, and unbelievfailed experiments with ably, this one actually the car’s broken cigarette turned on. lighter. Defeated, we deBut no one had excided we should drive pected it to work so back into town to buy a we weren’t prepared. lighter from the closest While we were shufgas station. fling around trying to reA couple of miles latmember where we had er, I got off and walked stashed the blunt, the into a Shell station with match burnt my thumb a pocket full of coins and the flame went out that we had found scatand we were all left in tered throughout the the dark. car. I picked the ugliest lighter in the rack, handed it to the cashier and Please teach LEO OCAMPO how to start a dropped all my change fire at gocampo@ucdavis.edu.

In the mood

S

ly, accessible and is usually addressed within a week. It’s for students who are fed up with walking or biking in darkness. I hope that the availability of this form will empower students and allow them to have a say in lighting around campus.”

Williams agreed and explained what happens after he receives a request.

“It sounded like most students didn’t have access to our online customer service work order — this is a way to have their voices heard,” Williams said. “Depending on the nature of the defect, it could be as simple as a worker changing a bulb or a fuse.

Generally it’s no big deal: I dispatch an electrician to diagnose the problem.

A week is about the longest it would take; most fixes get done in the day.”

Fourth-year textiles and clothing major Erica Chan frequently stays on campus after 10 p.m. due to work, and is often frustrated with having to bike

in low light.

“I think [the repair request form] is a good idea,” Chan said. “It’s useful if more people know about it. At night, it’s harder to see in front of you — another biker nearly ran into me last night. Some parts of campus can be really dark and scary, and good lighting really helps you see your surroundings and other people.”

Min agreed.

“Every student has a right to be safe and feel safe,” he said. “Campus safety is about students and the administration working together to hold each other accountable. Well-lit grounds help students be aware and prevent bike and pedestrian accidents.”

Students can find the repair request form online at asucd.ucdavis.edu/ lightrepair.

STEPHANIE B. NGUYEN can be reached at campus@ theaggie.org.

Science &Technology

wednesday, FEBRUARY 6, 2013 3

The california aggie

Hudson Lofchie

Observing sports

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uper Bowl Sunday … a gastronomically challenging day filled with hot wings, pizza, endless BBQ chicken, burgers, beer, beer pong, beer hockey … you get the idea. In reality, the actual game seems to take a backseat to all the fun that a group of friends can create. That should be enough of a draw for anyone even if they can’t stand watching grown men in tights tackle each other every 10 seconds.

As one of these individuals, I came up with a list of rules tailored specifically for watching sports for the non-sports fan. I’m a science person; I find the ritual of watching sports to be rather silly. Whoever wins or loses, it has literally zero effect on my life … unless a riot shuts down the freeway. I’d rather play a sport, be active, burn the calories, get fit.

So rule number one, NEVER pre-

tend to know what is actually going on. You may be king of your friends when it comes to understanding mitosis, naming constellations and describing the reproductive organs of an orchid, but when it comes to a two-point conversion, its all Greek.

Which brings me to my second rule.

Ask questions. When someone asks you questions about something you know a lot about, it’s often hard to know when to stop talking about it. Same goes for football fans. Granted, I still have no idea what a two-point conversion is, but at least the people trying to explain it to me no longer think I’m uncul-

Whoever wins or loses, it has literally zero effect on my life … unless a riot shuts down the freeway tured for being ignorant of the subject. The third rule is somewhat of a combination of rules one and two.

Don’t argue. If you know nothing about player stats, season injuries, pass yards or the like, don’t try to argue that Manning is a better quarterback than Roethlisberger, or vice versa, because you will just look stupid. Trust me … I know. You are better off finding another lonely nonsports fan somewhere at the party and talking about stamp collecting.

This brings me to rule four.

Once you find someone who will actually take the time to peel

their eyes off the screen to talk to you, don’t waste the time talking about heavy topics like your girlfriend moving to Europe, how hard your classes are or family problems. It’s better to just find an empty spot on the couch, share a knowing look with your non-sports-oriented friend, shut up and enjoy the time with your friends. Speaking of friends, rule number five.

The Super Bowl is a very emotional time for your male friends who often exude excessive levels of manliness. They may shotgun beers on the regular and talk about hunting, big-wheeled trucks and cheerleaders with fake tits, but when it comes to the fourth quarter and their team is down by just a field goal, guaranteed they will be close to tears. It will be more than half a year until the next season, and some may compare it to the season finale of “The Bachelor.” And the final rule ...

Stop preaching about how stupid sports are, and just enjoy the day with your friends. Seriously, any half-decent tailgate party will have great food, great drinks, games, music and tons of friends and will be just an overall great time. Stop thinking about it so much, stuff your face with Diablo hot wings, wash it down with a good lager from the keg and have a great time.

HUDSON LOFCHIE doesn’t like watching sports, but he loves spending Super Bowl Sunday with his best friends. He can be reached at science@theaggie.org.

When it comes to leaves, size matters New study uses simple physics to explain tree physiology

By OYANG TENG Aggie Science Writer

What shorter trees lack in height, they make up for in a wide range of leaf sizes suited to the environmental stresses that define their existence. For the tallest trees, though, the range of leaf sizes is far more limited, for reasons that until now have been largely unexplained.

