A Sampling of Clips for April 22, 2010

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

Cell Phones to 'Smell' Biochem Attack?
CNN, April 21 -- If you ever get caught up in a chemical or biological weapons attack, your cellphone may save your life. Or at least that’s the ambition of the Department of Homeland Security. One of the technologies being examined is a porous silicon “nose” that is based on – amazingly - the beetle shell. Professor Michael Sailor at UC San Diego uses silicon to mimic the way a beetle’s complex shell produces iridescence. More

Conversation: Pulitzer Prize Winner in Poetry, Rae Armantrout
PBS, April 19 -- This year's winner of the Pulitzer Prize for poetry is Rae Armantrout for her book, "Versed." The Pulitzer board called the collection, which also won the 2009 National Book Critics Circle Award, "striking for its wit and linguistic inventiveness, offering poems that are often little thought-bombs detonating in the mind long after the first reading." Armantrout is on the UC San Diego faculty. More

IM Interview: Waves of Plastic
Discovery Channel, April 21 -- Last summer, Miriam Goldstein of Scripps Institution of Oceanography led a research cruise to the North Pacific Gyre to see for herself how much plastic there was and whether it was making its way into the food chain. What she found surprised even her, and left more questions than answers about how our society's obsession with plastic is impacting the oceans. More

Military Says Defense Spending Swells in the Region
San Diego Union-Tribune, April 21 — What the movies are to Hollywood and finance is to Wall Street, so the military is to San Diego County, according to a report released Wednesday by the San Diego Military Advisory Council.  The report, prepared by a research group based at UC San Diego, said fiscal year 2008 is the last year for which verified data is available. More

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Gold Nano-Bombs Deliver Bacteria-Killing Therapy Directly to Acne
Popular Science, April 21 -- Nanotechnology's bright future has finally come up with a possible treatment for the dreaded pimples of our teen years. That has arrived in the form of gold nano-bombs which deliver a lethal dose of lauric acid to skin-dwelling bacteria responsible for that unsightly acne, according to UC San Diego researchers. More

Mystery of Faint Moonlight Finally Solved
SPACE.com, April 22 -- Astronomers have long known that light bouncing off man-made reflectors on the lunar surface is fainter than expected, and mysteriously dims even more whenever the moon is full. Now they think moon dust and solar heating may be the dirty culprit, according to a new UC San Diego report. More

Robotic Surgery
10News, April 21 -- Dr. Chris Kane, from UC San Diego Medical Center, is an expert on robotic prostatectomy (robot-assisted surgical removal of the prostate gland) and he joined us on Good Morning San Diego to discuss all the additional options available for robotic surgery. More

How Will Algae Impact Agriculture And The Gas Pump?
KPBS, April 21 -- A symposium dedicated to bringing the new energy potential of algae into the commercial market is being held in San Diego this week. Stephen Mayfield, director of San Diego Center for Algae Biotechnology and professor of biology at UC San Diego, discusses the issue. More

Recycling Detectives
San Diego Union-Tribune, April 20 -- UC San Diego students Hilary Wilhelm and Truman Mak sift through trash collected from each UCSD residence hall as part of Trash Sort, the first Earth Week event at the university. They separated the recyclables from the trash of each hall and compared them to see how well each hall is recycling. More

What is a Gray Whale Doing in San Diego Bay?
KPBS, April 21 -- For the second spring in a row, a migrating gray whale has been spotted spending some quality time in San Diego Bay. It's not clear how long this new visitor will spend in San Diego, but an up-close and personal gray whale sighting is always good news for tourists and for marine researchers. Nigella Hillgarth, executive director for Birch Aquarium at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, discusses this latest visitor. More

Baldwin New Play Festival
SDNN, April 21 -- The 10th installment of The Baldwin New Play Festival, an always intriguing showcase of the MFA playwriting students at UC San Diego, only has one more weekend to go. More

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