A Sampling of Clips for 
August 07 - 09, 2004

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

Confusion over UC Transfers Continues
Los Angeles Times, Aug. 7-The state reversed itself last week and said it would give 5,800 recent high school graduates the option of heading directly to University of California campuses without first attending community college. But many of those students are learning that they won't be admitted to their top-choice UC schools. The system's three most selective campuses -- UC Berkeley, UCLA and UC San Diego -- had originally offered several thousand students a "guaranteed transfer option," but just fewer than 740 of them accepted and agreed to complete two years of community college studies before enrolling in UC. Now those 740 won't have to fulfill that requirement and can go directly to one of those three campuses. (Quote by Mae W. Brown, director of admissions at UC San Diego.)
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-uc7aug07,1,6745518.story

Life Can Be a Real Beach
US News & World Report, Aug. 16-In relentless pursuit of an ocean view, millions of Americans have joined the Great Sand Rush in recent years, paying nosebleed prices for houses and condos on or near beaches. Many of these places, of course, can be only atop massive steel-and-concrete pilings pounded deep into the soft sand. Unfortunately, they are little match for tidal forces that over the next five decades are expected to claim a quarter of all U.S. homes located within 500 feet of the coastline.(Quote by Richard Seymour, a research engineer at Scripps Institution of Oceanography.)
http://www.usnews.com/usnews/issue/040816/misc/16erosion.htm

Heart Help or Hype?
The Times (London), Aug. 7-Cholesterol-busting drugs - known as statins - will be freely available in chemists next week. But do we really need them? Last week seven million people in the UK, most of whom probably think that they are healthy, were advised by experts to go to their local chemist, buy a drug over the counter and keep taking it for the rest of their lives because they are at mild to moderate risk for heart disease. The drug in question is a cholesterol-lowering statin called Zocor Heart-Pro (simvastatin) and the UK is the first country in the world to make a statin available to anyone without a prescription. (Quote by Beatrice Golomb, an associate professor at the University of California, San Diego.)
* No link available online.

Robert A. Hein; Physicist Studied Superconductors
Washington Post, Aug. 9-Robert A. "Bob" Hein M.D., 78, who gained international recognition for his work in low-temperature physics and superconductivity, died of cancer Aug. 3 at his home in Catonsville, Md. He served as a visiting scientist at the University of California at San Diego.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A50911-2004Aug8.html

Videogame Class
Fox 6 News, San Diego, Aug. 3-In this television report as part a series sponsored by UCSD Connect, reporter Fox 6 News Jennifer Brant talks to Jacobs School of Engineering professor Geoff Voelker about his software systems class in which seniors design multiplayer, networked videogames. (Requires RealPlayer)
http://rpvss.ucsd.edu:8080/ramgen/jsoe/FoxConnectVideogames.rm

Fox in the Morning
Fox 6 News, San Diego, Aug. 4-After airing a Fox CONNECT segment on a computer-science course at UCSD that involves building multiplayer, networked videogames, Fox in the Morning host Marc Bailey interviews Jacobs School computer-science professor Geoff Voelker about why the course is so popular, and want his students get out of it. (Requires RealPlayer)
http://rpvss.ucsd.edu:8080/ramgen/jsoe/FoxVideogamesMorning.rm

Visualizing Gene Activity May Provide Insight Into Development
Medical News Today, Aug. 9-A technique developed by University of California, San Diego biologists, which uses bright fluorescent dyes to reveal the activity of genes in individual cells of an organism, promises to be a boon to developmental biologists, and may provide new insight into how cancerous tumors begin and grow. The advance, described in the August 6 issue of Science, allows researchers, for the first time, to simultaneously visualize the activity of multiple genes in the same cell. (Quote by Ethan Bier, a professor of biology at UCSD who led the research team.)
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/medicalnews.php?newsid=11825#

Transcriptional Gene Silencing in Nucleus Shown by UCSD/VA Medical Researchers
Medical News Today, Aug. 9- A new gene-silencing technique that takes place in the nucleus of human cells, has been demonstrated by researchers at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine and the VA San Diego Healthcare System. The technique, called transcriptional gene silencing, provides a new research tool to study gene function and, if continuing studies prove the concept, it could potentially become a method for therapeutic modification of the expression of disease-producing genes. (Quote by David J. Looney, M.D., associate professor of medicine at UCSD and the VA San Diego Healthcare System.)
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/medicalnews.php?newsid=11828#

Antarctic Ice Culled for Climate Clues
Copley News Service, Aug. 9-In December, three miles from the South Pole and 10,000 feet above sea level, Mark Thiemens was on his hands and knees cutting ice from the bottom of a 20-foot-deep pit. Thiemens and a small team of atmospheric scientists, seeking clues to Earth's climate history, labored there for nearly a month. Now back at the University of California, San Diego, the scientists are extracting tiny particles from the ice to learn about the chemistry that shapes the atmosphere. By understanding that chemistry, scientists can better know how air pollution threatens human health and the global climate. Over the past half-century, UCSD and its Scripps Institution of Oceanography have assembled one of the world's top teams to research the air living things breathe.
* No link available online.

Genetic Research Points to Cancer Link
Copley News Service, Aug. 6-Scientists at the University of California, San Diego have detailed a genetic link between inflammation and cancer, a finding that someday might lead to new weapons in the fight against the disease. The researchers, in an article today in the journal Cell, say that inactivating a gene that promotes both inflammation and runaway cell division can dramatically reduce tumors in mice with a gastrointestinal form of cancer.
* No link available online.

Marketers Put their Hope in Neuroimaging
Copley News Service, Aug. 9-In cities from Pasadena to London, in university labs and hospital wings, researchers and advertising executives are peering directly into the minds of would-be consumers. They are looking for biological evidence of brand preference: Why someone prefers Pepsi to Coke, buys a truck rather than a car or simply ignores an advertising pitch altogether. It's called neuromarketing. Proponents say it's a method - based on sound science - to more precisely divine what consumers really want or don't want in products and services. Skeptics say that's just hyperbole. Others worry that it is not. (Quote by Martin Paulus, an associate professor of psychiatry at University of California San Diego.)
* No link available online.

Undergraduates Working Overtime
San Diego Union-Tribune, Aug. 9-While many of his friends finish summer school, wrap up internships or enjoy the last days of vacation, UC San Diego student Nelson Bravo sits inside a campus laboratory designing a robot. Bravo is one of a growing number of undergraduate students engaged in independent research projects, which are typically reserved for graduate students. At the University of California, San Diego, the number of applicants for undergraduate research projects has risen dramatically since they were established there in 1989. (Quote by David Artis, director of UCSD's Academic Enrichment Programs.)
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/metro/20040809-9999-1m9research.html

State's Youngest Delegate, Lei, Learned a Lot in Boston
San Diego Union-Tribune, Aug. 7-Eighteen-year-old Steven Lei has yet to vote in his first presidential election, but he's already gotten to play a small but important role in democracy. Lei, a UCSD student, was the youngest of the 553 California delegates to the Democratic convention in Boston last week. He said the experience reinforced his belief that one person can influence the political process.
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/features/20040808-9999-1m8lei.html

Official Artwork Chosen for Cancer Benefit
San Diego Daily Transcript, Aug. 5-The UCSD Cancer Center Luau & Longboard Invitational, a surfing fund-raiser that benefits cancer research, has announced that a painting by impressionist Kevin Short has been selected as the event's official artwork for 2004. Short's painting, "Gold on the Horizon," will be auctioned off at the 11th annual Luau & Longboard Invitational, with proceeds going to the Rebecca and John Moores UCSD Cancer Center.
* No link available online.