A pair of scientists from Harvard University and UC Davis have shown in a recent study that the limitations on this particular feature of plant diversity may largely come down to basic physics.

The physical principles in question concern the movement of fluid throughout a tree’s vascular system.

This network of specialized channel cells consists of xylem, which conduct water and minerals up from the roots, and phloem, which transport the products of photosynthesis generated in the leaves to the rest of the plant. Because these photosynthetic products are the sugars that power the plant’s metabolism, the movement of sugar-containing sap can be quantified as an energy flow.

In their paper published in the Jan. 4 issue of Physical Review Letters, authors Maciej Zwieniecki and Kaare Jensen argue that the length of leaves relative to tree height follows a mathematical relationship that optimizes the flow of energy through the tree.

“The way we do engi-

neering, and [the way] nature does engineering, is we are [both] trying to make everything function efficiently,” said Zwieniecki, a plant physiologist at UC Davis.

To calculate efficiency in energy terms means understanding in detail how sugars are transported in trees. This understanding requires sensitive measurements in the hard-to-reach, microscopic phloem tubes.

By comparing such measurements with data gathered from an artificial microfluidic device, the researchers had already developed a simplified quantitative model for sugar transport.

Unlike the vascular system of animals, trees have no heart to mechanically pump their vital fluids.

In the phloem, fluid flow is believed to be driven by osmotic pressure generated by differences in the concentration of sugar molecules, which diffuse into the cells from their sources in leaf tissue. By taking into account a variety of factors, the authors could relate the sugar transport speed with leaf length and compare it to the energy costs of maintaining trees of a certain height and leaves of a certain length.

To test the model, Zwieniecki and Jensen used recorded data on leaf length in 1,925 species of trees mostly located in the diverse Sabah and Sarawak forests of Malaysia, as well as species from Australia and North America. The trees studied were all angiosperms, flow-

ering plants, by far the most widespread and diverse group of land plants.

A plot of leaf length against tree height shows wide variability that tapers off sharply as trees approach 100 meters in height, the maximum observed for angiosperms in nature. This reflects the fact that the tallest trees grow only in the most forgiving environments, where environmental stresses don’t factor in, and leaf length is determined almost entirely by the intrinsic physical constraints of sugar transport.

For the tallest trees, these limit leaf lengths to a narrow range of just 4 to 8 inches.

The observations fit closely within the bounds set by the authors’ theoretical calculations for minimum and maximum leaf length based on optimum flow speed and energy distribution, which they believe underscores the validity of their phloem flow model.

Karl Niklas, a Cornell University professor of plant biology and author of the book Plant Physics, called the study “elegant” in its use of simple mathematics to relate variables such as phloem radius and tree height to leaf length.

“As far as I know, this is the first time that anybody has actually emphasized phloem loading and the energy aspects of the leaf,” Niklas said. “And if this study withstands the test of experiment and additional analysis, it shows you can really understand a great deal about biology

using comparatively simple physical principles.”

Other studies of biophysical limitations on plant growth have typically examined water flow from the roots to the leaves in the xylem, accomplished by the cohesion of the water column as it is pulled up and out of the leaves during transpiration.

“What in my opinion has been lacking is that you have to look at what the primary purpose of a leaf is,” said Jensen, a postdoctoral researcher in Harvard’s Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology.

“The primary purpose will always be to produce energy for the plant. So any constraint related to that will be at least as important as any other hydrological constraint.”

Jensen said nailing down the exact mechanisms of transport in the phloem could also lead to improvements for osmotic pumps used in medical applications or even osmotic batteries used for generating power at a microscale. Nonetheless, a number of theoretical questions remain: For example, how the specific branching patterns of the vascular system allow trees to optimize energy flow.

“It’s a nice scientific question,” Jensen said.

“And it’s almost certain that the solution will be surprising and elegant.”

OYANG TENG can be reached at science@ theaggie.org.

trust. Doctors aren’t just entrusted with prestige, a fancy coat and a big paycheck. People’s lives are literally in the hands of our many competent — and Alan sometimes less competent Lin — doctors, nurses, therapists, pharmacists and many other kinds of -ists. It would be difficult to imagine trusting a doctor who lacks a basic understanding of cell division. It would be seemingly absurd to trust a pharmacist who was o every hot-shot that unsure of what a lone pair wants to be a doctor was. but complains about (For all you non-scienhaving to take introductotists: Cell division is the ry chemistry, congratulavery controlled and structions! You are many things: tured means by which smart, ambitious and com- one cell in the body bepassionate to name a few. comes two. A failure to regAnother thing you’ve ulate cell division is somegot going for you is that times known as cancer. you have the fortune to be Furthermore, lone pairs learning basic scientific are particularly important proficiencies from one of in activities like determinthe best universities in the ing the shape of a molecule world. This is a university and how that molecule at which research is being plays with others. A great conducted not only to im- deal of a pharmacist’s body prove the efficacy of proof knowledge depends on cedures within your pracwhat molecules look like tice, but in many cases, to and what they do around reshape the way the acother molecules. I’m not ademic and professionpoking fun and don’t mean al communities around to be rude, I’m just highthe world view the human lighting examples of things body.

