A Sampling of Clips for
April 5, 2006
* UCSD faculty and staff may obtain a copy of an article by e-mailing the University Communications Office
Medical Imager Gets Fishy with It
Discovery Channel, April 4 -- Digital imaging technology commonly used to peer at human muscles and organs is now providing unprecedented views of fish. Not only will magnetic resonance imaging — or MRI — shed new light on the animal's anatomy, but it will also allow researchers and school children alike to digitally dissect a thousand fish from any Internet-connected computer. The library is a collaboration between scientists at UCSD and Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla. More
Vitamin D May Lower Risk
of Breast and Ovarian Cancer
Actualites News Environnement (France), April 4 -- Increasing doses of dietary Vitamin D may help prevent breast cancer, with the optimal level of intake of Vitamin D more than three times the current average for Americans, according to a study conducted at UCSD. Previous studies have suggested a link between Vitamin D deficiency and higher incidence of breast cancer. Cedric Garland, Dr. P.H., and Edward Gorham, Ph.D., of UCSD, and their colleagues examined existing cancer studies to determine if higher Vitamin D levels in the blood could reduce the risk of cancer. More
Stem Cell Research Woes
Red Herring.Com, April 3 -- Four of San Diego’s top research institutions—UCSD and the Burnham, Salk, and Scripps Institutes—recently decided to combine their efforts in stem cell research and form a single regenerative medicine consortium. More
Guggenheim Grants
Fellowship to UCSD Music Professor Davis
San Diego Union-Tribune, April 5 -- UCSD music professor Anthony Davis, one of the most daring and diverse composers in modern American music, has been selected to receive a Guggenheim fellowship. The grant, which he estimates will be between $20,000 and $50,000, will enable him to devote his attention to several projects, most notably his latest opera, “Wakonda's Dream,” which he was commissioned to compose for Opera Omaha. It will premiere early next February in Omaha. More
Buddhism and the Art of Brain Science
San Diego Union-Tribune, April 5 -- In October 2004, neuroscientist Fred Gage took a leap of faith and flew to India to present a lecture to Tenzin Gyatso, the current Dalai Lama. The religious leader had asked him to participate in a workshop on brain science at his compound in Dharamsala, in the foothills of the Himalayas. The Dalai Lama wanted to learn more about Gage's explorations at the Salk Institute in La Jolla into the adult brain's ability to generate new cells. (Quotes Patricia Chuchland, professor of philosophy at UCSD.) More
UCSD Rady School
of Management On Track to Success
CONNECT Newsletter, April 4 -- Robert Sullivan knows a thing or two about running a sharp business school. Sullivan, former dean of UNC's Kenan-Flagler Business School and the Graduate School of Industrial Administration at Carnegie Mellon University, has been in charge of the UCSD Rady School of Management since it opened for business two-and-a-half years ago. More
Real-Time Quake Detection
Ivanhoe.Com, April 4 -- The first few hours following a major earthquake are critical for seismologists, rescuers and people living in the quake zone. Now, researchers can estimate where a quake made its biggest impact within 30 minutes after a big earthquake. It was a deadly quake that shook the world. Hundreds of thousands of people died. Kris Walker, a seismologist at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UCSD says, "It actually took days before the true size of that earthquake was determined." (Also quotes UCSD seismologist Peter Shearer.) More
Engineers ‘Translate’
IR Signals into Many Other Wavelengths
Photonics.Com, April 4 -- Researchers at UCSD have developed a way to "translate" optical fiber signals between the current infrared and a wide range of other bands of light, something only achieved previously with nearly identical wavelengths. The researchers said the breakthrough could lead to new applications in areas such as underwater communications, spectroscopy and remote sensing, and would also allow new telecom applications to use existing fiber, eliminating costly new infrastructure investments. More
‘When Things Get Small’
Nanotechnology Now, April 3 -- "When Things Get Small," an award-winning, 30-minute film about nanoscience, will be shown at the U.S. Department of Energy's Brookhaven National Laboratory on April 24. Laura H. Lewis, Deputy Director of Brookhaven Lab's Center for Functional Nanomaterials, will introduce one of the film's producers and stars, Ivan Schuller, a world-renowned physicist who is a professor at UCSD. More
