A Sampling of Clips for
April 16 th, 2007
* UCSD faculty and staff may obtain a copy of an article by e-mailing the University Communications Office
The Big Deals in Biofuels
The Chronicle of Higher Education, April 16 -- Researchers and policy makers agree that corn kernels alone will not help slake the growing appetite in America and throughout the world for energy. Scientists also concur that the promise of "biorenewable energy" can be fully harvested only if they can figure out how to wring cheap fuel from the stalks and leaves of corn and other plants, and not just from the energy-rich seeds. (Mentions UCSD) More
The Robin
Hood Impulse
The Daily Telegraph, April 11 -- A pioneering experiment by an American team suggests that people will spend their own money to make the rich less rich and the poor less poor. They do so without any hope of personal gain, acting, it seems, out of a taste for equality and sense of fair play. Dr James Fowler at UCSD, doctoral student Christopher Dawes and their coauthors set up a game to see if there's a drive for equality, where players were randomly allocated different sums of money, and were then able to anonymously 'reward' or 'punish' others by giving or taking money away. More
Similar story in
People’s Daily, China
San Diego Opera's
'Wozzeck' Captures the Raw Edge
Los Angeles Times, April 16 -- More than 80 years after its premiere in 1925, Alban Berg's expressionistic first opera, "Wozzeck," can still rattle an audience. The atonal music keeps the ear alert and off balance, and the raw subject matter of a soldier driven to murder by his superiors' cruel treatment, a mad doctor's experiments and his common-law wife's betrayal continues to offend a sense of fairness and moral order. (Mentions UCSD-TV) More
UC Class Learns to Keep Stem Cells in Line
North County Times, April 14 -- The half-dozen people in the class are learning basic techniques for growing and sorting human stem cells. Soon, they'll move on to projects of their own at UCSD and research institutes nearby. More
Genes Seen as the Future of Medicine
San Diego Union-Tribune, April 15 – Imagine this: Some people in their 90s don't need medicine because they have “healthy genes” that override other genes bent on causing disease. Scientists translate this knowledge into compounds that extend life for others. (Quotes UCSD alumnus Craig Venter. His company sequenced the human genome several years ago, and now he's collaborating with cancer specialists at UCSD and the Salk Institute to combine genomic analysis with medical research.) More
Rowing the Extra Mile
San Diego Union-Tribune, April 16 -- A critical gender studies major currently taking 16 units at UCSD, plus a four-unit sign-language course at Mesa Community College, Sarah Gosling qualifies as a student. In her second season rowing at UCSD, Gosling is a student/athlete. More
More than Racing to Concrete Canoes
San Diego Union-Tribune, April 15 -- To the scientifically challenged mind, the logic behind paddling a concrete canoe doesn't quite add up. But for 16 university teams of engineering students, including one from UCSD, that brought their concrete canoes to Lake Murray yesterday, it was a mathematical and creative challenge well within the realm of scientific possibility. More
Stopping Alzheimer’s in Its Tracks
News Channel 5, Nashville, Tenn. April 13 -- Five million Americans are living with Alzheimer's disease. Researchers expect that number to triple by 2050. There are drugs to treat the symptoms, but none proven to treat the cause of the disease. One treatment under study could actually stop the disease from getting worse. "It could very well be the first drug to market that actually changes the progress of the disease," said Dr. Adam Fleisher, a neurologist at UCSD’s Department of Neurosciences. More
In U.S., Dance that Provokes
and Stimulates Remains a Big Leap
San Diego Union-Tribune, April 15 – The growing influence of international dance reverberates in San Diego far beyond occasional appearances by touring companies, and the largest ripples are hitting the universities. Over the past five years, the UCSD dance department has added Londoner Yolande Snaith; Allyson Green, who's deeply connected to the contemporary-dance boom in post-Communist Eastern Europe; and Liam Clancy, who just spent three weeks collaborating with an artist in Ghana. More
Mural Is Truly Sign of the Times
San Diego Union-Tribune, April 16 -- The old mural on National Avenue is about all that's left to remind people of the great Barrio Logan junkyard controversy, when residents were pushing city officials to clear light industry out of their neighborhood, especially junkyards. (Quotes Jorge Mariscal, director of the Chicano Studies program at UCSD) More
Drug-resistant Strain
FOX6 News, April 14 -- A serious disease is making a big comeback in San Diego. Health officials are concerned about a drug resistant strain of gonorrhea. According to the CDC, drug resistant infections now account for 20% of all the gonorrhea cases in San Diego. (Quotes Dr. William Norcross, a clinical professor of medicine at the UCSD School of Medicine) More