VBall player receives national honor:

LEXINGTON, Ky. – California volleyball senior outside hitter Hana Cutura has been named the Sports Imports/AVCA Division I National Player of the Week. This is Cutura’s first national player of the week award and the fourth time a Golden Bear has been selected for the honor. The two-time AVCA All-American was also selected as the Pac-10 Conference Player of the Week for the first time in her illustrious career earlier this week (Oct. 26).

Cutura led the Bears to their third consecutive victory as they defeated No. 16 Arizona, 3-1, and Arizona State, 3-0. Cutura had a career-high 31 kills against the Wildcats as she committed just one error on 47 attacks to post an astronomical .638 attack percentage. She also recorded her sixth double-double of the season with 11 digs and had Cal’s only solo block of the night. She followed up with a 21-kill performance in just three sets against the Sun Devils. She registered those 21 kills on just 32 attacks (three errors) to put up a .562 attack percentage as the Bears enjoyed their most efficient offensive outing of the season (.426 attack rate, 49k, 101att). She also added seven digs and three blocks.

On the weekend, Cutura averaged 7.43 kills in each set and attacked at a .608 rate (52 kills, four errors, 79 attacks) to go with 2.57 digs per set. She scored 54.5 points to average 7.79 pps. Cutura also surpassed fellow Cal All-American outside hitter Angie Pressey to move into third place on the all-time career kills list with 1,736. For the season, Cutura leads the Pac-10 in kills (5.07 kps) and points (5.58 pps). In addition, her marks in kills and points rank third and fourth in the NCAA, respectively.

Field hockey player receives honor:

BERKELEY – Redshirt freshman Megan Shimojima won NorPac Offensive Player of the Week honors, as announced by the conference on Tuesday. This is Cal’s eighth conference weekly award this season.

Shimojima scored twice, including the game-winning goal in Cal’s 5-3 victory at UC Davis last Sunday in the regular-season finale. Shimojima tallied both of her goals in the second half. With Cal leading 3-1, she notched her first goal in the 57th minute. She took a pass from Natalie Nurnberg and beat the Aggie goalkeeper up close in front of the cage. That score proved to be the gamewinner. After UC Davis cut the Cal lead to 4-2, Shimojima put the game out of reach with her second goal in the 65th minute. The goals were the third and the fourth of the season for Shimojima, and she now has nine points.

Q+A with Women’s Soccer player:

BERKELEY – This weekend’s games against Arizona (Friday, Oct. 30 at 2:30 p.m.) and Arizona State (Sunday, Nov. 1 at 1 p.m.) are the final home games of the 2009 regular season and the final home games for the squad’s six seniors. This week, CalBears.com will be running a Q&A with each of the team’s six seniors – goalkeeper Rosie Aguilera, defender Brianna Bak, forward Torrey Delaplane, forward Lisa Kevorkian, midfielder Katie Oakes and goalkeeper Gina Pellegrini. CalBears.com had a chance to discuss the seniors’ years in Berkeley and what being a part of the Cal women’s soccer program has meant to them, and today’s participant is Lisa Kevorkian.

Redshirt junior Lisa Kevorkian, who is earning a degree in mass communications, is in her fourth year as a member of the Golden Bear women’s soccer team. This season, Kevorkian has three game-winning goals and five scores and two assists for a team-second 12 points. In 2008, she returned from a knee injury with a vengeance to lead the team with three game-winning goals and was second with 13 points, six goals and 16 shots on goal. She was named to the 2008 Pac-10 Conference’s All-Academic Second Team and was a co-recipient of the 2007 Golden Bear Award.

CalBears.com: What is your best Cal story or favorite Cal experience?
Lisa Kevorkian: That’s like asking “What’s your favorite song?” There’s no way I could choose just one. I had a lot of great times with the old Pink House girls though.

Mens tennis player fell to Stanford player:

BERKELEY – No. 42-ranked California men’s tennis junior Pedro Zerbini fell, 7-5, 6-3, to No. 15-ranked Bradley Klahn of Stanford in the singles championship match of the 2009 Wilson/ITA Northwest Regional Championship Tuesday, Oct. 27, at the Hellman Tennis Complex. The Golden Bears earned the tournament’s team trophy as Cal players posted the most singles and doubles victories throughout the five-day event.