I’d expect people in charge I’ll be honest, I’m not of my physical well-being the perfect student. I ento know). joy my recreational time a So even if it’s elementalittle too ry and bamuch and sic, the body The point is: Love what you of knowledge my books a bit too do and do it well. If you don’t presented little, and introducknow what you’re doing yet, in I always tory classfind a way don’t worry; there’s still time es still serves to spend as essential an extra hour or two more and everybody needs to than I should watching instart off on the same page. ternet television instead of And though I’m as guilty doing practice problems. as the next hot-shot who Fortunately for anybody would complain that I had who may need medical to study what an adiabatcare in the future, I have no ic reaction was for a middefinite plans of becomterm, it’s necessary to learn ing a professional with a lithis stuff. cense to practice medicine.

Introductory and organIf I’m being perfectic chemistry are hard. Cell ly honest again, there’s biology is hard. UWP 142F: a troubling trend in stuWriting in Professions: dents who are a lot like Health is also hard. So me except for an imporwhat? Diagnosing a patant distinction. They don’t tient presenting chest pain plan on being journalists. is hard too; so is telling Walking around campus, someone with ALS that I love to eavesdrop. When their nervous system is I pass through the opendeteriorating. Careers in ing corridor for Shields health are hard. This is Library, I’ll see students what thousands of stucrowded around desks dents sign up for every with computers and textyear. books open but they’ll And even if it’s diffihave their eyes trained cult, take pride in what on the one that brings up you’re doing. Remember funny pictures of cats. that you’re learning from There’s also usually someleading professionals in thing along the lines of, their fields. Be proud that “Why am I even taking this you’re getting the best. class?” asked rhetorically.

And maybe if it’s not what And it’s not really the disyou’re looking for, what tractions that are the probbetter time than now to lem. It’s perfectly fine, and think about what you realit’s encouraged to take a few ly want? minutes’ intellectual rest to This isn’t to discourage let study materials sink in, any budding scientists eibut the break is just that … ther. Much of the best scia brief respite from the acence has a hearty and full tually important work. The history in failure. The point lessons come with a point, is: Love what you do and and while the knowledge do it well. If you don’t know that some of the first camwhat you’re doing yet, don’t era flashes used magnesium worry; there’s still time. But because it burned particuthere’s no reason to make larly bright might not save things worse than they anyone’s life, it is important have to be. Nobody’s askto realize that understanding anybody to force someing something like Nuclear body to do something Magnetic Resonance (NMR) they’re not meant to. spectroscopy could actually help save a life.

ALAN LIN once thought of being a doctor, Being a physician is a but can now be reached at science@ career contingent upon theaggie.org.

Dear hotshots...

T

Not so innocent bystander New study looks at how children perceive bullying

By KELLY MITCHELL Aggie Science Writer

Bullying has often been associated with school and has been a concern for many, especially with the recent development of

cyber-bullying. However, a side of the bullying problem that is not often explored is how the bullies themselves are perceived by bystanders.

In a study by Jaana Juvonen, a professor in the Department of Psychology at UCLA,

2,000 ethnically diverse students across 99 classrooms from 11 middle schools located in the Los Angeles area were asked who was the “coolest,” who starts fights or pushes other kids around and who spreads nasty rumors about other kids. Interestingly,

the children who were most associated with aggressive behavior were also considered the “coolest.”

“Past studies have shown a robust association between aggression and

See BULLY, page 5

Taking the ‘self ’ out of self-control

By KYLE SCROGGINS Aggie Science Writer

The problem: It’s Sunday night and you have a midterm in every single class in the coming week. You know you should be studying, but the mountainous pile of practice midterms, half-attempted homework and lec-

ture slides is just so overwhelming that almost anything else on Earth seems preferable. So you decide to just check your Facebook, and even though your news feed is completely dead, you still sit there endlessly refreshing your home page in the vain hope that something interesting will eventually sweep you away from your stress, if even for just a brief moment. The

next thing you know, hours have past and you are no closer to acing your tests than you were when you started “studying.”

The solution: Self-control. And lucky for you, Charlie Stigler and Steve Lambert have made having it is as easy as clicking “download.”

SelfControl is a free, open-source software

for MacOs designed to remove the “self” from the equation. All you need to do is add the names of the websites that kill your valuable study time to the “black list” and this app will not let you visit them. Period.

You get to choose the amount of time that the websites remain blocked, but during that time period there is nothing you

See CONTROL, page 5

4 WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 6, 2013

The california Aggie

Student loan defaults increasing, study suggests

By MARGARET WATERMAN

The Daily Free Press (Boston University)

I

n light of a new study finding college students more likely than ever to default on their student loans, students must be aware of various repayment options and strategies to avoid default, Boston U. officials said.

The average size of student loan debt has increased 58 percent since 2005, while the average credit card loan balance and average balance on car loans have decreased, according to a study released by FICO Labs Wednesday.

“You can always default on your loan, obviously, but my understanding is if you make money below the poverty line, you basically don’t have to repay things anyway, it can change your loan terms,” said Johannes Schmieder, a BU economics professor.

