A Sampling of Clips for January 6^th, 2010

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

The Best Ways to Lose 20 Pounds
CBS News, Jan. 4 -- With the holidays over, you may be looking down at the bulging evidence of too much merriment around your waistline. If you’ve resolved to lose weight in 2010, you might be considering signing up for a commercial diet plan, such as Weight Watchers, Nutrisystem, or Jenny Craig. The TV ads, filled with celebrity endorsers and regular people holding out their enormous “old jeans” make the diet plans sound terribly tempting. Although a new FTC rule now requires testimonial ads to cite typical results, the looming question still remains: Which of these diet programs are worth your money? (Mentions a UCSD clinical trial of where participants lost 11 percent of their initial weight after 12 months) More

Findings on How Plants Breathe May Save Water
The New York Times, Dec. 28 -- New information on how plants breathe may help scientists engineer plants that require less water, according to a report published this month in Nature Cell Biology. While it has been known for half a century that a plant’s pores, called stoma, can open at varying rates depending on the concentration of carbon dioxide in the air, scientists did not understand how the process worked until now, said Julian Schroeder, the study’s lead author and a professor of biology at UCSD. Dr. Schroeder and his colleagues report that they identified the specific sensors in plants that detect carbon dioxide and prompt a plant’s pores to open and breathe. More

Maths Model Aids in Making Simulations of Early Universe
Yahoo India, Jan. 6 -- Scientists have come up with a mathematical model that aids in developing simulations of the early universe. Daniel R. Reynolds, assistant professor of mathematics at SMU (Southern Methodist University), collaborated with astrophysicists at UCSD as part of a National Science Foundation project to simulate cosmic reionization, the time from 380,000 years to 400 million years after the universe was born. Together, the scientists built a computer model of events during the "Dark Ages" when the first stars emitted radiation that altered the surrounding matter, enabling light to pass through. More

UCSD Ranked Among 'Best Values in Public Colleges'
Fox 5, Jan. 4 -- UCSD is ranked 11th among the nation's "100 best values in public colleges'' by Kiplinger's Personal Finance, it was announced Monday. The 2009-10 rankings appear in the magazine's February issue, which hits newsstands tomorrow.Topping the list was the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, followed by the University of Florida and University of Virginia. More

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La Jolla Light

Here is an App for Civil Disobedience
San Francisco Chronicle, Opinion, Jan. 6 -- Want to cross into the United States illegally while keeping track of the location of the nearest water station and the distance to your final destination? There’s an app for that. The device is the brainchild of Ricardo Dominguez, a professor of new media at UCSD, who developed the idea along with fellow researchers at Calit2. Several readers have asked what I think of a new cell phone dubbed by its inventor as a “trans-border immigrant tool.” I have mixed feelings. More

Similar story in San Diego Union-Tribune

Two Noteworthy Area Innovators
North County Times, Jan. 5 -- I didn't get to write about two notable local innovators before 2009 ended, so with this first column of 2010, I'm highlighting them. One is Andrew Yaros, who took the top prize of $1,000 in the San Diego Inventors Forum's Quick Pitch contest, held in December. Yaros won for his Trio Bathroom Dispenser, which provides dispensers for toilet paper, deodorizer and moist towelettes. The second noteworthy innovator is Shu Chien, a renowned professor of bioengineering at UCSD, who recently received another honor to add to his list of accomplishments. More

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