#LMU Lions

[acrylicalchemy]

Hopefully sharing stories from my artistic journey can help others on their own.

[anygivengameday]

UCLA Bruins at Loyola Marymount Lions

Friday, October 14, 2022

Sullivan Field, Los Angeles, CA

[kevinmolina-ortiz]

Last weekend Alonso Ramirez Ramos from Disney

Last weekend, Alonso Ramirez Ramos from Disney Television Animation was escorted to the stage at the 46th Annual ANNIE Awards to a thunderous entrance of none other than the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles theme song!

Kevin Molina-Ortiz, LMU Animation '16 exclaimed “A 'Moonlight' moment! A great way to kick off 2019!" This wasn't an exact recurrence of the 2017 Oscars blunder, but the announcers did make a preliminary error by failing to proclaim a tie for "Best Storyboarding in an Animated Television/Broadcast Production".

The prestigious ANNIE award, the most esteemed recognition from the animation industry, was recently presented to Ramirez Ramos of Disney and our own Lion Molina-Ortiz. Having worked at Nickelodeon as a Storyboard Artist for two years, Ramino-Ortiz received this honor in consideration for his work on “Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” episode “Mystic Mayhem.” Furthermore, he has since been promoted to Director level with respect to that same series!

Professor Tom Klein of Animation couldn't be more proud of his student, Kevin. "Not only was he a star pupil at LMU but I had the privilege to work with him on both his thesis and sophomore film," said Klein. "I knew from day one that this kid has something special, and now animation studios are taking notice too." Indeed they have – evidenced by Kevin's ANNNIE Award in his early twenties! The sky is the limit for this young talent as there will certainly be much more about him soon.

As for me, I am just as inspired by Kevin and all of his wonderful achievements. My desire for storytelling combined with my passion to solve problems have driven me to pursue a technical career in animation and visual effects. Working as a software engineer on the production technology team of Walt Disney Animation Studios has opened up many opportunities that I would not have had if I didn't take the plunge into the animation world. It has truly been an amazing journey and one that I hope to continue for years to come!

Seeing Kevin's success is a reminder of what you can accomplish when you put your heart and soul into something. His accomplishments serve as a source of motivation and inspiration not just for me, but for aspiring engineers and animators everywhere. I am so proud to be part of a community that encourages innovation and celebrates success. Congratulations Kevin - you deserve it!

[recentlyheardcom]

Lions Legend Billy Bean Passes Away

Story Links LOS ANGELES – The Lions community mourns the passing of former Lions baseball player and MLB executive Billy Bean. Bean passed away after a year-long battle with Acute Myeloid Leukemia.    Bean etched his mark in LMU lore with back-to-back All-American seasons in 1985 and 1986. After passing on a hefty signing bonus after his junior season, Bean returned to lead the Lions to a 50-15…

[paddy2066-blog]

Rowing News | No. 16 USC Women's Rowing Sinks UCLA and LMU in Crosstown Tri-Meet

MARINA DEL RAY, CALIF. – USC W The Trojans won two categories, receiving three and a half points, while the Bruins received three, and the Lions zero. WHAT HAPPENED The Second Varsity Four kicked off the rainy morning for the Trojans. Coxswain Sophie Wojcik guided USC to a third-place finish. The Trojans came in at 8:02.96, 16 seconds behind UCLA’s four, with their time being 7:46.7. The Third…

[thenilescurrent]

DSP Meeting at the LMU BBQ!

DSP Annual Alumni Meeting to take place during the LMU Almnui BBQ on Sept. 24, 2023

GREETINGS, BROTHERS: WE HAVE AN ANNOUNCEMENT: The ANNUAL DELTA SIGMA PHI ALUMNI ASSOCIATION MEETING will be taking place during this year's Loyola Marymount University (LMU) Alumni BBQ on Sunday, September 24, 2023. MEETING TIME: 11:30 AM PLACE: "THE LIVING ROOM" meeting room on campus at LMU. This is on the first floor of the Malone Student Center, next to the Lion's Den Coffee Shop. There will be a quick update by the Delta Mu Alumni Control Board, along with a report from the current Delta Mu Chapter President, Christian Morcus. Plus, it would be great to visit with fellow Alumni before hitting the LMU BBQ! And, if you didn't already know, we will have our own Delta Sigma Phi table/space at the Alumni BBQ. If you haven't already done so, you can register for the Alumni BBQ AT THIS LINK.

