What if aliens are just like us? A new approach to the search for extraterrestrial intelligence uses Earth's transmissions as a guide to find signals from other worlds. bit.ly/4fR8tkH

Want to learn more about Santa Monica's hazards and the city's plans to reduce vulnerability? Santa Monica's draft Local Hazard Mitigation Plan is posted for a 30-day public comment period. Learn more at ow.ly/qZJt50WNMOz

nytimes.com/2025/09/01/opi…

L.A. Times: Poll shows widespread agreement on the UC’s value among registered Republican and Democratic voters. newsroom.ucla.edu/stories/califo…

Basic astronomy lesson courtesy of the New York Times nytimes.com/interactive/20…

nytimes.com/2025/09/12/opi…

The Evpatoria radio telescope was used in occasional planetary radar studies, including the detection of asteroid Golevka (Gol-Ev-Ka), named after three radio telescopes. space.com/astronomy/dron…

Science Magazine - NSF held captive sciencemagazinedigital.org/sciencemagazin…

The first week of my class Science in the Movies went well. Lots of fun demos and a few scenes from the movie Gravity to illustrate Newton's laws.

I had the privilege of presenting a brief report on UCLA SETI activities at the annual IAA SETI Committee meeting yesterday, with updates to the search volume values in our paper bit.ly/AJ23

It felt like extortion when federal grants to UCLA were suspended. This NYT opinion piece reinforces the feeling. nytimes.com/2025/10/02/opi…

This unflattering opinion of Brussels is hard to reconcile with my monthlong stays there in 2024 and 2025. nytimes.com/2025/10/02/opi…

Dr. Fred Ramsdell (UCLA PhD 1987) is the ninth UCLA alum to receive a Nobel prize. Eight UCLA faculty have also earned the prize.

This week in Science in the Movies, I showed three scenes from Jon Amiel's The Core (2003) to illustrate planetary interior properties.

We discussed planetary atmospheres and climate change this week in my Science in the Movies class, with an assist from The Day After Tomorrow (2004).

I had a great time on the Search for Life panel sponsored by the UCLA Space Institute yesterday. I described four advantages of the search for technosignatures: cost, search volume, certainty of interpretation, and potential information content. arxiv.org/abs/1903.05544

Requiring an insecure back door to faculty computers is one of the worst ideas at the University of California science.org/content/articl…

Today from 12:00 pm to 5:00 pm, UCLA is hosting its largest science fair for K-12, with nearly 70 interactive science booths staffed by real scientists. Admission is free and open to the public. Map: exploringyouruniverse.ucla.edu/booth-map/

Carl Sagan was born on this day. Reflections on his legacy: theconversation.com/carl-sagans-sc…

This week I am showing several scenes from Interstellar (2014) to introduce relativity to UCLA students in the class EPS SCI 2 Science in the Movies.