Lack of sleep and unhealthy eating habits are correlated, according to a UC Berkeley study published Tuesday in the journal Nature Communications.

UC Berkeley professor of psychology and neuroscience Matthew Walker and doctoral students Andrea Goldstein and Stephanie Greer analyzed differences in the brain activity of 23 young adults after they experienced a normal night’s sleep compared to no sleep at all. The sleep-deprived brains showed decreased activity in the decision-making area of the frontal lobe and increased activity in the reward-receiving part of the brain.

The participants were presented with 80 images of different foods, ranging from healthy foods like fruits and vegetables to higher caloric specimens such as pizza and doughnuts. The sleepless brains found the less nutritious choices more appealing.

In a UC Berkeley press release, Walker said that the sleepless brain begins to have trouble with complex judgments and decisions and instead compensates with increased activity in primal brain structures that focus on motivation and desires.

UC Berkeley student Ryan Keane said that he either eats unhealthily or not at all during finals week, a time students are usually sleep-deprived. He said food becomes invasive and throws him off schedule.

“It all comes down to better time management,” Keane said. “If people are not sleeping well and are not eating well, they aren’t going to be productive and aren’t going to be (functioning) at the best of their abilities. It’s a horrible, perpetual cycle.”

UC Berkeley student Melanie Choi, who sleeps for one to two hours a night when she is preparing for midterms, said that with less sleep, her appetite perishes. Instead, she stays awake on coffee, tea and other drinks. Though her lack of appetite contradicts the study, she agrees that an insufficient amount of sleep hinders good health.

“It’s your decision whether or not you sleep a lot,” Choi said. “You can definitely sleep a lot, but (as a student), it is at the sacrifice of studying.”

In essence, Walker’s study scientifically suggests what several students have known all along — the more they sleep, the healthier they eat.

Contact Sasha Costello at scostello@dailycal.org.

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Nathaniel Solley/Staff

Where Milvia Street crosses Allston Way, several bold signs and worn REI tents indicate a group of protesters who have been camping out in front of Berkeley’s first post office since Saturday night to save the institution from being sold.

A blue Prius pulls up to the curb, and out springs a young boy who puts $5 in the donation box for the campers’ supplies and runs back to the car as his mother yells out the window, “We’re gonna win!”

A movement to save the Berkeley Post Office from sale has been under way for a year since July 26, 2012, the 237th anniversary of the Continental Congress’ foundation of the U.S. Post Office. In response to the postal service’s final decision on July 25 to sell the building, members of the  movement known as the Berkeley Post Office Defense are attempting a last effort to save the post office.

Activists think they have a good shot at accomplishing their goal due to community support.

“We are representing the American public,” said David Welsh, who has been a Berkeley resident for 15 years. “People come together here with such camaraderie. People who don’t have much come to us and donate what money they have to help with our food, water and fliers. Everyone cares.”

Welsh is also a retired letter carrier and was once an officer with the letter-carriers’ union. Now a musician, Welsh frequents the post office about once a week to mail CDs, packages and letters. He said that the city, county and state are all allied with the cause and share what a poster says is their “In-tents commitment to our public post office.”

Welsh regularly switches off with Mike Wilson — both are members of Strike Debt, a debt resisters’ movement that has formed a coalition with Save the People’s Post Office, a nationwide grassroots movement that aims to save post offices across the country and defend postal unions.

Wilson said that every morning someone, from the stakeout who has some money to spare goes to Peet’s Coffee & Tea and gets a box of coffee for the group.

“There’s always different food every day,” said UC Berkeley alumnus Jonathan Dignes. “Food magically arrives at different times. Various people donate.”

Dignes shows off rice made by a protester the day before, an abundance of vegetables Wilson brought from work and a mixture of carrots, beans and jalapenos. After eating, the activists clean up around the food area to prevent attracting any rats.

“I see a culture being formed meeting by meeting — a different society,” Dignes said. “There are tense times, then more laid-back times.”

Dignes, who was friends with a deceased ex-postman whose name is now on a plaque in the office, lived in Berkeley for 11 years but has been without a place to stay for the past three months.

Unlike the people lining the steps of the Greco-Roman anterior of the post office, some campers around the corner do not have as much of a post-office-oriented campaign.

Jude Hunt, otherwise known as “Mama Jude” of Occupy LA, said that she is part of the security team.

“I try to keep drug dealers out of here, people who aren’t here for the actual movement, people that are going to make it look bad,” Hunt said. “We don’t need any disruptions.”

Usually on Shattuck Avenue, Hunt now tents next to the rest of her security team, which includes Mama Jugs, two pit bulls and others. They say they are protesting for causes beyond saving the post office.

