A Sampling of Clips for 
November 27 - December 01, 2003

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

Languages Experience a Surge in Popularity
San Diego Union-Tribune, Nov. 30-American college students are showing newfound interest in studying languages at levels not seen in more than 30 years. Egged on by new career opportunities to fight terrorism, more study abroad programs and expanded offerings for students whose parents emigrated from another country, the number of students studying languages has hit a high, according to a recent survey by the Modern Language Association. To support the trends, UCSD started offering Arabic last year, and about 100 students are enrolled. There are plans to launch Persian, Hindi and Cantonese. (Quotes by Robert Lender, chairman of UCSD's linguistics department and Elizabeth Tsu, a UCSD biology major.)
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/metro/20031130-9999_1m30language.html

Program Intertwines Homeland, Language
San Diego Union-Tribune, Nov. 30-For years, the student at the University of California, San Diego could communicate only in rudimentary Vietnamese with his mom and dad, who emigrated from Vietnam before Ky was born and still speak little English. But things have changed since Ky enrolled in a Vietnamese language class in UCSD's Heritage Language program. UCSD's Heritage Language program is based on research that people who heard a language growing up have an easier time studying it in depth.
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/uniontrib/sun/metro/news_1m30ucsd.html

Season a Busy Time for UCSD Burn Unit
San Diego Union-Tribune, Nov. 27-It's Thanksgiving week at UCSD's burn unit but not a sign of holiday anywhere. Decorations are against local and state fire codes. Like every day, it's routine business on this fifth-floor hall. All the unit's 18 beds have been filled with San Diego County's most badly burned patients. (Quotes by UCSD burn unit director Daniel Lozano M.D., burn specialist Gordon Lindberg M.D., burn unit nurse manager Janine Dubina, and burn nurse Leann Cortimiglia.)
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/uniontrib/thu/metro/news_1m27burn.html

Who Gets In, Who Gets Left Out, UC's Bias Against Out-of-Staters
San Francisco Chronicle, Nov. 30-UC Regent John Moores has been hearing from parents in one of San Diego's toniest neighborhoods. Their kids aren't getting admitted to UC Berkeley, and he wants to know why. In a public broadside on the campuses' admissions procedures, he has charged that Berkeley was wrong to turn away some students with high SAT scores and admit others who scored poorly.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2003/11/30/INGH03AGVI1.DTL&type=printable

Despite Wal-Mart Raids, Crackdowns on Illegal Workers are Rare
San Francisco Chronicle, Nov. 30-When federal agents swept into Wal-Marts across the country and arrested 245 floor cleaners, they were reviving an increasingly rare practice. Politics and economics weaned the federal government from workplace crackdowns of illegal employees years ago. The government has busted steadily fewer employers and arrested fewer illegal employees since the late 1990s, according to federal immigration data. (Quote by Wayne Cornelius, a director of Center for Comparative Immigration Studies at the University of California, San Diego.)
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/news/archive/2003/11/30/state1227EST0027.DTL

Similar articles appeared in:
Los Angeles Daily News, Nov. 30
http://www.dailynews.com/Stories/0,1413,200~20950~1800505,00.html#

Sacramento Bee, Dec. 1
http://www.fresnobee.com/local/story/7832814p-8718525c.html

San Jose Mercury News, Nov. 30
http://www.bayarea.com/mld/mercurynews/news/local/7382139.htm

Sarasota Herald-Tribune, Nov. 30
http://www.heraldtribune.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20031201/APF/312010580

UC San Diego's Early Academic Outreach Program
National Public Radio, Nov. 30-UC San Diego has put its best face forward at its annual open house for high-school students. The warm, sunny weather seems to be in collaboration with the eager tour guides who try and make the campus as attractive as possible to perspective students. Scores of balloon-decked information and food booths tempt high-schoolers with free magnets and pencils and a taste of multicultural treats.
* No link available online.

