A Sampling of Clips for 
December 11, 2003

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

San Diego
Nature, Dec. 11-In just a few decades, San Diego has changed from a sleepy military town, known mainly for its great surfing beaches, into one of the fastest-growing high-tech centres in the world. In this Nature Outlook, we explore the factors that have shaped its success. The most important, and yet perhaps the most difficult for other regions to emulate, is San Diego's legendary 'brain trust'. The tradition of excellence at academic centres such as the University of California, San Diego, the Salk Institute for Biological Sciences and the Scripps Research Institute has provided a solid foundation for the start-up companies that have put San Diego on the map.
* No link available online.

Best of Both Worlds
Nature, Dec. 11-The density of life-science companies and institutions in San Diego is one of the main attractions for pharmaceutical companies. In the past decade, San Diego has also become home to some of the big names in the drug industry, partly from the support of the University of California, San Diego who has kept up with the trend by increasing its organic-chemistry capabilities. (Quote by Jerry Olefsky, a professor of medicine at the University of California, San Diego.)
* No link available online.

Genesis of a High-Tech Hub
Nature, Dec. 11-Today, it's difficult to imagine what San Diego's North Torrey Pines Road, the epicentre of the city's science and technology community, must have looked like before its boom days in the early 1990s. A century of academic and military research is the foundation of the city's present prosperity, both scientific and financial. It began with the first marine research centre, included the founding of several institutes including the University of California, San Diego, and comes up to date with the explosion of high-tech industries in the past few decades. (Quote by Mary Walshok, associate vice-chancellor for extended studies and public programmes at UCSD.)
* No link available online.

High-Tech, High Society
Nature, Dec. 11-At dinner parties in San Diego's high-tech neighborhoods no one needs to ask what you do for a living - they'll have heard already on the grapevine - but everyone will want to know how you met your first venture capitalist. For San Diego is a high-tech networker's paradise and surrounded by world-famous academic research institutions such as the University of California, San Diego.
* No link available online.

In Search of the Elite
Nature, Dec. 11-A huge number of people have contributed to the success of San Diego. Virginia Gewin catches up with a selection of the region's prime movers. Article features: Bob Conn, former dean of the Jacobs School of Engineering at the University of California, San Diego; Wain Fishburn, founding member of BIOCOM and UCSD CONNECT; Ed Holmes, Health sciences vice-chancellor and dean of the medical school at the University of California, San Diego; David Hale, a founding member of UCSD CONNECT; Irwin Jacobs, Chief executive of Qualcomm; Hank Nordholl, board member of the cancer centre at the University of California, San Diego; Larry Smarr, Director of the California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology (Cal-(IT)2).
* No link available online.

Good Neighbours
Nature, Dec. 11-A tight-knit community and a cooperative spirit has helped San Diego to succeed. In fact, many cite San Diego's densely packed research community as a major reason for its success as a high-tech and biotech hub. Biotechnology research, for example, is located along a densely packed two-mile stretch of North Torrey Pines Road that features institutions such as the University of California, San Diego, the Scripps Research Institute and the Salk Institute for Biomedical Studies. (Quote by Alan Paau, assistant vice-chancellor at UCSD and director of the school's technology-transfer programme.)
* No link available online.

Tomorrow's World
Nature, Dec. 11-Predicting the future is a notoriously precarious occupation. But San Diego, with its wealth of biotech and high-tech expertise, offers a ready guide to likely sucesses. Could making artificial organs one day be as simple as assembling computer chips? Sangeeta Bhatia, a bioengineer at the University of California, San Diego, thinks so. She is borrowing tools from the semiconductor industry to build artificial livers. So far, she has made only tiny liver fragments, but she hopes one day to build an entire lobe of liver suitable for transplanting into a patient.
* No link available online.

Turning Technology into Gold
Nature, Dec. 11-There are probably few scientists who have never had an entrepreneurial thought. Many researchers, at least fleetingly, have considered what it would be like to stumble across something with a real-world application and to see it move to a commercial setting. In San Diego, as in other technology centres, discoveries flow from the laboratory bench to the marketplace with the help of specialists in technology transfer. Alan Paau, who heads the technology-transfer office at the University of California, San Diego, has created 120 start-up companies in San Diego in the past decade. These firms, combined with numerous ventures started by the other major research centres in the region, have helped to transform the town into today's high-tech hub.
* No link available online.