The pair opened the first set on serve through the first four games but Zerbini earned the first break in the fifth as Klahn’s cross-court shot went wide. Unfazed, Klahn broke back to even the score with a cross-court shot that stayed in as Zerbini charged the net. Zerbini answered once more to go up, 4-3, as he broke the Stanford serve for a second consecutive time but Klahn fought back once more to even things at four-all. Klahn held serve once more and went up, 40-15, in the 10th game but Zerbini fought off four set-points to tie the set at five games each. Klahn turned to his serve to stay on top as a service ace earned him a 6-5 lead. Zerbini served the 12th game but fell behind early to allow Klahn to claim a 7-5 win in the first set.

Klahn earned the first break of the second set to lead, 3-1, before serving out the fifth game for a 4-1 lead as he put a ball out of Zerbini’s reach down the line. Zerbini maintained his poise and served his way to a win in the sixth game as he crushed a service ace down the center of the court to earn game-point. Klahn held up once more to go up, 5-2, before Zerbini won his serve to send the set to a ninth game. One more time, Klahn held fast to earn the final game of the match for a 7-5, 6-3 win.

Klahn becomes the third consecutive Stanford player to win the men’s ITA Northwest Regional singles title following Alex Clayton (2008) and Richard Wire (2007). As part of the top-seeded and No. 8-ranked doubles team with Clayton, Klahn also took home the doubles title with an 8-3 victory against Mirko Zapletal and Taylor Leiby of Fresno State.

Don’t forget to click on the Andre Agassi/crystal meth story on the right sidebar——————————————————>

So, umm, ASU’s run d is pretty good?

“You don’t rip off big runs against these guys,” Tedford said. “You have to stay patient. … They’re physical and they’re fast.”

Tedford stays classy:

“I think we all understand these are some hard times economically,” Tedford said. “We’re going to do whatever we can as a program to do our part to help alleviate that.”

ASU fans are not:

“Their fans are ruthless,” Tepper said. “They have no problem saying stuff to your face.”

Any and all single peeps need to buy a Southwest flight to Fenix RTFN.

Don’t laugh, but Cal’s 24th in the BCS rankings.

Harbaugh calls Luck best QB in the country.

Guv’s playin’ dirty with state parks. He needs to be falcon punched.

Tedford on USC-Oregon (Wilner thinks Tedford thinks Oregon will win):

* Got the distinct sense that Jeff Tedford thinks Oregon could take down the Trojans. He did not say it, but based on his quick assessment on the Pac-10 teleconference call Tuesday, it sure seems like he thinks the Trojans will have their hands full:

"It’ll be very interesting. The way Oregon spreads the field it’s difficult to defend … Obviously, ‘SC has great talent on defense, and a lot of team speed. It’ll be an interesting matchup.

"I think Oregon defensively matches up favorably. I think they’re a little under-rated … They have exceptional team speed on defense."

Does anyone else think that biology is just a well-ordered collection of chemicals? Me too. Now fork over the oxy.

But in San Diego County exists a tribe whose ants attack each other, and it was there, Tsutsui said, that two post-doctoral researchers in his laboratory, Miriam Brandt and Ellen van Wilgenburg, collected samples to remove the wax-like chemicals that cover the insects’ skins.

Those hydrocarbons, the group reasoned, act like pheromones, the airborne substances that serve as chemical signals for acts like mating, aggression and food-finding among other insects, as well as vertebrate animals and perhaps even humans.

Chemists at UC Irvine analyzed the chemicals from the San Diego ants and synthesized them so the Berkeley postdocs could apply them to the skins of peaceable ants collected from the same California “super colony” but living as far away as Cottonwood (Shasta County).

Tsutsui’s team found that the same synthetic compounds “trigger aggression among normally amicable nestmates.” A mixture of five different synthetic hydrocarbons greatly increased the attack rate among the normally benign insects, the group discovered.