“They invited us to be a part of this so we can express our desire to free information on other subjects, such as GMOs and dumbing-down agents, but we’re all united for the same cause,” Hunt said.

Former Berkeley High School teacher Kahlil Jacobs-Fantauzzi said that the post office is something he always remembers going to.

“I have a personal connection to it,” Jacobs-Fantauzzi said. “I love the artwork and the architecture, but I think that it represents something larger to the citizens of this city.”

Wilson said that the New Deal artwork in the post office was given to the people of the United States in trust. The New Deal statue on the anterior of the building features a postman delivering a package to “all mankind.”

“We’re going to stay here as long as it takes,” Wilson said. “If we get pushed out, we’ll come back.”

In the evenings, the 20 or so campers can be seen watching postal-themed movies on a projector set up on the stone steps of the postal office.

“It’s a welcoming space,” Welsh said.

Contact Sasha Costello at scostello@dailycal.org.

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The National Guard /Courtesy

Several UC Berkeley affiliates intend to protest the appointment of U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano as president of the University of California, which is set to be confirmed at the UC Board of Regents meeting Thursday.

A group of campus students, coordinated by graduate student Elizabeth De Martelly, will gather on Sproul Plaza at 11:30 a.m. to carpool to the UC Regents meeting at UCSF Mission Bay, where they plan to voice their concerns in the public comment session.

“Napolitano was nominated without any input from the university community, and that suggests that the university predicted there wouldn’t be support from student and faculty,” De Martelly said.

UCLA law professor Abraham Wagner cited similar concerns and said that Napolitano’s nomination was a completely “confidential enterprise,” alleging she was hired by an outside recruiting firm. Wagner said there was little transparency with university faculty, and he does not think Napolitano will garner respect from UC faculty.

“She is not an academic person, not a scholar, and has never published anything,” Wagner said. “She doesn’t have anything that the president of the University of California should have. The UC is the largest and best public university system in the country, but there is not a lot of money right now, and she doesn’t bring anything to the table.”

Opponents to Napolitano’s nomination cite concerns about her record on immigration and academic experience.

DreamACTivist.org, an organization for undocumented students, has created a petition to stop the nomination. In a letter to the regents, they said that under Napolitano’s policies and President Barack Obama’s term, 1.5 million immigrants have been deported.

UCLA alumnus Diego Sepulveda, who is attending the regents’ meeting to speak against the nomination, said that the university has put a great deal of effort into making it possible for undocumented youth to pursue higher education and receive financial aid. He said he fears that Napolitano’s appointment will stagnate the progress that has already been made.

“She has done so much harm in the immigrant community, and the UC system has a large number of immigrant students,” Sepulveda said. “How is her experience relevant to the education of our UC students?”

Ju Hong, a UC Berkeley alumnus, said that Napolitano’s nomination showed the UC Regents’ lack of leadership in failing to engage with the public and students in the selection process. He also expressed concerns about the impact that Napolitano’s appointment would have on undocumented students at the university, citing federal programs like Secure Communities under Napolitano’s leadership.

“My friends were caught up by her system,” Hong said. “It’s very tragic that they appointed to her as president, and I’m very afraid of restriction in this education system.”

Contact Sasha Costello at scostello@dailycal.org.

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Andrew Kuo/Senior Staff

Healthy Heavenly Foods, one of three food trucks formerly located in front of Sproul Plaza, reopened on Bancroft Way and College Avenue on Monday after being shut down for seven months due to construction on Lower Sproul Plaza, which started in December.

The other two food trucks, Kettle Corn Star and Dojo Dog, are still negotiating with the city about the new terms that the city has presented them with in order to operate at the new location.

Some owners of the food trucks, as well as Councilmember Kriss Worthington, claim that the terms of the contract have changed since their original date, because they say they are no longer promised a return to their original location at Telegraph Avenue and Bancroft Way in two years’ time. Instead, owners say the trucks are to stay at the new location for two and a half years.

Ann Vu, owner of Healthy Heavenly Foods, said that the original location of her truck brought her business more profit than her new location does — she estimates two to three times the number of people would pass by the Sproul Plaza area. Despite this issue, Vu said she is OK with the location but wants an extended contract.

“I’m still worried because the terms (of the contract) are not nice,” Vu said. “The other trucks are negotiating with the city, but I had to sign because I need the money. I have to work.”

Jack Huynh, the owner of Kettle Corn Star, wants to be able to operate at the new location but return to Sproul Plaza when the construction is completed.

“We aren’t asking for compensation from the city but only for them to allow us to work and operate at our original location,” Huynh said. “We want them to work with us so that we can have the best conditions for a food enterprise.”

During the hiatus, when her business was shut down, Vu said she lost money paying to park the truck in a parking house, paying for a permit license and having to throw food away. She said she lost many of her employees and income and stayed at home during the seven months.