In 2005, the average student loan debt was $17,233, whereas in 2012 the average was $27,253, according to the study.

Students were more likely to default on their student loans in 2012 than in 2005 due to significant growth in the amount of debt new graduates carry, the study stated.

Frederic Hyunh, FICO’s senior principal

scientist, said he was not surprised by the results of the study as student loan default rates have been increasing.

“We’ve been hearing for quite some time regarding some of the dangers in the student loan sector,” he said. “We have come across previous studies that indicated student loan debt is increasing - defaults are increasing.”

Consumer interest regarding the student loan and the student loan sector has increased, which prompted FICO’s research, Hyunh said.

“We basically wanted to corroborate this to better understand what we’re seeing in terms of the growth of outstanding debt being able to qualify that as well as measuring how well the consumers with student loan debt are repaying those sort various obligations,” Hyunh said.

For federally subsidized loans, Schmieder said students have the option of entering the Income-Based Repayment Plan, which allows borrowers to pay back their loans based on their current income in relation to the poverty line.

“They basically calculate your disposable income, and that’s only your income above the poverty line. Of that you have

to pay a certain percentage,” he said. “In some ways there are some mechanisms that allow people to really limit their loan payments, and I wonder if some people just don’t realize that.”

Schmieder said there are also options available for students who struggle to find jobs after college and go to graduate school, thereby adding to their debt.

“It seems if you are unemployed, you can definitely get a deferment,” he said.

“Then you don’t have to repay it until you have a job again. For that reason I’m not completely sure I understand why there’s a sudden increase in these defaults unless people really make these kinds of mistakes.”

Some students said they are concerned that while college prices have spiked in recent years, entry-level position salaries have not gone up.

“A lot of people don’t consider that the starting wages and the starting positions just aren’t earning that much, so it’s getting progressively harder and that’s a factor,” said Ana Delcid, a BU sophomore.

Delcid said it is still difficult for recent college graduates to find a job after graduation.

“Job markets aren’t getting any bet-

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ter,” she said. “It’s harder to find a job and there’s just, overall, less security for people to be able to prosper right after college.”

Azura Ge, a BU freshman, said the weak job market might be contributing to student loan defaults.

“It’s really hard for students who can’t afford that money to go to college. I think colleges should lower their tuition,” she said.

“There are a lot of people getting higher education so it must be more competitive to get jobs.”

Brandon Siegenfeld, a BU sophomore, said college graduates’ salaries have not increased to match the increase in rising college tuition.

“We had the recession, so salaries haven’t increased over this amount of time even though the price [of higher education] is going up, so it’s not reflected in the salary increases,” he said.

Siegenfeld said the high cost of college has caused unfortunate divisions between schools based on the income of students’ families and their abilities to afford tuition.

“It definitely limits the ability for talent to enter college. It makes it more separated by income level, which is not a good thing,” he said.

FOR RELEASE MARCH 26, 2010

Los Angeles Times Daily Crossword Puzzle Edited by Rich Norris and Joyce Lewis

ACROSS 1 Sugar substitute?

5 Flirtation 9 Travel needs, perhaps 14 End of an estimate 15 Rival rival 16 __ coffee 17 Hobart resident 19 Lip-smacking 20 Barbecue area without chairs?

22 Certain mil. member 23 Gray head?

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21 Gamer’s maneuver 24 Apathetic 25 Harder to dig up 26 Upstairs 28 Fragrant oil 29 Kelly of “One Tree Hill” 30 Wire fasteners 31 Highest peak on Crete: Abbr.

32 “Done!”

3/26/10

Tuesday’s puzzle Puzzle solvedSolved Thursday’s

(c)2010 Tribune Media Services, Inc.

33 “We Got the Beat” singers 35 TV Chihuahua 36 Baloney 37 Excessive flattery 42 Uno minus uno 43 They can ruin diets 47 Pen resident 48 Illusionary genre 50 Back on the water

3/26/10

51 Famous Amos 52 Joyful group dance 53 Coffeehouse connection 54 1950s British prime minister 55 Offend the olfactories 56 Empty hall effect 57 Pointed fastener 58 Unit of RAM 60 Texter’s tehee

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WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 6, 2013

The california aggie

5

Davis kissed with Valentine’s Day dinner specials

From the Aggie Eats food blog

Local chefs are getting saucy this Valentine’s Day, and couples looking to get in on the action should make their reservations soon.

The Mustard Seed is already nearly booked for its annual “Enhance Your Romance Dinner” next Thursday. Diners pay $69 for four courses — four very sensually-described courses. Greens are “caressed” with vinaigrette, “embracing” raspberries and jicama hearts. Beef tenderloin is “climaxed” with trufflelaced mushrooms with an “afterglow” of Bearnaise sauce. There’s even a dish called “Menage a Trois Gnocchi.”

Osterio Fasulo is booking up as well.

The upscale Italian restaurant in West Davis is serving a special menu all day — four courses for $85 or five courses for $95.

Each course has two options, and diners can expect to see oysters, lobster bisque, fresh pastas and other temptations.