For their long, difficult and expensive laboratory experiments combining biology and chemistry, the team maintained ants from five different and sometimes genetically identical colonies in California, feeding them three times a week on a diet of sugar water, protein solution and scrambled eggs.

It took the scientists nearly 2,000 separate and carefully controlled trials in the worker ants to establish that their synthetic chemical mixture produced the aggressive behavior, they reported.

Scientists have long known that “chemical signaling” is especially powerful as a means of communication among many insects, and particularly among ants that live in colonies and use the chemicals to recognize each other and their enemies.

But the language of those signals has been a total mystery until Tsutsui’s group painstakingly deciphered the complex “cuticular hydrocarbons” from the skins of the ants and showed their power in transforming a species of peace-loving ants into attackers.

Here’s the nerd-link for those that have subscription access to the journal. Actually, I see an “Open Access” thingin the upper right, so it might be free for all (PDF!)

http://www.biomedcentral.com/content/pdf/1741-7007-7-71.pdf

They weren’t kiddin’. Those are long hydrocarbon chains (see Figs 1 & 2).

(spoilers about opening scene abound!)
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
There was a video leaked from the French edition that showed the opening scene. Most of the videos have been taken offline but it might still be here.

Basically in this mission you are a CIA agent that’s undercover with a group of terrorists. The level starts off with you and the terrorists stepping off an elevator into an airport and then opening fire on the civilians. You as the player do not have to shoot them down but you can (and the person in the video does). Now this isn’t like killing civilians in GTA4. These civilians, realistically modeled, actually panic, cower in fear, try to help their friends and you walk through all their dead bodies clutching their suitcases or their friends and family with all their blood on the floor.

It’s very disturbing IMO.

ActivisionBlizzard commented saying that this level is skippable and it is preceded by a warning that might be disturbing. Plus they contend that since it is rated M it’s only for those 18+ (that’s false, M is for 17+).

Here’s the stuff on the newcomers

– Smith looks very solid at the point. He is strong, fundamentally sound at both ends and made a couple perimeter shots. I have no trouble imagining Smith playing 6-to-10 minutes as Randle’s backup.

– Max blocked four shots, including one each by Sanders-Frison and Randle. Offensively, he still has a long ways to go. Will be interesting to see how he develops this season, and whether he can provide, say, 10 productive minutes per game.

– Sanders-Frison is big, but he carries his weight well. Seems comfortable on the floor, he’s a lefty and a very good passer. Didn’t score much — although he swished one 15-footer — but seems to understand the game. My friend noted that he looks a little like Darryl Dawkins.

– Seeley is a little stronger, and quite a bit more assertive than he was last season as a freshman. He hit six perimeter shots, barely ruffling the net on several of them. He could be one of the players who helps give Cal better depth. He told me afterward that he hurt his left knee a couple months ago, and it still swells up a bit. D.J. said he doesn’t expect any problems in the short term, but may need to have the knee ’scoped after the season to clean up some cartilage.

 – Amoke has been drawing raves from his teammates as one of the players who worked hardest during the off-season. He appears very fit and was active around the basket. Figure him to continue playing off the bench at both the 3 and 4.

– Bak Bak is very thin and may be victim of a numbers game on the frontline. Made one nice turn-around jumper from the key. Seems to have skilled, but needs muscle. Will he be red-shirted? I won’t be surprised either way, but right now he’s the sixth man in a battle for playing time at two frontcourt spots.

Where can I go watch the Cal game on Saturday? I’m staying near Sixth Street.
SOMEONE HALP

Did you guys already cover this yesterday?

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/10/27/MN0L1AAUM3.DTL

When UC Berkeley lends its Department of Intercollegiate Athletics millions of dollars to pay its bills each year – and even forgives that debt at times – it’s helping a top-tier college sports program beloved by thousands of fans.

But a growing number of Cal academics are disturbed by the practice, arguing that the prestigious research university should not subsidize elite athletes at a time of soaring college costs, faculty furloughs and reduced course offerings.

What the article leaves out is that, unless I’m wrong, the football team generates a profit, which is used to fund other sports. So while football is the face of Cal sports, its not the drain on the budget that the article and the Knight Commission implies.