A Sampling of Clips for April 14^th, 2008

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

Mapping Genetic Abnormalities in Autism
MIT Technology Review, April 14 -- A new project led by UCSD researcher Eric Courchesne to study the brains of people with autism in unprecedented detail could finally pinpoint subtle neurological changes that underlie the disorder. Researchers will use an innovative set of tools developed to study gene expression to analyze exactly where early brain development goes awry. More

Happenings Are Happening Again
The New York Times, April 13 – It’s hard to know what Allan Kaprow, the artist who gave us Happenings in the 1960s as a way to escape the confines of museums, would have thought of his current retrospective at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles. Kaprow taught at UCSD. More

Similar story in
San Diego Union-Tribune

Study: TV Viewing Hasn't Helped Happiness
Detroit News, April 12 -- While our standard of living has increased over the 40 years studied, our happiness levels haven't. Too much TV is to blame, according to David Schkade, a professor of management at UCSD. More

Gender Identity and Phantom Genitalia
San Francisco Chronicle, April 13 – V.S. Ramachandran, a neurologist and psychologist at UCSD and a leading authority on phantom limb sensations, says it has long been known that some people who are born without arms have vivid phantom arms. They can swing them around, wave goodbye and make complicated gestures. More

Video Gamer Asks Court to Ban Sloth, Greed from World of Warcraft
Miami Herald, April 13 -- Antonio Hernandez plays World of Warcraft. He has called on his fellow adventurers to join him as he takes a stand. The battle won't be fought with wands or swords. It will be waged in the Fort Lauderdale federal courthouse. (Quotes Ge Jin, a UCSD graduate student) More

Does Sea Hold Ancient Climate Clues?
Philadelphia Inquirer, April 14 -- For years, climate researchers puzzled over a long hot spell around 90 million years ago, when tropical breadfruit trees flourished in Greenland, crocodiles slithered above the Arctic Circle and at least a few dinosaurs roamed Antarctica. (Quotes Richard Norris, a professor of paleobiology at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography) More

UC Regents' Powerhouse Chief, Richard Blum
San Francisco Chronicle, April 14 -- San Francisco financier Richard Blum has built his reputation - and his multimillion-dollar fortune - by swooping in and turning around troubled corporations. His first major coup was putting together a partnership in 1968 to buy the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus for about $8 million - and then selling it for $40 million four years later. (Mentions UCSD) More

Automatic Americans
San Diego Union-Tribune, Opinion, April 14 – Ending birthright citizenship is a placebo, not a solution to illegal immigration. The debate over immigration is fundamentally about who we are as a nation, who we are not, and who we want to be. (Written by Tomas Jiménez, an assistant professor of sociology at UCSD and an Irvine Fellow at the New America Foundation) More

Water Story Makes Big Splash 
Las Vegas Review Journal, April 14 -- Over the past year, the Southern Nevada Water Authority has fielded a barrage of interview requests from media outlets from across the country and around the globe. The requests really started to pour in two months ago after the Scripps Institution of Oceanography released a report predicting a 50-50 chance that Lake Mead could run dry by 2021. More

Clinic Puts Students in Trenches of Medicine
San Diego Union-Tribune, April 14 – Ellen Beck launched the UCSD Student-Run Free Clinic Project at a church in Pacific Beach in 1997, partly with funds raised from bake sales. When certain patients didn't show up there, she and her students tracked them down – at shelters, under bridges, in parks – to make sure they received the care they needed. More

Wired for Laughs
San Diego Union-Tribune, April 14 – After graduating from UCSD last year, Michael Swaim and Abe Epperson were determined to pursue a career in the entertainment industry. More

Web Site Lets Users Test Out New Looks
San Diego Union-Tribune, April 13 - Daniel Kriegman is a balding, bespectacled 46-year-old professor of computer science at UCSD who does not wear makeup. Neither, for that matter, does Satya Mallick, a newly minted Ph.D. from the Jacobs School of Engineering. More

Fresh Perspectives
San Diego Union-Tribune, April 13 -- The 70-some students in the urban studies and planning program at UCSD speak the truth when it comes to some of San Diego's most intractable urban issues.  Like transportation. Housing. Environmental protection. Land-use choices. More

Recent Arrivals Recount Dangers of Journey to U.S.
San Diego Union-Tribune, April 14 – The perilous, illegal journey from Central America to the United States has become even more dangerous in recent years, say those who have attempted it recently.  (Quotes Wayne Cornelius, director of the Center for Comparative Immigration Studies at UCSD) More

College Recruiters in San Diego Today to Attract Gay Students
KPBS, April 12 -- Recruiters from Princeton, Georgetown and Penn State visited UCSD to take part in a college fair called Campus Pride. That group also rates how gay-friendly colleges are. More

Research, 6 a.m. Vegas-Style
Voice of San Diego, April 12 -- His political science students at UCSD know Dr. James Fowler as the prof who writes on his chalkboard-painted office walls. Scientists and journalists know him as the man who found a social link in obesity. But fans of Comedy Central's "The Colbert Report" (pronounced with silent "t"s) know him as the guy who found the first scientific evidence to support the "Colbert bump," a phenomenon in which political candidates receive a boost in their political support after appearing on Stephen Colbert's talk show. More

Spinal Cord Injury Inspires  Executive to Help Others
San Diego Business Journal, April 14 -- Since 2006, the Del Mar-based HeadNorth Foundation has raised more than $1 million from organized events, corporate sponsors, private donations and partnerships. The monies have benefited 15 to 20 people with spinal cord injuries and the UCSD School of Medicine, which Northbrook presented with a $50,000 check last year to fund spinal cord research. More