A Sampling of Clips for June 21, 2011

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

Miracle Workers
Newsweek, June 20 -- It’s one thing to crack Newsweek’s [America’s Top High Schools] list with top facilities and handpicked students. But what about standout performance despite limited resources and a student body chosen by lottery? Our top Transformative schools achieve results with this added challenge: taking students at all skill levels, from all strata, and turning out uniformly qualified graduates. Lessons abound. The Preuss School, mostly Hispanic, on the UC San Diego campus, has a unique entrance requirement: parents who did not go to college. (All students qualify for subsidized student lunch—the only ranked school with that distinction.) To create a proper mindset, students take a homeroom on steroids—with tutoring, character building, and, eventually, SAT-prep and college-essay help—and keep the same teacher for grades six through 12, allowing them an intimate faculty-recommendation letter. (Ninety-five percent of seniors are accepted to college.) A longer school day and a 198-day year keep the entire student body on a single advanced track—and 120 UCSD tutors don’t hurt. More

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Complete Newsweek High School Rankings List

Study: No Amount of Alcohol Safe to Drive
United Press International (UPI), June 20 -- The standard U.S. blood-alcohol limit may be 0.08 percent, but no amount of alcohol seems to be safe for driving, a sociologist says. Study leader David Phillips and co-author Kimberly M. Brewer, both of UC San Diego, examined official data from the Fatality Analysis Reporting System, including information on all people who were involved in fatal car accidents in the United States -- 1,495,667 from 1994 to 2008. More

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“Stealth” Nanoparticles Target Cancer
United Press International (UPI), June 20 -- Nanoparticles disguised as red blood cells will evade the body's immune system and deliver cancer-fighting drugs straight to a tumor, U.S. researchers say. (Quotes Liangfang Zhang, a UC San Diego nanoeningeering professor.) More

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UCSD Research Could Make 'Smell-O-Vision' Reality
KGTV News 10, June 20 -- A UC San Diego professor, working in conjunction with electronics company Samsung, has discovered the technology that would make "smell-o-vision" possible. Professor Sungho Jin was contacted by Samsung about two years ago, and he and his researchers came up with small chambers that contain the liquid of a scent. More

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Napa Valley Vintners Brace for Climate Change
Contra Costa Times, June 20 --The region's wine growers had long heard of melting glaciers and arctic ice sheets breaking apart in rising global temperatures. During the 20th century, global temperature increased by about 1.33 F, and a United Nations climate panel estimates that, depending upon carbon dioxide emissions, temperatures will rise an additional 2 to 11.5 F by 2100. To get a better handle on the future, Napa Valley vintners asked Daniel Cayan, a leading climate scientist with Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego, to head its study. Cayan and three other researchers analyzed more than 12,000 data points on weather and the annual life cycle of vines, such as when leaves first emerge. More

Ocean Changes Cause Consternation
KQED, June 20 -- It's the reason that wetsuits are such big sellers in California. The river of ocean water known as the California Current barges in off the Aleutians, and as it rolls southward along the West Coast, makes for more than bone-chilling body surfing. It supports a robust stew of sea life. But as Mike Lee reports for The San Diego Union-Tribune, it's warming up. And that has researchers at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography concerned about future biodiversity off the California coast. More

UCSD Inventions
KGTV News 10, June 20 – UC San Diego is bringing in millions of dollars from hundreds of inventions. According to a new report, UC San Diego came up with 367 inventions last year, finishing second to UCLA. The university earned more than 14 million dollars from its top two inventions. More

An Update on the “Hallmarks Of Cancer”
San Diego Union-Tribune, June 21 -- In 2000, a seminal paper was published in the journal Cell describing the “hallmarks of cancer,” the traits that all cancers have in common. There were six: self-sufficiency in growth signals, insensitivity to anti-growth signals, tissue invasion and metastasis, limitless replicative potential, sustained angiogenesis (blood vessel growth) and evasion of apoptosis (cell death). Recently, a new report that incorporates much of what’s been learned in cancer research over the last 11 years was published. (Interview with Dr. Santosh Kesari, chief of the division of neuro-oncology at the UCSD School of Medicine and a physician-researcher at the Moores Cancer Center.) More

Climate Change Deniers Spreading Misinformation: Environmental Groups
ANI, June 18 -- In her excellent book "Merchants of Doubt: How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues from Tobacco Smoke to Global Warming" Naomi Oreskes demonstrates how scientists such as Fred Singer aimed to sow seeds of public doubt on matters of settled science. Both Fred Singer and the Heartland Institute had previously questioned harmful effects of passive smoking in the 1990s with funding from tobacco major Philip Morris. More

Summer Jazz Band Camp at UCSD
San Diego Reader, June 18 -- What separates the UC San Diego  jazz camp from literally dozens of others is it's bold sense of balance between what has become the "be-bop" factories of the status quo and the acceptance of "free-jazz" as a legitimate, and teachable form of expression. More

No Rest for Mark Dresser
San Diego Reader, June 17 -- Noted contrabassist and UC San Diego professor Mark Dresser maintains the busiest of schedules. He has several active ensembles including Trio M with pianist Myra Melford and East Coast drummer Matt Wilson, another trio with Melford and trombonist Michael Dessen, a Southern California Quintet and a NYC version with Dessen, saxophonist Rudresh Mahanthappa, drummer Tom Rainey and pianist Denman Maroney. More

All in the family
San Diego Union-Tribune, June 21 -- Cancer, diabetes, heart disease and many other disorders have genetic factors passed down through the generations. Knowing if your family has a history of these conditions allows you and your physician to take steps to prevent you from becoming part of an unwanted family tradition. (Quotes Lauren Dennis, a certified genetics counselor at UCSan Diego Medical Center.) More

Seaside Café to Open at Scripps Institution
La Jolla Light, June 20 -- Beachfront dining will take a new form this summer when Caroline’s Seaside Café opens at the Scripps Seaside Forum at Scripps Institution of Oceanography, UC San Diego. More

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