Another sure-to-be popular destination: Tuco’s Wine Market and Cafe, with a more affordable four-course menu at $45. Entree options include steak with chimichurri, crab and cheese ravioli, wild mushroom risotto and pork

Bully Cont. from page 3 popularity and we wanted to design a study that focused on extending this work by better understanding the direction of influence between aggression and popularity and to test whether there might be gender differences,” said Guadalupe Espinoza, a UCLA psychology doctoral student and coauthor of the study.

These questions were designed in such a way to show a correlation between “the cool kids” and the bullies. The questions were designed to insure that the students questioned would not feel confused and that the results would be clear for the study.

“The survey had questions designed to ensure children were thinking about specific attributes and behaviors involved in popularity and bul-

loin with Valentine relish. In fact, “Valentine” sauces and jellies dot the menu, though we’re not so sure what “Valentine” tastes like.

Little Prague’s Valentine’s Day dinner starts off romantically with champagne and strawberries, segueing into four courses for $59. A live jazz trio will serenade all evening.

Our House is preparing a five-course meal, plus an amuse-bouche, for $75.

Openers — hamachi or curried nuggets of lobster — have an Asian flair, which move on to soup and salad, ravioli, a choice of four entrees and dessert. The standout entree: filet mignon topped with jalapeno hollandaise and a poached egg. de Vere’s Irish Pub’s special might be a steal — for $40, a couple is served three courses each and a bottle of wine to share.

Bistro 33, Seasons and Monticello Seasonal Cuisine are also expected to have special menus, though they haven’t been finalized yet. Monticello will host live music, too.

— Janelle Bitker

lying when the children identified specific people,” said Dorje Jennette, a psychologist as UC Davis Counseling and Psychological Services (CAPS). “This makes the survey more valid than simply asking the children if they saw a relationship between popularity and bullying in general.”

Another interesting finding of the study was that both the boys and girls who bullied were associated with both malicious behaviors.

“The ones who are cool bully more, and the ones who bully more are seen as cool,” Juvonen said. “What was particularly interesting was that the form of aggression, whether highly visible and clearly confrontational or not, did not matter. Pushing or shoving and gossiping worked the same for boys and girls.”

Of course, this aggressive behavior is not random, and it comes from a source.

“Some kids might be des-

perate enough to be seen as cool that they engage in some bullying behaviors to enhance their own image by making other people seem less cool,” Jennette said. “But it could have been possible to be seen as even cooler if they hadn’t engaged in any bullying in the first place.”

Bullying campaigns have attempted to stop bullying from happening in schools for a long time, however it still happens everyday.

“We know that effective anti-bullying programs shouldn’t just target the bully or the victim, but should rather take a schoolwide approach and also focus on the bystanders,” Espinoza said. “These are the individuals who see the bullying take place and they play a critical role and can either encourage or discourage bullying.

KELLY MITCHELL can be reached at science@ theaggie.org.

Valentine’s Day specials

The Mustard Seed - $69 222 D St. #11 (530) 758-5750

Little Prague - $59 330 G St. (530) 756-1107

Osterio Fasulo - $85-95 2657 Portage Bay E #8 (530) 758-1324

Our House - $75 808 Second St. (530) 757-1232

Tuco’s Wine Market and Cafe - $45 130 G St. (530) 757-6600

de Vere’s Irish Pub - $40 for two 217 E St. (530) 204-5533

CONTROL Cont. from page 3 can do to access those sites. Even restarting your computer or deleting the app won’t work. Some people like to take the route of having a friend change their Facebook password, but let’s face it, that gives your friend a lot of power over your public image and few can resist the urge to write less-than-flattering status updates.

Also, who has an addiction to just Facebook, anyways? There is a nearly infinite stream of sites that seem to have been designed for the sole purpose of taking your precious time hostage. Just think of the hours you have spent on Reddit, Tumblr, YouTube or your favorite celebrity gossip site, when you could/should have been studying.

For those among us who are particularly distractable, the app even features the option of blocking every single site on the internet except for the ones you add to a “white list.”

ly answered by one of the app’s developers, Lambert, and bring attention to a few possible glitches (it is a very entertaining read, and I greatly advise checking it out if you are considering getting the app). The most important being that some sites that operate through the domains of larger ones may end up being unintentionally blocked (i.e., if you block Google, you may run into problems accessing YouTube).

What about Windows?

If you have Windows, there is another free, open-source app that has been developed based on SelfControl, named SelfRestraint. However, I cannot personally attest to its efficacy.

Pro-tip: Since this project is open source, if you are into computer programming and app designing, you can download the code and tweak it to your liking. You even have the option of submitting your tweaks to the developers, and if they like them, they will include them in an updated version of the app.

Potential bugs: All of the questions in the FAQ sec- KYLE SCROGGINS can be reached at science@theaggie.org. tion of the SelfControl website are sassi-

Lightning’s striking effect on migraines

By Kiera Blessing

The Daily Free Press (Boston University)

It’s easy to ignore a grandparent who says a storm is coming because their knees are “acting up.” It’s even more ridiculous to think that Karen from “Mean Girls” knows when it will rain, thanks to her cleavage.

But a new study suggests that people who suffer from migraines may actually be able to tell when lightning has been striking nearby.

