Massachusetts Institute of Technology

UCLA A Top 8 University, According To Times Higher Education World Ranking

UCLA is the eighth best university in the world, according to the latest Times Higher Education World Reputation Rankings. That's even better than last year's 13th place for the publication's World University Rankings, in which Caltech came in at No. 1. The latest showing for the Westwood campus .. ... More >>

L.A. Traffic Relief Possible If We Targeted Specific Neighborhoods, Says GPS Data

Remember car pooling, flexible work schedules and "telecommuting." Yeah, none of that worked as far as our traffic goes. L.A. still has the worst congestion in the nation. Will anything bring relief? Researchers at UC Berkeley and MIT think they might have come up with something:

Five Artsy Things to Do This Week, Including Ceiling Fan Sculptures

This week, a painter takes on the weirdness of Bakersfield, an artist sends pictures made to last billions of years into orbit and an artist's biographer talks about why her subject is still being censored two decades after his death. 5. Whited-out activism The prints from Juan Capistran's new sho ... More >>

Bobak Ferdowsi: Meet The NASA Curiosity Mission's 'Mohawk Guy'

As live shots of Mars rover Curiosity's Pasadena-area control room went viral, America was in awe ... over one guy's mohawk or, maybe, fauxhawk, depending on your point of view. Yes, as NASA and Jet Propulsion Laboratory celebrated the unprecedented move of setting a car-sized rover on the red plan ... More >>

Dating Survey: Rich Guys More Likely to Take a Bullet for You at Dark Knight Screening

A new survey was released today by the same whorish online-dating empire that recently let us know which U.S. city has the most sugar daddies (not L.A., weirdly). The new numbers again involve income/generosity. (And that's really the point behind all Brandon Wade's dating sites: accepting that du ... More >>

LAX Could be America's Next Top Disease Magnet

Ah, beautiful L.A., home of beaches and billionaires and Playboy bunnies. And now we are a top American gateway ... for disease. Wonderful. New research from MIT says that LAX and New York's John F Kennedy would be ground zeroes for outbreaks, such as the next ...

MIT Scientists Create Nonstick Ketchup Bottles

What a time to be alive: It appears that the reign of terror caused by stubborn condiments is finally over. Soon we might no longer have to struggle pounding on a bottle of Heinz and waiting for a dollop of ketchup to come out, all thanks to six MIT researchers who claim they've solved the problem ... More >>

Taking Physics Class 
with Professor GZA

[Editor's note: Weekly scribe Jeff Weiss's column, "Bizarre Ride," appears on West Coast Sound every Wednesday. His archives are available here.] See also: Our review of Wu-Tang Clan's January 21, 2012 show at Club Nokia The Wu-Tang Clan once said if we picked up their double album, Wu-Tang Foreve ... More >>

Torpedoed Science

Take Me Home Tonight

Valley State Sen. Alex Padilla 'Looking At' L.A. Mayor's Gig In 2013

Mayor Alex? Maybe.​Looks like state Sen. Alex Padilla is throwing his hat into the ring as L.A.'s mayoral race for 2013 begins to awaken. Already rumored to be interested in the gig are City Council President Eric Garcetti, Grove shopping center developer Rick Caruso, county Supervisor Zev Yar ... More >>

Hey Santa Monica College, LACC, Pierce College, Pasadena City College: Students Can Transfer To Cal State Without Getting Screwed On Credits Under New Law By Sen. Padilla

Santa Monica College​Besides the cost of car insurance, realizing you're probably not going to get that Ferrari by age 30, and having to wait in line to get into clubs, you know what really sucks about being young? Going to a California community college for a couple years only to have to start ov ... More >>

Flying Car Almost Ready For Your Weekday Commute In Los Angeles

​The solution to Los Angeles traffic congestion: flying cars. The Federal Aviation Administration recently approved plans to move ahead with developing a highway-worthy airplane, according to CNN. The aircraft, called "The Transition", was created by Massachusetts-based company, Terrafugia. ... More >>

After 15 Years in Peruvian Prison, US. Citizen Wishes To Become Pastry Chef

Izquierdo/AP/APLori Berenson in 2001​Lori Berenson, a U.S. citizen, was sent to prison in Peru 15 years ago for aiding a leftist revolutionary group during a contentious time in the country's history. After serving three quarters of her 20 year sentence, she has been released on probation. Now ... More >>

Maja Mataric: Who's Your Robot?

LA People 2009: Financial Field-Leveler — Berdell Knowles

L.A's Hidden Housing Disaster

Massive rebuilding and the ownership bubble quietly wiped out 13,713 cheap rentals

Time Warp's Cool Science: What Mentos Wrought

Discovery Channel gives dude-friendly experiments the slo-mo treatment

21: Counting Sheep

Adaptation of Ben Mezrich's Bringing Down the House doesn't hit the jackpot

War Haters, Tastemakers and Kightlingers

What to do in L.A., March 14-20

Screening of 21

Altered States: Stan VanDerBeek

Consciousness-expanding cinema

the Next Machine Age

Wide Angle II: Death and the Powers

Quadruple X

Four-wheelers do it just as fast

The Net

Sock Sorter

W. Daniel Hillis

Urban Agent

James Rojas

Tripping Quincy Jones . . . and Other Scenes From EG 2006

Better Mileage On Ice

Why refrigerators are more efficient than cars

The Imageers

Science shows its (new) visual side

Huggy Shirts

Revenge of the NSW

Why we love to hate Plum Sykes

Revenge of the NSW

Why we love to hate Plum Sykes

East Coast–West Coast Rap

New mag hopes to connect literary New York and Los Angeles

University of Fear

How the Department of Homeland Security is becoming a big man on campus

Watching the Detectives

With Big Brother getting bigger, the nerds battle back

Fast Forward

The Horror, the Horror,

Before American Movie, before Blair Witch, there was Demon Lover Diary

Playtime

Turntablin’

Scratch takes its beats beyond the bling-bling

Left With Hope

Some un-American thoughts from Brazil on global Justice

Formal Wear and Tear

Liz Larner and E Chen

Who She Took With Her

. . . The husband, the son, the boyfriend . . . a drunk's tale

The Left Responds: Fear and Hope

Physics of Folly

Why a missile-defense system can never work

Dressed for Excess

BattleBots!

Mechanical gladiators who maim one another may be the spectator sport of the future

Don't Touch That Redial

Ever wondered how the scalpers always get tickets?

Opera Elsewhere

New Clear Fishin'