World-renowned primate researcher and conservationist Dr. Jane Goodall came to UC Davis Wednesday evening to melt the ice around the human heart. For nearly two hours, Goodall spoke to a crowd of 1,774 about the plight of Earth and its denizens and what the audience members could do to help. Goodall is best known for her groundbreaking work in East Africa researching chimpanzees. She is widely credited with discovering tool-making behavior in chimps, in addition to finding that they are omnivorous.

Jusco. That’s right, the place across from Fuji Chief has a real name. I wish to inform any readers that I actually planned to write this review of Jusco. I did not go to Fuji Chef, see the big line and then decide to go to the sushi place across the street. In fact, as someone who has done that before, I would advise against doing so. Even entertaining the idea of going to Fuji Chef is setting oneself up for disappointment if one is going to end up at Jusco.

080411_sp_baseball.CHeadline: Dempsey’s RBI single in 12th downs No. 10 StanfordLayercake: Aggies open road conference play today in Santa BarbaraBy RAY LINAggie Staff Writer In last season’s “farm vs. farm” battle between the UC Davis and Stanford baseball teams, a little bunt single by outfielder Sean Ratliff helped the Cardinal walk off in 13 innings over […]

TODAY Raptor Center field trip 8:30 a.m. California Raptor Center Join the CRC for a wildlife hike highlighting the raptors of Yolo County! Call 752-9994 to reserve a spot by telephone message. California Indian basket weaving Noon to 1 p.m. 3201 Hart Learn about basket weaving at this Native American Culture Days presentation by Kathy Wallace.

In the Apr. 10 issue of The California Aggie, the article “Decline in African American and Hispanic graduation rates” incorrectly states that the number of graduating African Americans in 2004 dropped 33 percent. In reality, the rate dropped to 33 percent from 38 percent between 1975 and 2004, a difference of 5 percentage points. Similarly, […]

It wasn’t until the tail end of 12th grade that we realized how little our actions mattered. I’d already been accepted to Davis, and nothing outside of my getting arrested for treason was going to dissuade the campus from assimilating me. Cal Poly and Santa Cruz had similar designs on my buddies, leaving us coasting through our last classes – an impressive feat of laziness considering how ably we’d underperformed even beforehand. Once we’d impressed our revelations on our less scholastically-inclined friends, we were home free. To get a mental image, picture the Almighty reaching down and handing us a celestial get-out-of-jail-free card; that’s about what it felt like.

Researchers at UC Davis recently published a study on the short-term “working memory.” Professor of psychology Steven Luck and postdoctoral researcher Weiwei Zhang at the UC Davis Center for Mind and Brain found that adults store a limited number of high resolution images in the “working memory.” The brain uses working memory to piece together sensory information and store it. Instead of storing many fuzzy images, Luck and Zhang found that the working memory stores a fixed number of high resolution images for a few seconds. “The capacity of working memory is so limited, you have to be careful what is stored in working memory,” Luck said. They found that this system of limited storage cuts down on useless information, or visual “noise.” Easily compared to a digital camera, the “working memory” uses up valuable space when saving these high resolution images, but unlike a camera, the visual memory cannot be set to save a greater number of fuzzier images. Zhang designed the experiment used to test the working memory of adults. The researchers showed subjects a pattern of colored squares for one-tenth of a second. The subjects were then asked to click the colors of the squares by clicking on areas of a color wheel. The accuracy of the colors showed the precision of the test subject’s working memory. “High resolution would mean how precise the colors are,” Zhang said.

On Mar. 31, three out of four UC Davis nominees were awarded the prestigious Barry M. Goldwater Scholarships for excellence in the fields of science, mathematics and engineering. Helen Craig, Scott Himmelberger and Alexander Sutherland were three of 18 California residents to be awarded the scholarship. Of the UCs, Davis had the most awarded, with UC Santa Barbara boasting two recipients and UC Berkeley and Santa Cruz trailing behind with one recipient each. “The one- and two-year scholarships cover the cost of tuition, fees, books and room and board up to a maximum of $7,500 per year,” said Gerald Smith, president and a founding member of the institution. “The scholarship is a steppingstone to very prestigious fellowship programs,” Smith said. “Of the approximately 6,000 Goldwater scholar recipients, 67 went on to earn Rhodes scholarships and close to 90 have earned Marshall scholarships,” Smith said. “It is nice to be recognized for all of the effort I have been putting into my studies,” said Himmelberger, a sophomore chemical engineering major.

