A Sampling of Clips for June 17, 2011

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

Want to Stop Cybercrime? Follow the Money
Computer World, June 16 -- Five dollars for control over 1,000 compromised email accounts. Eight dollars for a distributed denial-of-service attack that takes down a website for an hour. And just a buck to solve 1,000 captchas. Those are the going rates of cybercrime, the amounts criminals pay other criminals for the technical services necessary to launch attacks. It's the kind of IT outsourcing no legitimate company would ever conduct, but it's a profitable business if done effectively. This criminal underground was detailed Wednesday in a highly entertaining talk given by researcher Stefan Savage, UC San Diego professor and director of the Collaborative Center for Internet Epidemiology and Defenses (CCIED), at the annual Usenix technical conference in Portland, Ore. Savage presented an empirical approach to researching computer crime and devising the most financially feasible methods of stopping it. Founded to study the technical components of cybercrime, CCIED started getting federal funding in 2004 and as a result had to incorporate economic models into its research to satisfy the government.
Savage admitted that his look at economics was "total lip service" at first, but later he and his team realized the financial basis for criminal hacking may be the key to solving the whole problem. "Your role as a defender is when a new attack comes out, you need to come out with a new defense," Savage said. "Attackers, on the other hand, can attack proactively whenever they feel like it." More

Aimless in High School, War Veteran Finds a New Mission
Laguna Beach Independent, June 15 -- Laguna Beach native Kevin Staight, whose journey from a middling student who graduated from high school in 2000 with a less-than-stellar 2.9 GPA to graduating magna cum laude from UC San Diego on Sunday, June 12, at age 28 was a circuitous one that included two tours of active duty in Iraq. More

Longtime UCSD Swim Coach Steps Down
North County Times, June 15 -- UC San Diego swimming and diving head coach Scott McGihon announced Wednesday that he is stepping down to spend more time with his family. More

UCSD Nobel Laureate to Appear on Stamp
San Diego Union-Tribune, June 15 -- Maria Goeppert Mayer, a founding faculty member at UC San Diego and a Nobel laureate, will appear on a new stamp to be issued Thursday the U.S. Postal Service. Mayer was one of only two women to win the Nobel Prize in physics. More

Similar story in
KUSI News 9
La Jolla Light

Researcher: Smell-capable TV 'Doable'
UPI, June 15 -- Television viewers are surrounded by sight and sound, but U.S. researchers want to add smell to the small-screen experience. Researchers at UC San Diego, conducted a two-year experiment in collaboration with Samsung Advanced Institute of Technology in Korea. The researchers demonstrate that it is possible to generate odor in a compact device that can fit on the back of a TV with potentially thousands of odors. "For example, if people are eating pizza, the viewer smells pizza coming from a TV or cellphone," said Sungho Jin, professor in the departments of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering and Nano-Engineering at the university's Jacobs School of Engineering. More

Similar story in
Nanowerk News
The Post-Chronicle

Seeking Answers in Clouds
Water: Team Studies Factors That Affect Precipitation
Los Angeles Times, June 16 -- Kim Prather, a professor of atmospheric chemistry at UC San Diego, and her team conducted a five-week project this winter out of McClellan Airport trying to figure out why some clouds give up their moisture and others don't as they roll across the mountain ranges that provide much of California with water. Meteorologists believe "that if a cloud wants to rain/snow, it is going to regardless of the type/amount of aerosol seeds," said Prather. Onboard the Gulfstream turboprop, a special instrument that Prather invented blew apart atmospheric particles with a laser and mapped their chemical composition, all in real time. Other devices counted and measured millions of cloud droplets, recorded water content and analyzed gases. On the ground, in the Tahoe National Forest, another array of equipment simultaneously sampled Sierra air masses. "There are so many factors that ultimately affect precipitation — meteorology, atmospheric dynamics, cloud microphysics and chemistry — and their effects are all intertwined and often change at the same time, so sorting them out is very, very difficult," she added. More

Scripps to Be Honored for Climate Change Research
San Diego Union-Tribune, June 15 -- Charles Keeling and Roger Revelle shook science, illustrating that unusual levels of carbon dioxide are building up in the atmosphere, contributing to climate change. The work dates to the late 1950s when Charles Keeling, a geochemist at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, began to monitor carbon dioxide levels at a site in Hawaii. The changing C02 levels were established in a chart that became known as the “Keeling Curve.” The American Physical Society will memorialize the work on June 17th, placing a historic marker at Scripps Ritter Hall, where Keeling conducted much of his research. More

The Hidden Dangers of Cosmetic Surgery
Forbes.com, June 16 -- Cosmetic surgery has become a booming, $10.1 billion business each year in the U.S., according to the American Society of Plastic Surgeons. Women, already 91 percent of cosmetic patients, are electing to make these quick fixes more than ever, undergoing five percent more procedures in 2010 than the year before. Greater numbers of young women are now going under the knife. Cosmetic procedures are up 4% for women in their 30s, and 30% of all liposuction recipients are ages 19 to 34, reports the American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery. (Quotes Anne Wallace, chief of plastic surgery at the UC San Diego Health System.) More

Sunscreen Labels to Get a Makeover
NBC San Diego, June 15 -- It's a confusing decision, buying waterproof, sweat proof, SPF 8 or 80. That's why for the first time in more than 30 years the FDA is making changes when it comes to labeling requirements. The idea is to simplify the labels so consumers can make better decisions on what kind to buy. It's more than just stopping sunburn -- two million Americans get treated for skin cancer each year and people die from melanoma at the rate of one death per hour. (Quotes Greg Daniels, M.D., an oncologist with UC San Diego School of Medicine.) More

Demystifying Michael Trigilio
San Diego City Beat, June 15 -- Michael Trigilio specializes in the art of "demystification." A multimedia artist who teaches media arts and sound at UC San Diego, Trigilio endeavors to unlock mysteries. His film Bodhisattva, Superstar is an "allegorical documentary" exploring Buddhism in America and his project, Neighborhood Public Radio, a cheeky play on National Public Radio, is an art collective that champions outside participation. More

The Bible: What It Says and Means
Jewish Journal, June 16 -- Now that another presidential campaign season is upon us, you can count on a fair amount of Bible-thumping between now and election day. But if you wonder what the Bible really says about abortion, homosexuality, capital punishment and other contemporary concerns, the real answers are to be found in “The Bible Now” by Richard Elliott Friedman [chair of Jewish Studies at UC San Diego] and Shawna Dolansky. (Quotes the authors.) More

UCSD Ranks High for Return on Investment
Press Connects, June 15 -- A recent ranking by Investor’s Business Daily placed UC San Diego in a tie with Binghamton University for ninth in the nation for return on investment, defined as the earnings per dollar spent to get an education. IBD looked at net pay 30 years after earning a bachelor’s degree. More

Live at UC San Diego
XETV Ch. 6, June 16 -- We're live this morning at UC San Diego previewing this year’s La Jolla Festival of The Arts. More

Cap for Brain Tumor Treatment
KBTV (Fox News), June 16 -- A cap to help shrink brain tumors is currently undergoing clinical trials at UC San Diego. The hope is this hat will prolong the life of brain cancer patients. More

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