Comments and research by UC Davis community members regularly appear in a wide variety of news media outlets. Among the recent citings ...

William Reisen of the Center for Vectorborne Disease Research and wildlife, fish and conservation biology professor Peter Moyle discussed West Nile Virus in separate publications recently. Reisen commented extensively on the role of crows in the spread of the disease in a Nov. 14 Newsday story. "These corvids, crows and bluejays," he said, "can grow more virus than I can grow in a cell culture in the laboratory." In the previous day's San Francisco Chronicle, Moyle, a leading authority on native North American fish species, contributed to a story on larvae-eating fish that can keep mosquitoes with West Nile at bay. …

Another professor in wildlife, fish and conservation biology, Dirk Van Vuren, was quoted on human evolution in the Nov. 16 Boston Globe. Commenting on the evolutionary implications of a recent discovery of 3-foot-tall hominids on an Indonesian island, Van Vuren said, "We always think we're a special case, but humans follow the same rules."…

In the same Boston Globe edition, Richard Kravitz of the medical center was cited in a story advising the public how to interpret drug advertisements. Kravitz, director of primary care research, said a common ad claim is, "There is no treatment more effective than drug X." But, he said, "that may be true because nobody has looked."…

Agricultural economist Phil Martin appeared in the Nov. 13 Los Angeles Times in an article about medium-sized fruit farms declining. The farms are too large to survive by only selling to independent grocers, but too small to compete with foreign competition. "If you are in the middle, you are going to get squeezed," Martin said. …

Again in the Los Angeles Times, three days later, psychology professor John Capitanio was cited in a piece examining whether animals show emotions. Capitanio, also associate director for research at the California National Primate Research Center, stressed how little is certain in the study of animal emotion. "When we see a chimp cuddling its infant," he said, "we don't know if its internal feeling state is the same as what humans feel when they embrace their children."…

Electrophysiologist Kathy Glatter appeared in an article regarding the dangers of stun guns written by the Associated Press on Nov. 13. Glatter, who works at the medical center, suggested the combination of certain medicines and a taser gun could be lethal to the wrong person. "There's really almost no medical research examining this issue," she said. The article appeared after two Sacramento men taking medications were killed by stun guns. …

In another Associated Press story appearing on the same day, Professor Emeritus of Political Science Ed Costantini commented on California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's work on the state's budget deficit. Costantini said the governor has restored the public's confidence in the government, "but when it comes to the budget, it's really a lot of smoke and mirrors. … When the history books are written, some will write that he really missed an opportunity to come to grips with our budget problems."…

Meanwhile, anthropology professor Henry McHenry commented on a study on human evolution in the Nov. 18 Baltimore Sun. The study, published in Nature, suggested that long-distance running was a major contributing factor to setting humans apart evolutionally. "Now they have laid it all out, it seems so obvious," McHenry said. …

Donald Klingborg, associate dean of the School of Veterinary Medicine, was quoted in a story about shopping online for pet medications in the Nov. 23 Wall Street Journal. The article noted that many medicines can be found for much cheaper prices online, but Klingborg pointed out that some internet businesses have been scrutinized for selling medications without a veterinarian's prescription or distributing drugs that aren't U.S.-approved. …

A study co-authored by Giovanni Peri of the economics department was cited in the Nov. 22 Gazette in Canada. The story discussed the opportunity Canada has to capitalize on declining American immigration. Peri's study, which was published by the National Bureau of Economic Research, found that natural citizens actually benefit from immigration. ...

Graduate School of Management professor Brad Barber's study on stock market pessimism was covered in the Nov. 14 Seattle Times. Barber and colleagues classified firms as either optimistic or pessimistic based on "buy" and "sell" ratings and found that those with the smallest percentage of "buy" recommendations performed the best.

-- By Mike Sintetos