Huynh said that he and other food truck owners were presented with new terms in May that allowed them to stay at UC Berkeley — but only at the Bancroft Way and College Avenue location and only for two and a half years.

“I was upset when (the trucks) got moved because (Vu) used to have her store inside a building,” said Berkeley resident Sabine Mackey. “Then she got moved outside, and now she has gotten moved out here. There was a huge time period during which she lost all of her money.”

Contact Sasha Costello at newsdesk@dailycal.org.

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CHRS will have a meeting with the building’s new owner sometime between July 10 and 20 to further discuss plans for the radio museum’s future location.

Built in 1937, the KRE station was one of the first buildings made specifically for radio broadcasting and was also displayed in the famous George Lucas film “American Graffiti.”

“We may have to sacrifice being at a historical site for a permanent one,” said Steve Kushman, CHRS president and KRE project manager. “What’s most important is to find a place of permanence for all of our archives and museum collections.”

In 2003, CHRS signed a 10-year contract with ICBC to take over the KRE building for free and restore it in return. Since then, CHRS has transformed the place into a radio museum that CHRS said “allows us to create a level of appreciation and understanding for a new generation of antique radio collectors and historians.”

However, due to bankruptcy in 2011, ICBC was forced to sell the KRE station to Pham Radio Communication.

Kushman said that the museum will probably be there until the end of the year because Pham Radio Communication has not asked them to move yet.

“We are good for the moment,” he said. “Nobody’s asking us to move in a hurry. No one is telling us to move our stuff out of the place.”

Tom Bonomo, who is on a subcommittee of the CHRS Board of Directors, said that the search for a new building is ongoing given the uncertainty with the current location. A broker is looking for a space that is approximately 6,000 to 8,000 square feet and has ample parking space for visitors.

Kushman said that the society is willing to spend between $700,000 and $1 million on a location somewhere in the Bay Area.

On July 20, CHRS will be hosting its biggest annual fundraiser, Radio Day by the Bay 2013, at the historic KRE Station. From 9 a.m. to 3 p.m., music, food and an auction will be open to the public, with a $5 expected donation at the gate.

Contact Sasha Costello at newsdesk@dailycal.org

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Mary Zheng/Staff

Students on the north side of UC Berkeley no longer need to trudge across campus to get their frozen yogurt fix after the opening of a new Menchie’s frozen yogurt franchise Wednesday.

The franchise, located at 1862 Euclid Ave., will have its grand opening Saturday and will feature free yogurt for guests between 11 a.m. and 1 p.m. The restaurant will be open Monday to Sunday from 11 a.m. to 10 p.m.

Prior to the opening of Menchie’s, there were few dessert options on the north side of the campus, according to Stacey and David Aucella, who own the Menchie’s. Finding this location was thrilling, they said.

“Everything around here is food, and that seems to be what does the best,” David said. “Our real hope is that not only Cal Berkeley but the community in the North Berkeley Hills will come down with their families and young children.”

The south side of campus has more dessert options, however, which sometimes leads to concerns about competition. Yogurt Park manager Ryan Piscovich said that he is glad Menchie’s is on the other side of campus, because there is already a lot of competition on the south side.

“The area is already pretty watered down with frozen desserts,” Piscovich said. “(Yogurt Park has) been here for 35 years, so I think that we are pretty deeply rooted in the community as it is, but any time you hear of a new place opening up, it is a little disheartening.”

Kat Kirkeby, a Berkeley resident who lives nearby said that she was thrilled when she heard about Menchie’s because it is closer to her than other frozen yogurt locations. However, she was disappointed to find out that Menchie’s is more expensive.

“I’m weighing the pros and cons, because (Menchie’s) tastes better,” Kirkeby said. “The fruity flavors taste fruitier, their topping setup is really neat and the whole setup is very organized. I like it. It’s very tasty.”

Stacey said that the mission of Menchie’s is to make people smile and provide an experience. With indoor and outdoor seating, she said, it is a place where people can relax and leave the stress of the outside world to enjoy themselves.

“It’s looking fantastic,” said Wesley Baker, who works for the Menchie’s global headquarters to help setup franchises. “The franchisees have set it up, the team is fully ready to go, the store is beautiful and I think the community of Berkeley is going to fully embrace Menchie’s and our values and culture.”

Stacey and David hope to become part of the community. Stacey said that there is already a local following of people that have never heard of Menchie’s before, but that have been eagerly waiting for it to open.

“I hope that when people think about where they want to have a special treat, where they feel comfortable hanging out and where they like to come meet their friends and have a low-fat dessert that is more than half the calories of ice cream, they’ll come to Menchie’s,” Stacey said.

Contact Sasha Costello at newsdesk@dailycal.org.

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