The View from the Top
Nature, Dec. 11- How does the health of the general economy determine the fortunes of the high-tech and biotech sector? What country is the biggest challenge to the United States' dominance in these fields? Where does San Diego fit into the global high-tech enterprise? Nature asks some of San Diego's leading people in business and academia, including Larry Smarr, director of the UCSD California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology.
* No link available online.

UCSD Scientist Keeps Eye on Sun
San Diego Union-Tribune, Dec. 11- For the first time, scientists are creating three-dimensional images of huge clouds of plasma that the sun periodically hurls into space. The images, made possible by a spacecraft designed in part by UCSD solar physicist Bernard V. Jackson, are expected to help scientists better predict the geomagnetic storms the clouds create as they envelop the Earth.
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/uniontrib/thu/metro/news_7m11sun.html

High-Altitude Auroras Stump Scientists
ABC News, Dec. 11-A military satellite has detected auroras, those shimmering displays of colorful light, at altitudes far higher above Earth than previously known, confirming anecdotal reports from astronauts that scientists had dismissed. The orbiting camera, known as the Solar Mass Ejection Imager, was built by scientists and engineers around the world, including the University of California, San Diego. The auroras were first noted by Andrew Buffinton, a UCSD solar physicist. (Quote by Bernard V. Jackson, a solar physicist at the University of California, San Diego.)
http://abcnews.go.com/wire/US/ap20031211_306.html

Same article appeared in:
USA Today, Dec. 11
http://www.usatoday.com/news/science/2003-12-11-high-auroras_x.htm

Los Angeles Times, Dec. 11
http://www.latimes.com/news/science/wire/sns-ap-high-auroras,1,4633907.story?coll=sns-ap-science-headlines

Associated Press, Dec. 11
More see attached file...Newly

Newsday, Dec. 11
http://www.newsday.com/news/science/wire/sns-ap-high-auroras,0,2459697.story?coll=sns-ap-science-headlines

San Jose Mercury News, Dec. 11
http://www.bayarea.com/mld/mercurynews/news/local/7461069.htm

Houston Chronicle, Dec. 11
HoustonChronicle.com -- http://www.HoustonChronicle.com http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/space/2288008

It is Time to Give Test-Tube TV a Try
San Diego Union-Tribune, Dec. 10-The Cable Science Network is a singular source of data, a television network, perhaps, dedicated to providing accurate, timely scientific information at all hours of the day or night. It is the brainchild of Roger Bingham, a researcher at UCSD's Center for Brain and Cognition, and is currently being promoted by a distinguished advisory group of national scientists that includes Nobel laureate Sydney Brenner and Terrence Sejnowski, both of the Salk Institute, V.S. Ramachandran and Beatrice Golomb at UCSD and Richard Atkinson, president emeritus of the UC system and the former director of the National Science Foundation.
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/uniontrib/wed/currents/news_1c10singular.html

Draft of Chimp Genetic Map Published
Los Angeles Times, Dec. 11-Scientists have completed a draft of the chimpanzee genetic blueprint and placed the information into a free, public database, scientists announced Wednesday. The draft, covering an estimated 88% to 90% of the genome's gene-coding regions, has been carefully aligned with the human genome on the Web site, ncbi.nih.gov/Genbank, allowing a direct comparison of the two. (Quote by Ajit Varki M.D., a professor of medicine and cellular and molecular medicine at UC San Diego.)
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-sci-chimp11dec11,1,4368182.story

Fundraising Specialists, Independent Groups Gain
Washington Post, Dec. 11-The McCain-Feingold campaign finance law affirmed by the Supreme Court locks in place the Republican Party's fundraising advantage over the Democrats and could hasten what partisans and election experts see as a major transformation of the political system. (Quote by Gary Jacobson, a University of California at San Diego political scientist.)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A54469-2003Dec10.html

Six Firms Honored for Technology Developments in San Diego
San Diego Union-Tribune, Dec. 11-More than 500 people attended the 16th annual UCSD Connect's awards event, which was created to recognize promising technologies developed by local startup companies in a variety of categories, such as software, telecommunications and biotechnology.
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/uniontrib/thu/business/news_1b11awards.html

Local Companies Dominate Innovation Awards
North County Times, Dec. 11-North County-based companies picked up four of six first-place finishes in UCSD Connect's Most Innovative New Products Awards contest. The awards were given at a Wednesday luncheon at Sheraton Harbor Island.
http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2003/12/11/business/news/12_10_0319_49_03.txt