What researchers found Fourth-year medical student, Geoffrey Martin, and his father, Doctor Vincent Martin, a professor of Internal Medicine, conducted a study at U. Cincinnati that revealed that chronic migraine sufferers have a 31 percent higher risk of headache and a 28 percent higher risk of migraine on days lightning has struck within 25 miles of their home.

“So basically, on days with lightning, compared to days without lightning, there was actually 31 percent more people that had a headache on those days with lightning compared to not having lightning,” Geoffrey said.

The father-son duo said they analyzed several issues when evaluating the results, such as how lightning directly affects headaches and migraines.

However, the Martins also considered other weather factors often associated with lightning, such as barometric pressure, temperature, precipitation, humidity and wind.

This, Geoffrey said, allowed them to validate that lightning was truly causing the increase in headache frequency.

The study, published in the journal Cephalalgia on Jan. 24, showed that even when other weather factors were accounted for in mathematical models, there was still a 19 percent increased risk of headache on lightning-striking days.

“It was still statistically significant in our population,” Geoffrey said. “Lightning still had an effect on headaches beyond the meteorological factors that are often associated with lightning, such as high winds

during a storm or rain, or high temperatures or high humidity.”

The researchers were also concerned about the long lifespans of headaches and migraines. Geoffrey said the life span of migraines often last more than one day.

The research also considered participants who may have suffered a headache prior to lightning, suggesting their headaches were not a direct result of the weather.

To account for this discrepancy, Geoffrey said he added a control variable to the model - he and his father accounted for the presence of headaches lasting up to two days prior to lightning storms.

This variable reduced participants’ increased risk of headache from 31 to 24 percent and migraine from 28 percent to 23 percent.

“It’s like a weird Snapple fact,” said Boston U. sophomore Hannah Landers.

Like Landers, Jinzhu Wu, a BU freshman, said the new information was surprising.

“Usually the storm will scare people, but the lightning will only give us some tension that there will be some pretty terrifying noise,” she said.

Wu said this study might further people’s fear of lightning.

How they did it For their study, the Martins researched detailed headache journals from 100 chronic migraine sufferers from previous studies at U. Cincinnati and U. St. Louis, Geoffrey said. These journals recorded activity during three-to-six-month periods.

“They were recruited in our study from other studies, actually, in which they recorded in a diary or journal their headache activity; whether they had a headache that day or not, their pain scale on that day, and whether they had nausea, vomiting, sensitivity to light or noise,” Geoffrey said.

Participants in the study exhibiting such symptoms were labeled as chronic sufferers, or someone who suffers from at least one migraine a month. Geoffrey said a doctor diagnosed this condition using the International Headache Society Criteria.

Participants from Cincinnati record-

ed their journals between 1998 and 2001 while participants from St. Louis recorded theirs from 2008 to 2010, Geoffrey said.

Geoffrey said he and his father compared this information to weather data recorded during the same time periods. This helped them determine whether or not patients had increased headache activity on specific weather days.

The participants used were 91 percent female with an average age of 44. Geoffrey said that migraine patients are predominantly female, with women making up between 70 and 80 percent of sufferers.

He also said that migraines are generally worse before women reach menopause, resulting in a generally younger population of sufferers.

“We did throw in both age and gender into our models as covariates,” Geoffrey said. “Those did not affect our results in any way.”

Why it happens In a recent press release, Vincent said there were two possible causes for this strange occurrence.

“Electromagnetic waves emitted from lightning could trigger headaches,” Vincent said in the release Jan. 24. “In addition, lightning produces increases in air pollutants like ozone and can cause release of fungal spores that might lead to migraine.”

“I know that in laboratory studies that various electromagnetic fields can induce EEG [Electroencephalograms] changes,” Geoffrey added to his father’s statement.

What it means The answer, according to Geoffrey, is not a whole lot yet.

The weather cannot be controlled, so migraine sufferers will have to deal with Mother Nature’s wrath for now.

To prevent migraines, Geoffrey said people should move to areas that are less prone to lightning. Unfortunately this is not a quick fix. However, Geoffrey suggested other headache prevention methods.

“You can’t really control the weather on

a day-to-day basis, but you can do individual measures, such as things that are important in preventing offensive migraines,” he said.

He recommended getting adequate rest and staying hydrated, as well as keeping pain relievers on hand.

He also suggested that chronic sufferers with more serious conditions seek professional help and prescription medications.

“The problem is no one really knows when they’re going to have an attack so obviously if someone’s [attacks are] frequent enough, they’re just on the medication every day,” Geoffrey said. “But otherwise it’s very hard to determine when they should be taking these kinds of preventative migraine medications.”

Heeding the Martins’ study, sufferers might check weather forecasts and take medications in preparation for upcoming storms.

Even people without prescription medications can prepare by taking pain relievers at the first sign of a headache, rather than ignoring a slight discomfort and allowing it to develop into a fullblown migraine.

Student Responses Simone Rauch, a BU sophomore, said she did not have many ideas when asked what the findings could be used for.

“I mean, nothing really,” Rauch said.

“You can’t just tell the lightning not to be near headache sufferers, right?”

However Melissa Yee, a BU junior, said she has hope for the new study.

“I get migraines constantly,” Yee said. “I don’t know if lightning would necessarily correlate with that, but I hope it does. Then maybe I could prevent some of my major headaches.”