Smoky Air Samples yield Valuable Data
San Diego Union-Tribune, Nov. 28-On Oct. 26, as smoke and ash rained on San Diego County from the wildfires, a small team of UCSD scientists lead by dean of Division of Physical Sciences Mark Thiemens, began collecting samples of acrid air outside a fifth-floor laboratory on campus. Today, as they continue to examine the pollution, they hope to create a chemical profile of the pollutants that massive brush fires launch into the sky.
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/uniontrib/fri/metro/news_1m28air.html

Berm Construction Harming Beaches? Scripps Scientists Warn that Practice may Worsen Erosion
San Diego Union-Tribune, Nov. 29-Massive sand berms built along Southern California's public beaches as a barrier against winter storms could be more harmful than helpful to the coast, say scientists from UCSD's Scripps Institution of Oceanography. Construction of sand berms to protect lifeguard stations, restrooms, parking lots and other public facilities has been a Southern California beach tradition for more than 40 years. (Quote by Scott Jenkins, senior development engineer at Scripps Institution of Oceanography.)
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/uniontrib/sat/metro/news_1m29berms.html

Amid the Ashes, a Day of Thanks
Sacramento Bee, Nov. 28-For many around Southern California, this Thanksgiving was both sad and hopeful, a day of thanks bent off kilter by the loss of homes, livelihoods and landscapes so many had loved. Only a month ago, a siege of fires that blazed from Los Angeles to Mexico scarred 750,000 acres and killed 22 people. (Quote by John McQuaid, an associate professor of psychiatry at the University of California, San Diego.)
http://www.sacbee.com/content/news/story/7863694p-8803851c.html

Pancreas Transplant Cures Type 1 Diabetes
KFMB.com, Nov. 28-For millions of Americans, living with Type I diabetes is a daily struggle. But now scientists have concluded that a pancreas transplant can cure Type 1 Diabetes. UCSD Healthcare's transplant surgeons say the operation is becoming more popular as people learn about the benefits. (Quotes by UCSD abdominal transplant director Marquis Hart M.D., and
UCSD pancreas transplant director, Ajai Khanna M.D.)
http://www.kfmb.com/healthcast/details.php?storyID=20274

Charity Begins at Home? Try San Diego Foundation
San Diego Union-Tribune, Nov. 30-The San Diego Foundation, a nonprofit, public charity that serves needs of the local community, has helped to make a variety of dreams possible for people around the county. The San Diego Foundation is only 28 years old, but ranks in the top 20 in size in the United States. It has $400 million in assets and has granted $260 million to charitable causes, including the University of California, San Diego.
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/business/20031130-9999_mz1b30perry.html

Couple use Music to Treat Autism, Dyslexia, other Disorders
North County Times, Dec. 1-Directors of the center, Sound Entrainment Therapies Institute, say they can cure children of autism, attention deficit disorder or dyslexia with a specialized testing process and a series of music-listening sessions. The center's directors, the husband-wife team of William Meads and Karyne Richardson-Meads, say "sound therapy" is based on logic and science. But the medical community remains skeptical about the treatment's efficacy. (Quote by Doris Trauner, chief of pediatric neurology at UC San Diego.)
http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2003/11/30/special_reports/science_t
echnology/11_30_0318_27_50.txt

San Diego now Bathed in Scandal as well as Sunshine - Again
Christian Science Monitor, Dec. 1-In this city that likes to think of itself as a kind of pristine Des Moines-by-the-sea, a scandal called "strippergate" is reviving unwelcome memories of San Diego's unsavory past. Three City Council members stand accused of accepting bribes from a strip-club owner in return for efforts to loosen exotic-dancing restrictions passed in 2000. To many San Diego residents, such allegations feel out of place. Yet historians say the history of the country's seventh-largest city is littered with scoundrels and swindlers. (Quote by Abe Shragge, a historian at the University of California at San Diego.)
http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/1201/p02s02-uspo.html

School Notes
Straits Times, Dec. 1-Starting in January, aspiring inventors can go learn the nuts and bolts of developing and marketing life sciences products at NUS Extension. The NUS school has teamed up with the UCSD Extension at the University of California, San Diego, to offer seven new life science modules. Topics include drug development, biostatistics and molecular biology and will be taught by staff from the UCSD Extension for now.
http://straitstimes.asia1.com.sg/singapore/story/0,4386,222853,00.html

Smart-Dust Designers Deliver Dirt-Cheap Chips
EDN, Nov. 27-In a package no bigger than a grain of sand, new smart-dust circuits combine sensing, computing, and communications functions. Although today's technology has not yet reached dust-particle size, several design teams, including the military, are working hard to perfect the concept and decrease the size. In a completely different, nonelectronic approach, chemists at the University of California, San Diego have developed tiny silicon chips that can detect and stick to a target substance.
http://www.reed-electronics.com/ednmag/article/CA336870?text=smart%2Ddust+designers
+deliver+dirt%2Dcheap+chips