A Sampling of Clips for August 30, 2011

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

Mystery of Lost Leonardo Piece May Hinge on Camera
San Francisco Chronicle, Aug. 30 -- For decades scholars have labored to find a lost masterpiece by Leonardo da Vinci, believed by many to be hidden behind a fresco by Giorgio Vasari in the Palazzo Vecchio here. Now - thanks to an unusual marriage of art history and nuclear physics - the quest may soon be over. The complex tale begins in the 1970s, when the Florentine art historian Maurizio Seracini became convinced that the mural, "The Battle of Anghiari," hailed by some in Leonardo's era as his finest work, was lurking behind the wall-size Vasari in the Hall of Five Hundred. Seracini runs the Center of Interdisciplinary Science for Art, Architecture and Archaeology at the University of California, San Diego, and is a professor at its school of engineering. More

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Voice of San Diego, Aug. 30

Twitter Co-founder to Speak at New UCSD Forum
SignOnSanDiego, Aug. 29 -- Twitter co-founder Evan Williams, SpaceX rocketeer Elon Musk and game designer Will Wright will appear at "The Atlantic Meets the Pacific," a newly-created technology, health and energy symposium that will be held at UC San Diego October 17-19.The symposium also will feature self-help author Deepak Chopra, and physicist Leonard Mlodinow, who co-authored the book "The Grand Design" with Stephen Hawking. UCSD partnered with The Atlantic magazine to create the forum, which will feature conversations between the guests, university faculty, and Atlantic editors and writers. James Bennett, the magazine's well-known editor-in-chief, will participate, along with senior editor Alexis Madrigal, the author of, "Powering the Dream: The History and Promise of Green Technology." More

Local Explorers Comb World's Oceans, Deserts, Mountains
SignOnSanDiego, Aug. 28 – Two UC San Diego adventurers’ work will be honored next month by the international Explorers Club. Based in New York, the Explorers Club counts about 70 in San Diego County among its 3,100 members worldwide. It was founded in 1904 to give adventurers a place to share their triumphs and trials with peers, a function it retains even though the concept might seem outdated in the 21st Century. This year’s awardees will include UC San Diego’s Albert Yu-Min Lin, who previously was named an “emerging explorer” by National Geographic.  The other UC San Diego faculty member to be honored is archaeologist Thomas Levy. Levy has spent his career combing the deserts of the Middle East for clues about ancient civilizations. More

For Women, Active Sex Life May Mean Better Aging
U.S. News & World Report, Aug. 29 -- Sexual satisfaction in older women is associated with successful aging and a better quality of life, a new study finds. Researchers looked at information gathered from over 1,200 San Diego women, aged 60 to 89, and found that satisfaction with overall sex life was reported by 67 percent of those aged 60 to 69; 60 percent of those aged 70 to 79; and 61 percent of those aged 80 to 89. "Contrary to our earlier hypothesis, sexual satisfaction was not significantly associated with age," study co-author Wesley K. Thompson, an assistant professor of psychiatry with the Stein Institute for Research on Aging at the University of California San Diego School of Medicine, said in a UCSD news release. More

UCSD Professor Teaches Computers To Listen To Music
KPBS, Aug. 29 -- UCSD Electrical Engineering Professor Gert Lanckriet is teaching computers to know what you want to hear based on where you are and what you are doing. Going jogging? Your personal music device will play something upbeat. Chilling out after work? It will play something mellow.  Part of the process is teaching computers to classify music. “If you listen to a piece of music and you say ‘this is a romantic song', could we have a computer listen to that piece of music and come to the same conclusion?” he wondered. So far, the results are promising. More

Hypnosis Shown to Ease Pain, But Not All Patients Respond
SignOnSanDiego, Aug. 30 -- Can hypnosis really block pain? Should it be practiced in the operating room? We asked Tony Yaksh, professor of anesthesiology and pharmacology at the UCSD School of Medicine and director of the UCSD Anesthesiology Research Lab, to talk about altered states of consciousness and the science of pain. More

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