U. California-Berkeley has found itself in the center of a genetics war after it announced last week that its “On the Same Page” program would be asking many incoming freshmen to submit DNA samples for testing.

Organizations such as the Berkeley-based Center for Genetics and Society are concerned that researchers could begin to utilize students’ DNA samples without properly consulting them ahead of time, saying there is serious potential for misuse or abuse as the tests contain untapped valuable genetic information.

However, the campus College of Letters and Science, which conducts the “On the Same Page” program, has said the project is only meant to create a dialogue among students about changing health care technology and once the DNA has been analyzed, all samples will be destroyed.

Jesse Reynolds, project director on biotechnology accountability at the center, said that direct-to-consumer genetic testing has been controversial since its debut in fall 2007. There is concern about how the project’s information will be obtained and how consumers such as incoming freshmen would be able to properly understand the information gene tests can provide, he said.

“There is an imbalance of information and power here,” he said. “In general, the young men and women who come to Cal place a great amount of respect and trust in the institution. I think this might amount to an abuse of that. There is a great deal of concern about the fate of the samples and data. Unplanned things can happen.”

The college will be sending individualized genetic testing kits to freshmen students who choose to participate in the project.

The college has emphasized that total anonymity will be used in conducting this project. Students’ names are not released, and students are only given a barcode with their test kit that they can later use to match their DNA results.

For students who are under age 18, the student and their parent must sign a consent form allowing the student to participate in the program.

Mark Schlissel, campus dean of biological sciences, said the two barcode stickers that the students are given have completely random numbers, ensuring anonymity on behalf of the student.

“It almost doesn’t matter if it sends a controversial message,” he said “This is meant to provoke discussion about a new medical technology that will have an impact in health care technology, and we want students to join us in discussing issues that will become more prevalent in this new age of health care.”

The project will test for three genetic markers in a student’s DNA – the ability to digest lactose, the retention of folic acid and the digestive rate of alcohol.

Though no lab has been selected to conduct the DNA analyses, Schlissel said the college has sent out bids to a number of commercial DNA testing labs. Each lab is equipped to conduct the DNA tests, and he said the college is hoping they will find a lab that offers the best price with the highest quality of performance.

Incoming freshman Eugene Lau from Oakland said he is not concerned with privacy because the project is geared toward research.

“Honestly, I feel that people are overreacting with this situation, but then again, I’m from a generation where handing out information isn’t as big of a deal as it has been in the past,” he said. “I’m already 18, so this is my decision as to whether or not I participate, and I’m not too concerned with my genetic privacy.”

On Sunday afternoon, 710 members of the Washington U. Class of 2010 gathered in the Field House of the Athletic Complex, just like they will at Thursday and Friday’s graduation ceremonies. But instead of receiving diplomas, they received massages—and a place in the Guinness Book of World Records.

The senior class will now hold the Guinness record for the world’s longest human massage chain. The previous record, set in Halifax, Nova Scotia, in 2001, involved 617 people.

The Senior Class Council organized the event in an effort to unite the senior class for a final, lighthearted accomplishment. “We thought breaking a world record would be a fun and interactive way to bring everyone together,”  Senior Class President Fernando Cutz said.

Guinness requires that the massage chain last for 3 minutes, and Cutz counted down the minutes with a megaphone. A Guinness photographer was on hand to document the massage, and 15 independent community members served as judges.

According to Cutz, the Senior Class Council considered other record-breaking possibilities before deciding on a massage chain.

“Originally we were going to do one where we would put Mentos inside Coke bottles and explode them, but we decided that wasn’t interactive enough. We thought [a massage chain] would be a more fun, more interactive thing to do,” Cutz said.

Chancellor Mark Wrighton, who was present to participate in the massage chain, credits the Class of 2010 for the event’s success.

“I think this has been one of the more organized, more enthusiastic classes in terms of school spirit, and it’s been fabulous to see that enthusiasm at our University,” he said.

This isn’t the first record-breaking attempt that Wrighton has seen from his students: In 2005, 926 members of the incoming freshman class gathered to play the world’s largest game of Simon Says.

But Wrighton was enthusiastic about the Senior Class Council’s particular choice of record.

“It’s relaxing!” he said.

