Perhaps tired of turning around and finding their lunches being sampled upon by rodents, scientists at UC Davis are test-driving a program that’ll tamp down the rapidly multiplying squirrel population on campus. It’s squirrel birth control! Officials say students and faculty will catch the critters and inject them with hormones, then release them back into the wild, where the squirrels will continue to do as squirrels do, except without the tremendous rates of procreation and the itty-bitty progeny.

Officials also said that there were no squirrels–or no nonnative tree squirrels–seven years ago, but that there are 400 now. According to doctoral students, the squirrels can cause grievous harm to people, chew through orchards of almonds and walnuts, eat baby birds and wreck power supplies by snacking on tasty electrical wires.

We’ve heard horror stories about the squirrels at UCLA, but Davis is different in that it’s got 5,300 acres of attractive habitat. And we think we have it bad here.

Image Source: swafo under Creative Commons
UC Davis: Troublesome, Non-native Squirrels Will Get Birth-control Shots [Physorg]

So maybe becoming an EECS or Math major no longer means choosing an awkward, sexless, and sunshine-deprived existence. In fact, it may just mean you’ll be the one to snag the hot girl at the party, that is, if you, uh, actually go to them.

According to a life-changing new study out of the department of Psychology at UC Davis, women go for more than just good looks (gasp). Apparently, something like survival-of-the-smartest kicks in when a woman meets a man, and she considers how his intelligence level might affect the kind of genes he may pass to their future progeny. read more »

There was once a time when the social stigma of Joe/Jane Schmo in the school marching band hovered somewhere between “geek,” “nerd” and “still ain’t gettin’ any.” Of course, this is also the kid that will go on to become the drummer of the biggest Emo rock band in the Midwest, but that’s beside the point.

We’ve also heard of “sexually active band geeks,” a concept which we suppose was fabricated and then left up to interpretation. And interpret, they did–UC Davis bandsmen are reported to have driven their new band director to the point of filing a sexual harassment complaint with the university. Here’s a condensed list of their raunchiness: read more »

Look again—that’s not a photograph. That’s a Facebook masterpiece created with the graffiti application. We can’t even draw that well on paper. That cat was done with a mouse!

We knew there were gems of pure artistry out there on the ‘book. Don’t you want to look at pretty pictures with us? Trust us, it’s worth a click.

Jay Tang, from UC Davis, is more than a pretty face. Again, he displays a knack for texture and precise color patterns with his tiger:

And hey! Depth of field!

That’s a mighty sweet frog, you might say. We would agree. Tang shares his skill with the graffiti application on his own site. He makes it look all too easy.

Continuing with the nature motif, there’s Chris Hamner. He’s still in high school, but this youngun can hang with the big boys:

We especially like the motion he’s captured with the water. Plus, what isn’t cool about white tigers jumping into water?

He also amazes us with his black and white (and sorta sepia) rendition:

The background leaves much to be desired, but his water droplets in the foreground make up for that. It feels like an old photograph, right?

Jeff Cattie, from Temple University, has the realism down, but a lot of his work also looks like someone Photoshopped a picture, blurred and blended:

He’s smooth in his black and white, letting his style support the subject of this graffiti. His strokes match up with the pattern of the wood, while the blurred effect indicates polish and shine.

Paul Yan, an alumnus of Cogswell Polytechnical College, is seriously talented in both realism and in duplicating other styles, like cartoon art, pastel work and computer-generated imaging.

Maybe we’re obsessed with the liquid effect, but whose mouth doesn’t water at the sight of this brew?

Oh god. We think we just creamed our jeans. The foam took us over the edge.

See? More bubbles!

Actually, it’s the negative space that strengthens this graffiti–it calls attention to the action and, consequently, the art of making that action look believable.

Let’s not forget our own talented golden bear alumnus, Ian Cheng. He gets points for his blue tones, his style and his humor. His pieces look as if they were hastily sketched and colored, with splotches of color that blend well without the actual blending.

Like so:

Just something about the watery animal eyes grabs ahold of our hearts. Repeat after us: aww!

Remember the humor we mentioned? The Clog is easily won, sodomy jokes included. Aww! Adorable!

Hats off to all the artists. We just wasted two hours looking hundreds of graffiti posts, and now you’ve ruined it for the rest of us. We can’t even make a box look realistic.

Graffiti applicaton [Facebook]

We here at the Clog know that other schools exist in the state of California. We actually know that other UC schools exist and sometimes the stuff that happens at the other schools is pretty damn important too, especially if you look at what’s been happening on our streets lately.

So we present to you UC Roundup, a look at what’s going on at the other UC schools.

*First Up…UCLA Says Women Like Muscles*
Researchers at our sister school in Westwood, UCLA, have made it official: Women dig the rock-hard abs.

In a study published in the Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, researchers at UCLA have concluded that women are drawn more to the more muscular men for a one-night stand but look for a “normal” looking man when settling down. So there’s actually hope for guys who look like William Hung?

Yeah, for marriage. But women still prefer the big biceps.

bq. “Women are predisposed to prefer muscularity in men,” said study author David Frederick of UCLA.

That’s great insight, especially for the public school that spends the most money on research of any other in this country.

*UC Davis Professor Tests Our Democracy*
As the country moves toward electronic voting machines, concerns over the security and the rigging of those voting machines come into question. Is our democracy in trouble?

Well, to make sure these machines are safe UC Davis Professor Matt Bishop tested machines made by Sequoia, Diebold and Hart InterCivic that will be used in next February’s California Primary.

How did they do this? They tried to hack into the computers. But it doesn’t sound too exciting.

bq. “That’s really most of our job, sitting at a desk checking software,” he said. Bishop said part of the job is to make mistakes intentionally in an effort to disrupt the machines.

*Cal Isn’t the Only School With Development Problems*
UC Santa Cruz has been planning this new research center for the last 20 years, according the Mercury-News. And it has hit its snags, especially with the environmentalists. Hmm … that sounds kind of familiar.

But the difference with UC Santa Cruz and us here at UC Berkeley is the fact that Santa Cruz is trying to work with those complaining about the university’s plans. And the complainers? They’re trying to work with UC Santa Cruz too. What a novel concept.

Now, if only the city, neighborhood association and the tree-sitters could all work the UC Berkeley and get this whole stadium thing done. Well, is hasn’t really helped UC Santa Cruz that much–it has been planning this thing for the last 20 years.

Women ‘drawn to muscular men’ [news24.com]
California Enlists Higher Ed Hackers To Test Voting Machines [Campus Technology]
UCSC seeks to build on coast [Mercury-News]