Geoffrey said he will continue to study the weather-headache paradigm in an attempt to develop better methods of migraine control.

“We’re going to start looking at more complex weather patterns,” he said, “such that we’re going to be looking at intricate relationships between some of the individual weather variables.”

6

The california aggie

wednesday, february 6, 2013

Living life outside the box UC Davis alumna starts business that gives back in Nicaragua

courtesy

UC Davis alumna Quinn Vandenberg and her boyfriend Jonathon Button moved to Nicaragua and created Life Out of the Box, a business that sells Nicaraguan handmade products.

By JOYCE BERTHELSEN Aggie Features Writer

T

he thought of dropping everything, hopping on a plane and moving to a new country is exciting to most people, but few actually get to live it. Yet UC Davis alumna Quinn Vandenberg and her boyfriend Jonathon Button dropped their comfortable lifestyles and moved to Nicaragua — and with a good cause to boot.

Vandenberg and Button created Life Out of the Box (LOOTB), a concept about living your dreams and also a business that sells Nicaraguan handmade products to customers all over the world. For every purchase, a child is given school supplies and the duo helps one of Central America’s poorest economies.

“Life Out of the Box is about pursuing your dreams and doing what you love by stepping out of the typical box and making it happen no matter what,” Vandenberg

said in an email interview. “It’s also about giving back to the world while making your dreams come true. Life Out of the Box wants to not only inspire people in the first world to always go after their dreams, but we want to give kids in the third world the tools to be able to do the same as well.”

Vandenberg majored in textile and clothing before graduating from UC Davis in 2009. She then began sponsorship and business development for Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance, an annual international antique car show on the Pebble Beach golf course. Button also held a job at an import/export booking company in San Francisco.

But having stable jobs and a life together wasn’t enough for them. The pair then began researching and brainstorming about how they could live their dreams. In May 2012, Vandenberg and Button packed a backpack each and flew to Nicaragua.

“We have always wanted to start a business since we were kids, so the idea of

creating a business of our own was one that had been in the works for a while,” Vandenberg said. “After lots of brainstorming, we decided that our ideal business to start would be one that integrates giving back into the finances from the very beginning. We wanted to search for unique handmade products that would appeal to people in the States and be able to give back to every new country we visited. So we decided that for every handmade product we would sell in the States, we would give back an educational product to that country.”

Vandenberg also said that the couple’s ideal lives consisted of traveling and learning about new cultures. Starting a business with the ability to travel ultimately brought the pair to Nicaragua.

Vandenberg said that she and Button did not want to borrow money from family or take out a loan, but they also knew they would not be making money during the startup phase of the company. Thus, they needed to move to a place with a low cost of living.

“We learned that the average person lives off of $2 a day in Nicaragua as it is the second-poorest country in Central America,” Vandenberg said.

Vandenberg and Button work with nonprofit organizations to figure out which schools require the most help. LOOTB currently only sells handmade bracelets, but has plans to expand product variety. Every bracelet sold corresponds with school supplies given to a child. Vandenberg said that a $15 bracelet usually buys a notebook and pencil pack, while a $30 bracelet can buy a child a backpack. Every product is numbered on the website, which allows customers to see which child’s education they helped.

“The reaction from the children is our favorite part of the business,” Button said in an email interview. “Initially they are confused, because receiving a gift from a stranger is a unique concept to them. Once we show them their options of school supplies that they can pick from, they get extremely excited and typically take a while to pick out the one that represents them.

After that, it is always different. Some dance while others jump up and down hugging their gift. Others give high fives or run to go get their siblings.”

Button said that the experience of giving the school supplies to children is so won-

derful that he and Vandenberg do their best to portray the feeling to the customer through photos, descriptions of the moment and who the child is.

“It’s the best feeling in the world to give children tools to succeed, and we want the person who bought the bracelet that made it possible to feel it,” Button said.

LOOTB has gained traction both online and offline. The company has been published on multiple blogs, and the website has scores of comments about people being inspired. The couple gets customers from all over the world, including Europe, Australia and other parts of Central America.

The website also caught the attention of Dustin Stiffler, a third-year college student from New York, who was studying abroad in Central America. Stiffler has bought four bracelets from LOOTB and has met Vandenberg and Button.

“I was motivated to purchase bracelets from Quinn and Jon, because during my study-abroad experience, I experienced the poverty that they are helping to alleviate,” Stiffler said in an email. “I learned of the colorful history of Nicaragua, and of the many social issues that exist there. Though it might not be a large amount of help they are providing to the people of Nicaragua, helping to provide children with the tools to expand their education and imagination will hopefully create positive social change on a local level.”

LOOTB also caught the attention of the producers of “House Hunters International” on HGTV. Last summer, they flew to Nicaragua and filmed Vandenberg and Button reenacting their move. Vandenberg said that they don’t know when the show will air yet, but it is currently in post-editing.

Since the online store launched a month and a half ago, LOOTB has sold over 200 bracelets and, therefore, has given school supplies to over 200 children.

“I totally dig Life Out of the Box,” Stiffler said. “I feel that LOOTB is helping to address a major social issue in Nicaragua, as well as creates economic investment in the people and businesses of Nicaragua.”