Cutz said that he hopes the record-breaking event will be something that this year’s senior class can remember after Wash. U.

“It will be very cool to pick up the Guinness Book of World Records and find our name in there as the Class of 2010.”

Six trillion dollars.

That’s what the global financial crisis cost the U.S. government, according to Simon Johnson, the ex-chief economist of the International Monetary Fund.

Johnson, described by Northwestern U. economics Prof. Mark Witte in an e-mail as “the Simon Cowell of economics,” lambasted bankers, regulators and politicians in his lecture at Northwestern on Thursday evening.

Johnson estimated that U.S. government debt doubled from 40 percent to 80 percent of gross domestic product “directly as a result of the actions of big banks” and added the debt burden will eventually fall upon taxpayers.

“How is it that we could build a financial sector that could melt down, but not fix it?” Johnson said.

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor blamed the financial crash on inadequate regulation, which he said became more lax since the passing of deregulation bills beginning in the early 1980s.

“This is not a conspiracy,” Johnson said. “The heart of what we built is an ideology: ‘Finance is good, unregulated finance is better.’”

Even as the banks escaped the restraints placed on them by government regulation, Johnson said they held on to the implicit government guarantee of their debts because they were ‘too big to fail.’ As a result, “these banks have every incentive to take risks.”

“They have the upside of bigger profits and paychecks, and the downside belongs to you, the taxpayer,” he said.

Johnson paraphrased JPMorgan Chase & Co. CEO Jamie Dimon as saying 2009 was the banking giant’s best year ever. However, Johnson contested that claim and said though 2009 was a record year on Wall Street for compensation, the banks did not have their best year.

“They were saved by the taxpayer,” Johnson said. “They were saved by you.”

Johnson called himself a “moderate” in contrast to those demanding even more stringent regulations and those calling for no reform at all. He proposed limits on the size of the largest banks and controls on their leverage, two themes that struck a chord with Dick Dooley, an Evanston resident.

“He nailed it by saying ‘break up these institutions that are too big to fail,’” Dooley said.

Even as he fired away harsh criticisms at banks, Johnson also drew laughs from the audience with lines such as, “I like bankers. No wait, I take that back,” and his description of the “3-6-3” banking that dominated the industry between the Great Depression and the wave of financial deregulation in the 1980s.

“You pay depositors 3 percent, you lend at 6 percent, and you leave at 3 p.m. to go play golf,” Johnson said.

In contrast, today’s deregulated banks provide much more opportunity for profit and incentive to dodge the rules, Johnson said.

Dooley said he thought regulations are important because “the largest element that complicates today’s problems is greed,” an affliction that’s “as old as time.”

Northwestern junior Joe Spanier said though he plans to become a hedge fund manager, he thought Johnson was correct in pushing for greater regulation.

“At the end of the day, I feel like (hedge fund managers are) clearly there to take other people’s money,” he said. “In that sense I favor regulation so you put your money where your mouth is. … If you’re an honest hedge fund manager, I don’t see how regulations are going to hurt you.”

Though Johnson railed on deregulation, he did admit that Republicans, who have often fought for deregulation, have been correct about at least one thing.

“I say to some of my Republican friends—and I still have a few of those—that they were right about Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac,” Johnson said, referring to the two government-backed mortgage giants that were taken over by the government in 2008. Johnson warned that Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase & Co. and other big banks are now the new receivers of implicit government backing and ended his speech with a lesson from one of America’s founding fathers.

“Thomas Jefferson warned at the beginning of the American republic about the dangers of a financial aristocracy,” Johnson said. “He was right.”

Just like the epic campuswide Sun God Festival of yesteryear, the weekend exodus of U. California-San Diego students over the U.S.-Mexico border is stuff of the past. Party busses crammed with scantily clad underagers — leaving all academic anxieties, inhibitions and dignity behind — would shuttle them 30 minutes south of campus every Friday and Saturday night.

Before the U.S. began requiring passports to come back over the border in 2008, and drug-war deaths started to rise around the same time, undergraduate students and members of the U.S. Navy were lured south by the musky myth of Tijuana: dance floors sardined with sweaty, bare-bodied coeds; an endless flow of cheap liquor and greasy street food; illicit substances and wet T-shirt contests; smoke machines, sticky bar counters, tequila shots, stripper poles, tequila shots, foam parties, tequila shots and the rare foray away from Avenida Revolucion to Zona Norte — TJ’s red-light district.

