A Sampling of Clips for April 12, 2011

* UCSD faculty and staff may obtain a copy of an article by e-mailing the University Communications Office

Penguins Suffer as Antarctic Krill Declines
BBC News, April 12 -- A number of penguin species found in western Antarctica are declining as a result of a fall in the availability of krill, a study has suggested. In their paper, a US team of scientists from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the Scripps Institution of Oceanography said a number of factors were combining to change the shape of the area's environment. More

Dialing With Your Thoughts
MIT Technology Review, April 12 -- Researchers in California have created a way to place a call on a cell phone using just your thoughts. Their new brain-computer interface is almost 100 percent accurate for most people after only a brief training period. The system was developed by Tzyy-Ping Jung, a researcher at the Swartz Center for Computational Neuroscience at UC San Diego, and colleagues. More

The Blowback World of Chalmers Johnson:
Remembering the Man and His Work
The Huffington Post, April 11 -- In going through my husband’s files, books, and papers after his death, I’ve been forcibly struck by two things.  First, contrary to what many of his obituaries said, his writings and thoughts were remarkably consistent throughout his life. Johnson was a professor emeritus at UC San Diego. More

Audio Alchemy: Getting Computers to Understand Overlapping Speech
Scientific American, April 12 -- The year is 1974, and Harry Caul is monitoring a couple walking through a crowded Union Square in San Francisco. He uses shotgun microphones to secretly record their conversation, but at a critical point, a nearby percussion band drowns out the conversation. Ultimately Harry has to use an improbable gadget to extract the nearly inaudible words, “He’d kill us if he got the chance,” from the recordings. This piece of audio forensics was science fiction when it appeared in the movie The Conversation more than three decades ago. Is it possible today? (Mentions research by Martin Cooke of the University of Sheffield in England and Te-Won Lee of UC San Diego) More

Justice Sometimes Needs a Break
Discovery Channel, April 11 -- Judges are far more likely to let a prisoner out on parole if they've just had a food break than if they've been considering cases for hours, according to a new study. Researchers don't know if it's the food or the mental breather that makes rested judges more lenient after their breaks. (Quotes David Schkade, a decision researcher at UC San Diego’s Rady School of Management) More

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Scientific American

Interview: Benjamin H Bratton, Director of the Center
for Design and Geopolitics, Calit2 and University of California
The Guardian, U.K., April 11 -- In this wide ranging interview, the roles of designers, architects, innovators, policy makers and the internet are examined as to how they are changing the nature of our existence on earth, and the status quo. Benjamin Bratton is the director of the Center for Design and Geopolitics at UC San Diego’s division of Calit2. He is also on UCSD’s visual arts faculty. More

Americans Pay Fewer Taxes Overall, But More Income Tax
The Seattle Times, April 11 -- Americans pay much less in taxes than most other people in the industrialized world. Surprised? According to the latest estimates from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) — a Paris-based consortium that tracks financial conditions in 34 nations — the United States pays 24 percent of its gross domestic product (the sum of all goods and services produced in a year) to taxes collected by all levels of government. (Quotes UC San Diego economist Valerie Ramey) More

Award-winning Guitarist Lionel Loueke at UCSD Wednesday
San Diego Union-Tribune, April 12 -- A native of Benin in West Africa, Lionel Loueke rose to fame a few years ago as the guitarist in jazz icon Herbie Hancock’s band. His many credits also include albums with Joni Mitchell, Norah Jones, Wynton Marsalis, Charlie Haden and numerous other pop and jazz greats, as well as such fellow African music standouts as Richard Bona and Angelique Kidjo. He performs at UC San Diego Wednesday. More

TV Magic
San Diego Union-Tribune, April 11 -- Mary Walshok, UC San Diego dean of Extension programs, is making the media rounds for her new book, “Closing America’s Job Gap.” Her sister Margaret, in San Francisco, was astonished to turn on her TV and see Mary discussing U.S. workforce issues with Carol Massar on Bloomberg TV’s “Street Smart” with live cut-ins of President Barack Obama. More

Positive Communication Yields Positive Results for Cancer Patients
KPBS, April 11 -- According to the American Cancer Society, each week there are about 200-300 San Diegans diagnosed with cancer. Studies show that patient-centered care yields an increase in patient satisfaction as well as recovery rates. We will discuss the importance of positive communication between cancer patients and doctors. Dr. Wayne Beach, professor of communication at SDSU and a member of the Cancer Center in the School of Medicine at UC San Diego, discusses the issue. More

RNA Sequencing Helps Develop Self Assembling Nano Square
AzoNano, April 12 -- A team of scientists at UC San Diego have recently developed a high resolution design of a nano-scale square fabricated from ribonucleic acid, or RNA. More

Similar story in
R&D Magazine

What Can Nanochemistry Do for Chemical and Biological Sensing?
Material Views, April 12 -- It seems these days that if one’s “pet nanomaterial” does not live up to initial expectations for use as an active component of a device, then for sure it will respond in some way to some stimulus and thereby function as some sort of chemical or biological sensor. (Mentions research by UC San Diego’s Michael Sailor) More

Jackiewicz Elected Chair of Founder's Board for Dr Foster International
San Diego Daily Transcript, April 11 -- Thomas E. Jackiewicz, CEO of the UC San Diego Health System, has been elected to serve as chair of the Founder’s Board for the Dr Foster 2011 Global Comparators Project. More

Sulpizio Cardiovascular Center Opening Delayed
La Jolla Light, April 12 -- UC San Diego Health System officials are still working on some final details before the $228 million Sulpizio Cardiovascular Center can open, a spokeswoman said Monday. It had originally been set to see its first patients on April 3. More

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