At the request of our friend & brother, George Miller, who usually sends out these announcements, please let us know if you are planning to attend. This is the list of attendees so far:

Mario Artavia Steve Brunette Jim Ford Burt Kohler Ron L'Huereux George Miller Robert Scuderi Tom Scuderi Andrew Sierra Patrick Wade Bob Bushelman Ben Menuccuci Chuck Preston Ron Rodarte Bill Ventura

We hope to see you all there! Please let me know if you will be attending. Send me an e-mail at marioartaviaii@gmail.com. YITBOS, Mario Artavia, ACB Secretary

[letterstojori]

8.9

Dear Jori,

I guess the was the first day I was starting to have doubts about more time in Japan. But then I’m like wth you haven’t even done the teaching yet. So we’ll just have to see. So far out of the other Jets which are the people that come to Japan to teach, I’m not really clicking with anyone here in Shikokuchuo. I think part of it is lowkey I see some of these people as kids. One of them, Joshua is kinda nerdy, like we can get a long I suppose. The other, Devin, idk why but I feel like he doesn’t like me. Seems like one of those “cool guys”. But I could totally be judging. Like when he found out I was an LMU lion he got kinda excited lol.

I no longer have my car anymore because it got sold to someone else. So I’m gonna have to get a new one tomorrow.

The weather is rough. I’m not so worried about the missing home or people vibe that everyone seems to be worried about. Probably because I don’t really talk to anyone consistently. Though it would be nice to have a friend here to click with. Like a coworker bestie. Someone to do things with. I guess the doubts stemmed from the inconvenience of everything. The inconvenience of travel. Of getting a new car. And a bike. And a bunch of new things.

I mean I think it’s just begun and there still so much room for it to become amazing but I guess that honeymoon phase is over yknow?

I’m still sad I actually made friends with someone in the two days of orientation and we clicked and were just IG friends now. Another girl too the other day I feel like we could get a long. Turns out she was friends with some of the kids in Davis that I used to teach that are all grown up now. Such a small world lol.

-bearbear

[tumbelercookies]

Go Lions! . . #tumbeler #cookie #waterpolo #tumbelercookies #waterpoloball #sugar #cookies #kopykake @kopykake #customcookie @chsugar #sugarcookie #lemoncookie #food #yum #cookiegoddess #lmu #lmulions #lmuwaterpolo (at Loyola Marymount University) https://www.instagram.com/p/CkumVlQrNlv/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

[dailyvideovault]

New video posted on: https://dailyvideovault.com/remember-lmus-hank-gathers-30-years-after-his-tragic-death-on-the-basketball-court-e60/

Remember LMU's Hank Gathers 30 years after his tragic death on the basketball court | E:60

[acrylicalchemy]

Bust your butt until you're so good at what you do and love that your school sends you checks to talk about it...then keep going.

CariniArts.com

[nhloracle]

[libraryofsports]

[mlboracle]

[gabe-mouritzen]

Prod 200- Film #2 Documentary

This experience for me was a very fun and fulfilling one. I had never made a documentary before and so I was excited to get the opportunity to make one for this class. I was pleasantly surprised when I realized how many styles of documentary there were and that they all didn’t need to include talking heads or sync-audio at all. I initially wanted to incorporate this into my documentary ideas but when I realized this was a limitation on our documentaries, I was forced to think about what I wanted to make from a different perspective.

I eventually settled on making my documentary about my favorite place on campus, The Lion’s Den. I’ve been an employee at the Den for three years now with this year being my first year as one of the student managers. Being so involved in this wonderful place has made me realize what a staple it is to the LMU community and I really wanted to share with everyone what this place meant to me. After pitching my idea to the class I saw everyone grow excited since they all, in some way, felt the same way about the Den as I did.

I decided to take the perspective of the Den from both customers and employees and highlight both the food/drink and study/community space aspects in order to accurately display the space as whole. Fortunately since I am an employee of the Den, I had access to all of the stockrooms, the machines, and even employees so they could perform different actions for me. I spent the weekend and even part of the week in the Den to capture as much as I could. I started my journey on Friday so I could capture the customer and student perspective as well as the studying and community aspects. Then I went in on Saturday and Sunday to capture as much drink making and restocking as I could. Following this, I returned on Monday to capture any missing bits I felt like I needed to include.

Not everything went perfectly though. I decided to rent my friend’s Ronin stabilizer unit so I could capture some beautiful shots in motion but when I started editing, I realized that some of the shots weren’t as smooth as I had intended. Some came out great and made the final cut but others had to be discarded because I realized they weren’t too appealing way too late. I think to avoid this in the future, I should spend more time practicing with the equipment as well as making sure to check footage after shooting it to ensure that they are to my taste. I also was slightly unhappy with the lighting and framing in a lot of my shots. Looking back on my shooting procedures, I realized I was recording a lot of things on a whim and following a loose shot list. Rather, I wish I had made some kind of storyboard and really planned out what kind of look I wanted. This would then result in me bringing the proper equipment and accurately capturing what I was envisioning in my head.

Positively though, I was very happy with how a lot of things came out. I felt that my song choices worked great and my cuts synced to the music perfectly. I’m also a fan of the interviews I took and the questions I asked. I feel that I received some great and insightful answers and that they accurately portray the true Lion’s Den experience. Lastly, I felt that a lot of my shots and angles came out really well. Some of my favorites include the glowing pastry case with customers peeking inside, the drink sliding down the counter, the croissants sliding into focus, the cup revealing a barista, and the rack focus on the bean bags. 