Shuttling students to and fro was infamous club promoter Ray Ramirez — better known as “Hollywood Ray.” His fleet of limobuses departed almost every weekend from college campuses in the San Diego area, delivering busloads of under-21ers to TJ’s main strip of clubs and Rosarito — a popular spring-break destination one half-hour below the border. According to Hollywood, his busses would shuttle upward of 3,000 students to Mexico on any given weekend.

“In Mexico, you can almost do whatever you want, and you’re safe,” Hollywood said. “You can black out, you can dance up on the table, you can do body shots, you can make mistakes — so that by the time you turn 21 and you’re going to bars in America, you already have all this experience, and you’re street-smart. You’re good to go. You’re not throwing up and passing out — you should’ve already done that shit in Mexico.”

Until recently, Hollywood’s limobus business was able to trumpet convenience and safety as a selling point. His busses went straight to Safari Nightclub (which Hollywood partially owns) in Tijuana or Papas and Beer in Rosarito, where his customers were granted free entry and unlimited alcohol. To maintain a reliable reputation, he said he personally made sure that each student who left San Diego on one of his busses returned safe and sound.

However, according to Hollywood, the new passport law — passed in January 2008, and requiring all those entering the U.S. to show their passports at the border — along with a spike in drug-related violence forced him to halt his weekly trips to Mexico after 2008’s spring-break season.

Since Mexican President Felipe Calderon declared war on the country’s drug cartels in December 2006 and deployed about 50,000 troops, violence in the country has risen dramatically. The University of San Diego’s Trans-Border Institute estimated that about 22,700 deaths have occurred in Mexico since January 2007.

The U.S. Department of State’s most recent travel warning for Mexico — issued May 6, 2010 — declared that “the security situation poses serious risks for U.S. citizens.” In addition, a January 14, 2010 Warden Message issued by the U.S. Consulate General in Tijuana recommended a list of “actions to take if caught in the middle of a gunfight/gunfire,” implying that travelers might run into one such situation.

However, according to Hollywood’s, reports of gruesome drug-related border crimes have been exaggerated by the media, scaring American tourists away for no good reason.

“It’s not a war,” Hollywood said. “There’s no shooting or bombs. It’s all bullshit. I go to Mexico all the time and it’s safe. It’s no more dangerous than other major cities in America.”

Joseph Sabet, a UCSD graduate student in electrical engineering, said that Mexico’s recent swell of violence — along with the passing of his own 21st birthday — discouraged him from partying south of the border, like he did when he was an undergraduate.

“It’s dirty and sketch, but perfect if you’re under 21,” Sabet said. “I wouldn’t go now, though — it’s too dangerous. My sister’s roommate’s ex-boyfriend went with a group, and one of them got mugged by some gang and beat up by the cops within an hour.”

Revelle College senior David Lee, on the other hand, doesn’t buy the friend-of-a-friend horror stories. He said he still visits Tijuana or Rosarito at least once a quarter.

“You just have to be smart about it,” Lee said. “Go with a group and stay in the well-known tourist areas. Don’t bring any valuables and don’t do anything stupid. It’s just common sense.”

All hearsay aside, Public Affairs Officer for the U.S. Consulate General in Tijuana Joseph Crook said in an e-mail that the Consulate advises travelers to be educated when crossing the border. According to Crook, students should phone friends back home regularly, avoid unruly behavior and only use official “sitio” taxis.

The U.S. State Department’s website states that U.S. citizens aren’t usually targeted in Mexico’s drug-related crimes, and that a vast majority of the 100,000-odd U.S. students who head south every year for spring break return home safely.

According to a May 7, 2010 article in the Los Angeles Times, ever since the January arrest of Teodoro Garcia Simental — a major drug trafficker and crime boss — the violence tainting Tijuana has waned significantly.

However, an official travel warning is still in place — especially along the U.S.-Mexico border, home to key drug-trafficking sites like the notorious Cuidad Juarez, where three times as many people have been killed than anywhere else in the country.

Juarez, located across the Rio Grande river from El Paso, Texas, made national headlines two months ago when three individuals linked to the U.S. Consulate were gunned down by members of a drug gang. Incidents like these, coupled with last year’s H1N1 flu outbreak, have weakened many students’ will to party below the border. The sparse dance floors and empty seats of the once-boisterous Avenida Revolucion is a testament to the college population’s new hesitation.

“I have bartenders and waiters who can hardly feed their families,” Hollywood said. “It keeps me up at night.”

Hollywood said he is one among many hoping to revive Tijuana’s tourism industry, which has suffered in all areas — from his own busses and nightclub to the roving tequila men with damp towels, whistles and bottles of room-temperature Jose Cuervo, poised and eager to force a shot down your throat for a buck or two. Even the street vendors working the border traffic have taken a hit.

Since he halted his weekly TJ party-bus business, Hollywood has started a similar party-bus operation in Hawaii, and continues to promote clubs and events throughout San Diego. He even provided the limobuses for Phi Gamma Delta’s FIJI Islander event on April 1, 2010 and Mission Beach’s Floatopia on May 8, 2010.

And Hollywood hasn’t put a complete hold on his SD-TJ shuttle service. The operation has merely become seasonal, now starting around spring break and even beginning to boom through the summer months. However, instead of American college students — who are largely wary of travel to Mexico — Hollywood said the majority of his clients are Irish college students visiting San Diego for the summer.

“I love them and they love me,” Hollywood said. “These guys are just down to do whatever. They’re just so fun and worry-free, and all about having a good time. And damn — if I drank as much as them, I would die. We have to get extra alcohol if we have open bar, because they just want to keep going. They will go until like 10 a.m. They will go to the next day — it’s out of control.”

As summer approaches, Hollywood is gearing up for the arrival of the Irish. He’s planning weekly limobus trips to Tijuana on Wednesdays, and Rosarito on Sundays. He has a team of college reps in Ireland promoting his events, and said he expects this year’s batch of students to top that of the last few years.

In the end, though, Hollywood said his biggest priority is motivating San Diego college students to start visiting Mexico again.

“I’m gonna straighten this whole mess out, and don’t be surprised if I do,” he said. “I’m going to make it easier for everyone to go back to Mexico soon — people are going to get sick of all this shit.”

After nearly a year in the lab, U. California-San Diego researchers have scientifically proven the obvious: People eat more chocolate when they’re depressed.

In 1999, Natalie Rose — a UCSD undergraduate at the time — worked with researchers on a study that concluded that there is no correlation between certain foods and depression — with the exception of chocolate.

Nearly a decade later, Rose, now a gynecology resident at U. California-Davis, decided to head a joint UCSD-UC Davis study to pinpoint how many serving of chocolate correlated to varying levels of depression.

“We were motivated by the fact that there is huge amount of lore linking chocolate to mood, with virtually no scientific evidence backing that up,” UCSD associate professor of medicine and co-director of the study Beatrice Golomb said.

Just over 1,000 people over the age of 20 living in the San Diego area participated in the new study, which took place over eight months in 2009. They completed surveys on their chocolate intake — with no distinction between types of chocolate — and a questionnaire that included more general questions about food habits and moods.

Participants were also screened to ensure they were free of such afflictions as diabetes and heart disease to ensure that they could remain in the study for the full eight months.

Researchers compared the servings of chocolate consumed per month by those with and without signs of depression.

The experiment showed that people with high occurrences of depression — as determined by their answers to the questionnaire — consumed about 12 servings of chocolate per month, while those who were generally less depressed ate about eight servings of chocolate per month. Those with no signs of depression ate only five servings of chocolate per month. (One serving of chocolate is approximately 1.3 oz, or the size of a regular Hershey’s bar.)

Results also showed that participants who tended toward depression did not demonstrate a higher intake of other traditional comfort foods — those high in fat, carbohydrates, protein or caffeine.

In conclusion, Golomb said, the most recent study showed that only chocolate consumption — not that of any other food — is increased when depression levels are higher. The results did not show whether chocolate actually makes people happier, more depressed or has no effect at all. However, Golomb said that researchers may soon launch a new study to determine these specifics.

“We have become sufficiently interested,” Golomb said. “We are considering doing a randomized trial that would elucidate the relationship between chocolate and mood, to see if it is a causal relationship.”

Relationships have always been hard, but nowadays one must navigate the treacherous waters of “social networking” in addition to the other commonplace relationship issues.

Our generation has been plagued by several sources of Internet interference (i.e., Facebook and Twitter) that not only pillage us of our time but can also hinder our ability to have meaningful relationships.

Some of you saw this coming citing the “MySpace” days when not having your significant other in your “Top 8” could call the whole bond into question. These days, a Facebook “wall post” or Twitter “DM” from that high school fling can ruffle the feathers of trust between a couple. Questions of transparency arise regarding ones cyber alter ego and its place within the realm of reality.

We may try to keep these Internet extensions of ourselves so separate from reality that we neglect how dicey they can become when critiqued by the eyes of those we care about. Any seemingly flirtatious comment, or not changing that status from “Single” to “In a relationship” can be social suicide.

We put the proverbial gun to our own heads when we approach relationships backwards and try to build trust and communication online, instead of creating one the old fasion way. Social networking sites may actually contribute to this foundational relationship faux pas as well.

Flirtation via Facebook chat, Tweet or even text does not build the connection required to sustain a relationship. Communication in person is necessary to reach that level.

People are so often disappointed when a relationship flourishes online, only to fizzle out when actual conversation is required. But in reality this should not come as a surprise. People are not the same online as in person; they do not have minutes or hours to think up a clever, witty response.

If a relationship is altered for the worse when its participants meet and converse face to face, you know they did not have a chance to begin with. We cannot expect to really know someone when our interactions are filtered through the distorted mediums of Internet and cell phones.

If social networking has tested the trust in our relationships, shame on us. Relationships have always been hard, yet the factors for maintaining a successful one remain both crucial and elementary.

Trust and communication create a sense of security between two people that should be unique and able to withstand the callow arenas of Facebook and Twitter.

If you are easily shaken by the wall comments or direct Tweet of some other girl or guy on your significant other’s page, perhaps you should consider being single, or at least examining your self-esteem.

Our generation should never have to worry about the problems caused by social networking sites. Distractions will continue to come and test our bonds and change our lives, but we must be able to addapt. These should be remedial tests that we pass with flying colors by relying on the fundamentals of partnership.

I’m not trying to offer a solution as much as point out that, if we stay true to basic principles and focus on the core of our relationships, social networking shouldn’t be an issue.

– Anthony Toney is a Santa Clara U. junior.

The Vietnam War. Medical marijuana. O.J. Simpson. Almost everyone has a heated opinion on each of these topics. But those same people may be surprised to hear that a professor at Santa Clara U. has been involved in legal cases concerning all three.

Law professor Gerald Uelmen served on O.J. Simpson’s defense team, fought for the legalization of medical marijuana, worked to reduce the number of innocent people sentenced to death, and prepared Daniel Ellsberg – the man who leaked the classified Pentagon Papers and further stymied President Nixon’s war efforts in Vietnam – for cross-examination. And yet, with so many prominent cases under his belt, Uelmen remains quietly and inconspicuously at Santa Clara, where he has taught for the past 24 years.

Uelmen was first inspired to practice law when he was in high school. He was influenced by the work of Clarence Darrow, best known as a defense lawyer in the Scopes Monkey Trial and famously fictionalized in the movie “Inherit the Wind.”

Uelman attended Georgetown Law School–another Jesuit institution–where he met his wife, a nursing student who later became a lawyer herself. He traveled across the country to work as a federal prosecutor in Los Angeles, where he took part in his first monumental case. Ellsberg was set to be tried in the federal court in Los Angeles, and Uelmen ended up prepping him for the cross-examination he would receive from his former boss in the federal prosecution department.

It was also around this time that Uelmen began teaching at Loyola Marymount U. (1970-1986). “I’ve always wanted to have a foot in the courtroom and a foot in the classroom,” he said.

That “foot in the classroom” eventually led him to Santa Clara, where he was invited to serve as Dean of the Law school in 1986, a position he would hold for the next eight years. When asked why he chose Santa Clara in the first place, Uelmen described the law school as terrific and praised the faculty and setting.

He also cited Santa Clara’s strong presence in the international law arena and its global reputation, which allows him to travel and take students around the world. In one such trip, Uelmen takes groups of students to The Hague in the Netherlands, where they observe trials in the International Criminal Court and International Court of Justice. He said that many Santa Clara alums are now involved in prosecuting cases in that court.

Uelmen also served on the defense team for Christian Brando, son of Marlon Brando, in a manslaughter trial in 1990 after writing much of the literature on an initiative that would be newly applied in that case. His work there gained him a strong relationship with Bob Shapiro, who would later make Uelmen one of the first people he called to serve on the defense team for the most recent “Trial of the Century,” the O.J. Simpson murder trial.

Uelmen called the timing of the O.J. case “perfect” because he was already planning to resign his deanship and take a sabbatical from teaching at Santa Clara. Over the course of the trial, Uelmen wrote many of the defense briefs handed to the judge while specifically arguing pre-trial motions to suppress certain pieces of evidence. He did not work on the trial in a manner similar to Johnnie Cochran, but instead worked mostly behind the scenes. In fact, Uelmen never actually argued to the jury in the Simpson case, and said that he didn’t think they even knew he was there; however, his role writing defense briefs and working with the rest of the “Dream Team” was still pivotal to the case.

Despite all of these high profile cases, Uelmen said that his motivation was not one of an attraction to fame or fortune. Instead, he mentioned the chance to work with a group of very good lawyers and his interest in the issues of the trial. The case did have its drawbacks, however, as Uelmen’s wife disliked the notoriety and the work was so demanding he was forced to shut out almost everything else.

Professor Uelmen also incorporates the O.J. trial into his classroom environment. He chuckled when it was mentioned that his old students used to hold a betting pool around on how long it would take him to first mention the O.J. trial, but he replied that the very public trial covered so many aspects of law that it was a good teaching tool.

When asked about which case he was proudest of, Uelmen again showed that his primary motivation was issue-based and rooted in a will to help others. He cited his work defending Gordon Castillo Hall, a 16-year-old boy convicted of murder in a drive-by shooting. Uelmen was convinced of Hall’s innocence, calling it a case of mistaken identification, and succeeded in getting the guilty verdict thrown out.

In recent years, Uelmen has also argued for the legalization of medical marijuana, saying that, as a medicinal drug, “it should be treated like any other medicine.” However, he disagrees with the legalization of it as a recreational drug, fearing the creation of another class of addicts to add to the millions of alcoholics and tobacco smokers.

Uelmen also served for four intense years on the California Commission on the Fair Administration of Justice.

The commission studied death penalty laws and issued recommendations to cut down on the number of incorrect convictions, which often result from mistaken eyewitnesses, false confessions or bad science, among other things.

Aside from his work in the classroom and the courtroom, Uelmen also has an eclectic history. He has released a book on the O.J. case (“Lessons from the Trial: The People vs. O.J. Simpson”) as well as textbooks used in classrooms.

His collaboration with other lawyers on two compendiums of amusing and interesting excerpts from actual cases, entitled “Disorderly Conduct” and “Supreme Folly,” betrays Uelmen’s more humorous side. He was also very proud to speak about his “wonderful” family, his wife and three grown children – one of whom has become a lawyer herself – and his two grandsons Oliver and Thomas, who Uelmen called “the light of my life.”

Besides the law school’s glowing reputation, one still may wonder why a lawyer with such a clearly prominent background would choose a small Jesuit school in Santa Clara, instead of one of the more famous Ivy League schools or our cardinal-colored neighbors to the north. But Uelmen cited the freedom of Santa Clara as a key reason he has stayed for so long. “Teaching…provides the freedom to pursue scholarly interests and pro bono work, if you’re interested. You can pursue your own agenda.” He continued praising the university, saying that “I don’t want to retire; I really enjoy teaching.”

But the biggest reason that Uelmen wishes to remain a professor here at Santa Clara is similar to the reasons many students, faculty and staff choose to stay. When I asked him why he wasn’t inclined to retire, he smiled before responding: “I love this place.”