A Sampling of Clips for Oct. 6, 2010

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

Couples With Daughters More Likely to Divorce
ABC News, Oct. 6 -- Little girls may be sugar and spice and everything nice, but having a daughter might boost a couple's risk of divorce, according to past census data. (Mentions research by economists Gordon Dahl, from UC San Diego, and Enrico Moretti, at UC Berkeley) More

Dieting? More Sleep Helps Burn Fat
Huffington Post, Oct. 5 -- If you're trying to lose weight by cutting calories, make sure to get a good night's sleep. According to a new study, too little sleep appears to hinder your body's ability to burn fat. (Quotes Dr. Daniel Kripke, a professor emeritus of psychiatry at UC San Diego) More

Donations to Whitman Undercut her No-special-interests Claim
Los Angeles Times, Oct. 6 -- Donors with business before the state and corporate leaders poured millions of dollars into Meg Whitman's campaign in the last three months, potentially undercutting her claim that her personal fortune makes her uniquely free of special-interest entanglements, campaign disclosure reports filed Tuesday show. (Quotes UC San Diego political scientist Thad Kousser) More

Japan Slashes Bank Rate to Almost Zero
Marketplace, Public Radio International, Oct. 5 -- Dateline Tokyo, Japan. The Bank of Japan came out with a new plan to jump start that country's economy this morning. Dropping interest rates to just about zero. (Quotes UC San Diego economist Takeo Hoshi) More

UCSD Raises $41,000 African-American Student Scholarships
San Diego Union-Tribune, Oct. 5 -- UC San Diego raised $41,000 for its Black Alumni Scholarship Fund, which provides scholarships to African-American students on the La Jolla campus, in the fiscal year that ended June 30. More

UCSD Professor Receives “Genius” Award
CBS News 8, San Diego, Calif., Oct. 4 – CBS News 8 profiles Carol Padden, a UC San Diego researcher who received a MacArthur Fellowship, also known as a “genius” award, which includes a $500,000 prize. More

Trauma Specialist Warns Teens About Distracted Driving
San Diego Union-Tribune, Oct. 5 -- As chief of the division of trauma, surgical critical care and burns for UC San Diego Health System, Dr. Raul Coimbra sees the devastating impact of unsafe driving every day. Such trauma, he says, is not the result of an accident, but the consequence of everyday, preventable behaviors. More

San Diego Hosts Global Wireless Health Meeting
San Diego Union-Tribune, Oct. 5 -- San Diego is on the international stage as the host of Wireless Health 2010, a gathering this week of more than 300 scientists, engineers, entrepreneurs and investors interested in using cell phone technology to treat diseases, manage chronic conditions and lower health-care costs. Much of the attention this week will focus on the 20 peer-reviewed research papers being presented by scientists from UC San Diego, the University of California Berkley, Boston University, the University of Edinburgh in Scotland and other institutes. More

Local Colleges Compete in Food Drive
San Diego Union-Tribune, Oct. 5 -- Four San Diego County universities will compete to see which one can collect the most donations for the San Diego County Food Bank. The Colleges Rock Hunger food drive, sponsored by the Hard Rock Hotel San Diego, begins Wednesday and runs through Oct. 22. The participating colleges, with 74,000 students among them, are San Diego State University, UC San Diego, California State University San Marcos and the University of San Diego. More

Colorado River Drought Threatens Power Production
The Press-Enterprise, Oct. 6 -- Record low levels at Lake Mead threaten hydropower generation that brings electricity to Southern California, including several Inland cities, and moves drinking water for millions of residents and farms. (Quotes Tim Barnett, a research marine geophysicist at Scripps Institution of Oceanography in San Diego who, with colleague David Pierce, released a study two years ago titled, "When Will Lake Mead Go Dry?") More

Stanford, UCSD Biologists Take Plunge into Arpanet-Style Project With Sage
Xconomy, Oct. 6 --  Stephen Friend had plenty of doubters last year when he quit a high-powered Big Pharma executive job to start a nonprofit seeking to spark an open source style movement for biology. One year later, the former chief of cancer research at Merck has pulled off another unlikely feat. He’s corralled four world-class biologists, including UC San Diego’s Trey Ideker, who have agreed to pool their raw experimental data and models on the connections between genes, proteins, drugs, and disease states into a public database. More

* Subscribe with In the News and receive our clips automatically