September 6, 2011 – Mark Kleiman, UCLA professor of public policy, co-authored “Drugs and Drug Policy: What Everyone Needs To Know” with Jonathan P. Caulkins and Angela Hawken.

He stresses a new way of thinking about drugs as neither good nor evil and claims that the drug prevention effort is largely a misinformation campaign. He shares ideas on how to drive down prison populations and reduce violence resulting from drug abuse while reinventing the way people think about drugs. [6:03]

August 29, 2011 – The Rip Tide's release comes four years after Beirut's last full-length album, The Flying Club Cup. The band has a new, slightly more synthesized and pop-centric sound, but is this a development worth listening to? [3:07]

August 22, 2011 – You might be looking at Facebook on your mobile device, but Professor Aydogan Ozcan wants to use your cell phone to look at your cells. Ozcan is a bioengineer who likes to make medical equipment small and affordable. Once, he invented a lenseless microscope (pictured) you could attach to your phone.

Now he's used mobile technology to create a flow cytometer, a device that diagnoses diseases and measures their progress. Most cytometers are enormous and expensive, but Ozcan's machine costs $5 and it's small enough for medical professionals in developing countries to transport to families who don't have access to hospitals.

If you want to learn more about how the flow cytometer works, check out Ozcan’s paper. [2:20]

August 15, 2011 – Watch the Throne is the highly anticipated full-length album from hip-hop superstars Kanye West and Jay-Z. Does it dazzle above and beyond the loftiest expectations "“ the album art itself is dazzling enough "“ or does it fail to impress? Album artwork courtesy of Universal Music Group. [5:45]

July 25, 2011 – New Student Orientation welcomes thousands of students to UCLA over the summer. They are guided by individuals such as counselor and student coordinator Shantel Daniels, a former UCLA student who graduated in the spring. Interacting with new students has shown her what others are capable of, and it’s also helped her learn a bit more about herself. [4:27]

July 10, 2011 – If you thought you had bad neighbors, consider the small towns in Germany that Assistant Professor of Economics Nico Voigtlaender studies. He was coauthor on a recent paper that found the descendants of people who lived in areas that persecuted their Jewish populations during the medieval Black Death were more likely to collaborate with the Nazis 600 years later. [2:17]