To learn more about LOOTB, visit their website at www.lifeoutofthebox.com, and to purchase bracelets, visit www.lootb. com.

JOYCE BERTHELSEN can be reached at features@theaggie.org.

Yolo County Animal Shelter offers $5 adoptions Animal shelter promotes adoptions with large discount this month

By NAOMI NISHIHARA Aggie Features Writer

I

f you’ve been missing the family dog or have ever considered kidnapping your neighbor’s cat, now is the time to act. But leave the neighbors alone and visit the Yolo County Animal Shelter instead.

To promote adoption, the Yolo County Animal Shelter in Woodland has significantly lowered its fees. Every Friday through Feb. 17, all adoptions are only $5. Other days of the week, Chihuahuas, pit bulls and mixes of those breeds will be $50, and all other breeds of dogs and all cats and kittens will $90. These fees include spay or neuter surgery, deworming, microchips and vaccinations among other things, and according to Ana McCormick, a fourth-year economics major and volunteer at the shelter, it’s an incredible deal.

Cynthia Delany, the Yolo County Animal Services supervising shelter veterinarian and shelter manager, said that they hope the discount will encourage adoption.

“We’ve seen a decline in our adoption rate, maybe due to the cold weather,” Delany said. “We’re really hoping to get some adopters in to see the great animals we have.”

The animals at the shelter can come from anywhere in Yolo County. Some are strays that people find and call in, though others might be surrendered by their owners.

“People call in and we’ll send an officer out, and hopefully he will be able to get the [animal],” McCormick said.

“The Stray Area is where we keep the animals for 72 hours in hopes that the owner will come and pick them up.”

According to McCormick, if the owner does come, there’s a bit of paperwork and then they’re free to take their pets and go. Some animals might not be picked up by previous owners, however, and still others might even be surrendered.

“Say someone’s home is foreclosed and they can’t have a pet anymore. They might have to bring their animal to the

shelter,” McCormick said. “Or it can be an over-the-counter surrender — let’s say I’m in the park and I see this stray dog running around with no one following it. I wouldn’t know what to do, so I would take the dog to the animal shelter.”

McCormick also stated that while many people’s animals can get loose or lost, there is also a lot of intentional animal dumping.

“Once there was a little dog — she had nail polish on.

She got to the adoption floor, but she had nail polish, so she was someone’s pet,” McCormick said. “A lot of people just dump their animal randomly somewhere and we get a lot of amazing, amazing pets.”

If an animal is not picked up during the 72-hour holding period, an animal behaviorist then assesses it and the animal is spayed or neutered and given all of their shots.

“The $5 Fridays, that’s for the spay and neuter, for the vaccination, for the microchip, which is all so much money. It’s an insane deal,” McCormick said.

If the animals aren’t immediately adopted, they remain at the shelter, though McCormick said that the shelter usually has a very high turnover rate.

“We have lots of wonderful dogs, cats, puppies and kittens ready for adoption, and we’re hoping to get them into their new homes as soon as possible,” Delany said.

As much as these animals need homes, however, there are some things to think about before adopting a pet.

“When someone is considering adopting a pet, it is important to be sure that they are in a position to commit to caring for the animal for its lifetime,” said Angela Kinn, Yolo County Animal Shelter manager. “That means that when you take home a kitten, you need to consider that this cat can live another 18 years.”

Kinn warned that lots of things can change in 18 years, and if students feel at all nervous about the commitment, they shouldn’t adopt. The years of commitment aren’t the only thing to think about, though.

Becca Gimlett, a fourth-year German and linguistics

double major and lead dog volunteer at the shelter, suggested thinking about whether you can afford to support the animal financially, as food and supplies as well as veterinary emergencies can be expensive.

Living situations can be unfriendly to pets in many ways, from landlord pet rules to unwelcoming roommates, and it’s also important to think about time.

“Dogs need to get out several times a day to ‘do their business,’ need daily exercise and need routine, even if it means waking up at 9 a.m. in the morning [when] you really want to sleep in,” Gimlett said. “Cats are also a time commitment, and need daily attention, litter box cleaning, exercise and feeding each day too.”

According to Gimlett, students often have more time than they claim they do, so the better question is whether they have time in the right spots, and whether they’re willing to give it up for many years to come.

“That being said, I do not want to discourage anyone who truly loves animals and would like to help an animal,” Kinn said. “If you can’t commit for the long-term, then foster.”

Fostering a pet allows people to live with and love an animal, but not be responsible for its care over the next decades. The Yolo County SPCA is a foster home-based animal rescue organization that is separate from the Yolo County Animal Services in Woodland, but the SPCA does have an office at the shelter.

All the animals available for adoption can be seen at www.facebook.com/ycas.shelter or www.yolo.petfinder.com. The shelter is located at 2640 Gibson Road in Woodland.

“When you adopt an animal, you become what we call a ‘forever home,’” Gimlett said. “That means you need to be prepared for your new friend to be with you wherever your life takes you.”

NAOMI NISHIHARA can be reached at features@theaggie.org.

You’re probably ten feet from a bin right now.

Recycle the aggie.