Overall, my film isn’t perfect but it does definitely portray the Den accurately and in a way that I’m proud of. I spent quite a bit of time on this project and that is evident by how a lot of things came out. Showing this to my coworkers and hearing their delight in how it all came out really speaks volumes to me and this is the first time I’ve really felt proud of a project in this class. I’m looking forward to creating more documentaries in the future and experimenting with how I can accurately capture and present a person, place, or a process. 

[sciencespies]

Population ecology: Origins of genetic variability in seals

https://sciencespies.com/nature/population-ecology-origins-of-genetic-variability-in-seals/

Population ecology: Origins of genetic variability in seals

A new study led by Ludwig-Maximilians-Universitaet (LMU) in Munich researchers shows that fluctuations in population sizes in the past have had a significant effect on contemporary seal populations, and estimates the risk of genetic impoverishment in the species investigated.

In the course of Earth’s history, evolution has given rise to an enormous range of biological diversity, which in turn enabled the emergence of complex, species-rich ecosystems. The availability of adequate levels of genetic variation is a basic prerequisite for evolution. Higher levels of genetic variability therefore increase the probability that any given population will be able to adapt to new environmental conditions and remain evolutionarily flexible. Scientists led by LMU evolutionary biologist Jochen Wolf have examined the genetic variability of multiple seal species and show that a large part of today’s variation is due to historical fluctuations in population sizes. In addition, the authors use the results of their genomic analyses to derive a parameter that allows them to assess the risk that genetic impoverishment and inbreeding pose to seal populations today. The new study appears in the journal Nature Ecology & Evolution.

Genetic variation is the product of random mutations, which are passed down from generation to generation. However, mutations can also be lost, owing to the effects of ‘genetic bottlenecks’, for instance. Such bottlenecks can occur when a large fraction of the population is lost. “It is generally assumed that populations that are made up of many individuals are likely to exhibit high levels of genetic variability,” says Wolf. “We have now tested this assumption for 17 species of seals, by analyzing the genetic differences between 458 animals from 36 populations.”

Since the genetic variation found in present-day populations can tell us a great deal about the genetic make-up of their ancestors, the authors of the study were able to deduce from their data how different populations have changed with time. “Genetic data are like a microscope that allows us to peer into the past,” says Wolf. “The greater the differences between the genomic sequences, the farther back in time their last common ancestor lived. Our analyses enable us to look back thousands and even millions of years, and we can see that many populations must have gone through very narrow genetic bottlenecks — in other words, were drastically reduced in size — while others experienced significant expansions.”

The researchers use the ‘effective population size’ as a measure of the extent of genetic variation within a population. This parameter is defined as the number of individuals that, under theoretically ideal conditions, would be expected to exhibit the same level of genetic variance as the real population of interest. The effective population size is related to, but much smaller than, the actual size of the real population, because the parameter includes the effects of factors such as reproductive behavior. Male seals in some species compete aggressively for females. That implies that the less dominant males may have no chance to reproduce, which in turn reduces the range of genetic variation in the following generation. “We assessed the impact of such effects, but our analyses indicate that the amounts of genetic variation in modern seals have been influenced mainly by historical fluctuations in population sizes, which are probably related to changes in the climate,” says Wolf.

The ratio of the effective to the actual population size is often used to infer whether or not a given population possesses enough genetic variability to survive in the longer term. A very low quotient serves as a warning signal, since populations with low levels of variation are especially susceptible to inbreeding effects which, among other things, increase the risk of disease. “Most genetic studies undertaken in the context of conservation assess the level of genetic variability only across a few generations,” says Wolf. “Our investigation, on the other hand, extends much further back in time. So we were able to take fluctuations in population sizes into account, and could calculate the population sizes we would expect to find today due to the genetic variability.”

The expected population sizes were then compared with their actual sizes by means of a complex statistical procedure, which reveals whether the extant population is larger or smaller than the expected value. “This then tells us if a population is at risk because its current size is much too small to sustain that particular species in the longer term,” says Wolf. In this context, the absolute number of individuals can be misleading. For instance, only 400 Saimaa ringed seals survive in the wild, and the species is regarded as endangered.” From a genetic point of view, however, despite their small number, we do not expect them to run into problems in the near future, as the animals are highly variable,” says Wolf. The indications are that they settled in their present habitat only a short time ago — in evolutionary terms — and they retain the full range of variation that characterized their ancestors. The situation in the Galapagos is quite different. There too, seal and sea lion populations are small, but their levels of genetic variability are also low — a factor which is not reflected in the value of the conventional ratio of effective to actual population size. The study shows that comparative genomic analyses of animal populations constitute an important tool for the identification of vulnerable populations in order to take protective measures.

#Nature