Event: Rafer Johnson/Jackie Joyner-Kersee Invitational Host: UCLA Where: Drake Stadium – Los Angeles When: Today, Friday and Saturday; all day Who to watch: Senior distance runner Kim Conley will take her record-breaking momentum to Los Angeles after clocking in at a school-record 16:30.22 in the 5,000-meter run at the Stanford Track and Field Invitational on Friday. The previous record of 16:34.87, held by Patty Gray, was established back in 1985. Did you know? UC Davis’ performance at the Stanford Invitational shook up three chapters in the school record books. A day after Conley’s record-setter, junior distance runner Kaitlin Gregg made it into fourth place all-time in the same 5,000-meter run category with a 16:44.15 time. In the relays, the Aggie women went 46.94 in the 4×100 to place fifth on the all-time list. Preview: After a successful record-breaking weekend in Stanford, the Aggies will look to make a mark in Los Angeles this week at the Rafer Johnson/Jackie Joyner-Kersee Invitational.

Elliot Spitzer is an idiot. But not because the former governor of New York paid upwards of $4,000 for two hours of “relaxation therapy” with a 22-year-old failed musician. That makes him a selfish prick. No, Elliot Spitzer is an idiot because he got caught. That said, I don’t think what Mr. Spitzer and Miss Swallows did was inherently wrong. I’ve used a loaded word there: wrong. Right and wrong are brought up in politics far too often for my liking. Rather than evaluate things on their effects, many people simply denote things as right and wrong, entirely disregarding context. But context matters. Is smoking pot right or wrong? Well, is the person in question a doctor on call, a patient on chemotherapy or a kid on a couch with a bag of Funyuns and the complete first season of Aqua Teen Hunger Force? What about paying for sex? Well, is the prostitute safe? Are both people disease free? Does the John have a family? The point is that context determines if an action is good, bad or neutral for those involved. That’s why I don’t buy the whole morality bid; it’s based on the premise that context is irrelevant.

Editor’s note: In the first half of this two-part series about female egg donation, the pros and cons of giving eggs are weighed against each other and the process itself is discussed. The second part of this series, where an individual’s firsthand accounts of going through the procedure are presented, will be in The Aggie next Wednesday. For college students, the “help wanted” section in newspapers screams easy money. Sometimes, the offer is enough to afford a movie, but on rare instances, it can pay for the majority of a year’s worth of college tuition. If you open up Friday’s copy of The California Aggie, there will be a posting that says “compensation $5,000-8,000” for female egg donors. It seems like a pot of gold, but how easily attainable is it?

As most fans of quality television programs know, “The Office” returns to its weekly spot on NBC tonight to resume its fourth season. For Office fanatics like myself, this requires some preparation. Surprisingly, I don’t follow this show religiously just for the priceless puppy face Jim (John Krasinski) makes into the camera after Michael Scott (Steve Carrell) says something outlandish and illogical. The main appeal of this cleverly written sitcom is its ordinary-meets-wtf style of humor, and personally speaking, its quaint similarity to my work life in The Aggie newsroom. There are many ways in which the staff here at this fine student-run publication brings the spirit of “The Office” to our everyday life. White tape clearly shows the boundaries of the “water cooler talk” region, where all the juicy gossip goes down. We have our Jim Halperts, our Angelas (which is played by me on stressful days),but unfortunately, there’s no one over 50 to play the role of Creed. We have yet to hold any office Olympics, and the Dundees are in store for June 2008, but we do hold an ongoing office competition of foosball. They really need to get a foosball table at the Dunder-Mifflin office to add a new competitive and silly pastime to their repertoire. We have two here at The Aggie, and I can assure you they create a very productive work environment, among other things. So as I’ve explained, we here at The Aggie have been patiently waiting it out. Since the writers’ strike, this has been enough for me and my fellow Office-ites, but we all miss weekly unveilings of new episodes. A writer myself, obviously, I understand and am not resentful about the long halt between season four episodes. But I do have some expectations, predictions and hopes that the show’s writers will fulfill as they close out the season: