News Briefs

Dukakis to speak at UC Berkeley

Michael Dukakis is heading north.

Dukakis, the former presidential candidate and current part-time
UCLA professor, who is acting chair of Amtrak’s board of
directors, will visit the University of California, Berkeley, on
Friday to talk about “High-Speed Rail: The Critical
Link.”

The guest of UC Berkeley’s Institute of Urban &
Regional Development and University of California Transportation
Center, Dukakis will hold a seminar about a first-class, high-speed
rail network that he says is the answer to the United States’
transportation crisis.

His talk follows on the heels of an announcement by Amtrak that
it needs $1.2 billion in federal funds for fiscal year 2003 or the
national passenger railroad may cut long-distance train service
next fall. Dukakis has stumped for increased funding and public
support for Amtrak and high-speed rail.

Archaeologists find trade route

The road to civilization may be the same as the road to riches,
suggest findings from a UCLA archaeological team active in the
Peruvian highlands.

Over the past 15 years, the team led by UCLA archaeologist
Charles Stanish has uncovered a circuit of almost 100 pre-Inca
settlements, some dating back more than 4,000 years, along a trade
route that is still used today for commercial purposes.

“These settlements reveal the role of trade in the origins
of civilization in this part of the world, perhaps elsewhere as
well,” said Stanish, a professor in UCLA’s anthropology
department and the director of the Cotsen Institute of Archaeology
at UCLA.

UCLA combats heart disease

A UCLA researcher has made a discovery that may help menopausal
women avoid heart disease.

A new study appearing in the Jan. 29 issue of Circulation:
Journal of the American Heart Association shows that use of hormone
replacement therapy (HRT) in postmenopausal women with no coronary
risk factors improves blood flow to the heart and may be helpful in
preventing heart disease, the leading cause of death in menopausal
women in the United States.

Drs. Roxana Campisi, Lauren Nathan, Gautam Chaudhuri and Heinz
Schelbert from the departments of molecular and medical
pharmacology and obstetrics and gynecology, and other colleagues
from the UCLA School of Medicine, studied blood flow at rest and
during stress to the heart in 54 postmenopausal women, 31 of whom
were taking HRT, and in 12 young healthy women who served as
controls.

Reports from Daily Bruin wire services.