A Sampling of Clips for 
April 11, 2006

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

Eager to Tell the Stories
of Science, a Biologist Evolves
The New York Times, April 11 -- If a Harvard-trained evolutionary biologist makes a film about creationism's cousin, intelligent design, and calls it "Flock of Dodos," you know who he's talking about, right? Maybe not. The biologist, Randy Olson, accepts that there is no credible scientific challenge to the theory of evolution as an explanation for the diversity and complexity of life on earth. He agrees that intelligent design's embrace of a supernatural "agent" puts it outside the realm of science. (Quotes Jeremy Jackson, a geologist and coral expert at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography.) More

Monash Stem Cell Centre
Signs $4.1bn Deal with US
The Age (Australia), April 12 -- Melbourne's Australian Stem Cell Centre and a leading US university with $US3 billion ($A4.1 billion) to spend have sealed a unique deal that forms one of the most significant groups in regenerative medicine in the world. The deal between the ASCC at Monash University and UCSD, brings together 300 of the best scientists and researchers to share resources and expertise as they work on complex stem cell issues. More

Is Balanced Journalism to Blame
for the Lack of Action on Global Warming?
Boston Globe, April 9 -- "Be Worried. Be Very Worried," read the cover line - a Time magazine story last week pronounced the debate on global warming over: ''Environmentalists and lawmakers spent years shouting at one another . . . but in the past five years or so, the serious debate has quietly ended." Worse, the magazine declared, environmental catastrophe is already upon us. (Cites research by UCSD science historian Naomi Oreskes.) More

Huge Turnout at Sunday’s March
Has Latinos Thinking About Future
San Diego Union-Tribune, April 11 -- A day after the largest known demonstration in the history of San Diego, a march for immigrant rights Sunday that drew tens of thousands, Latino activists, academics and regular residents alike were still pinching themselves at the turnout – and wondering about the implications. (Quotes Jorge Mariscal, director of Chicano Studies at UCSD.) More

State Seen
as ‘Leader of the Pack’ on Clean Air
San Diego Union-Tribune, April 10 -- In Michigan, where automakers still reign, the Rev. Charles Morris cites Scripture and California policy as he campaigns for curbs on tail pipe and smokestack emissions linked to disruptions in global weather patterns that can threaten water, power and food supplies. “California is the leader of the pack,” says the Catholic priest who tends a parish in Wyandotte, just outside Dearborn. (Quotes Dan Cayan, a climate expert at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography.) More

Families in the ER:
Good Intentions or Bad Medicine?
San Diego Union-Tribune, April 10 -- More than a million times a year, American emergency rooms go to heroic lengths to resurrect the all-but-dead. Television has conditioned us to place a lot of hope in these violent struggles at the threshold of death's door. Ten years ago, a study of “ER” and “Chicago Hope” reported that two-thirds of TV resuscitations had happy outcomes. Revivals by cardiopulmonary resuscitation on “Rescue 911” were 100 percent successful, a miraculous record. As a result, Americans believe resuscitations succeed about 70 percent of the time, according to a related study. Alas, the odds in the real world are miserable. (Quotes Janine Dubina, UCSD Medical Center's nurse manager for critical care.) More

Researchers Determine Factors
That Turn On Protein Production in Bacteria
News-Medical.Net, April 11 -- Researchers at UCSD have determined what factors turn on protein production in bacteria, a finding that provides new targets for the development of antibiotics. In the study, published in the journal Molecular Cell, researchers Sean Studer and Simpson Joseph in UCSD's Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry report how the messenger RNA instructions to make a protein are unfolded in a bacterial cell, so that they can be read by the cell's protein-making machinery. More

Anadys Names
UCSD Professor to Advisory Board
San Diego Daily Transcript, April 10 -- Anadys Pharmaceuticals Inc. announced Monday that it has appointed Robert "Chip" Schooley, M.D., to its Clinical and Scientific Advisory Board. Schooley is professor and head of the Division of Infectious Diseases at UCSD. More