A Sampling of Clips for 
December 13 - 15, 2003

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

In Archimedes' Puzzle, a New Eureka Moment
New York Times, Dec. 14-Twenty-two hundred years ago, the great Greek mathematician Archimedes wrote a treatise called the Stomachion. Unlike his other writings, it soon fell into obscurity. But now Reviel Netz M.D., a historian of mathematics at Stanford, who sifted through ancient parchment overwritten by monks, appears to have solved the mystery of what the treatise was about. A team of combinatorial mathematicians, including Ronald Graham M.D. and Fan Chung M.D. from the University of California, San Diego, assisted with the project.
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/14/science/14MATH.html

UCSD Blast Simulator will be World's First
North County Times, Dec. 15-This week, officials with the Jacobs School of Engineering at UC San Diego will announce plans to begin construction on the world's first bomb-blast simulator. The facility will be funded through a multimillion-dollar grant from the Technical Support Working Group, a federal agency that combats terrorism. The primary goal of the project, a spokesman said, is to better understand how bombs damage structures so that buildings at high risk for terrorist attacks can be protected.
http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2003/12/14/special_reports/science_
technology/12_13_0317_03_22.txt

Moores gets Flak, Praise for Criticism of UC Admissions
San Diego Union-Tribune, Dec. 13-John Jay Moores, the 347th richest man in America, remembers when he was so poor he had to hitchhike home from college. Understanding Moores' background helps illustrate his fundamental belief that people can make it, as he did, without special consideration for admission to elite universities. This philosophy is also what's driving Moores, as chairman of the University of California Board of Regents, to create waves in the nine-campus UC system. The root of his concern is UC's comprehensive-review admissions process, which takes into account criteria beyond academic achievement. Moores believes the process weighs nonacademic factors, such as low family income and parent education levels, too heavily. (Mentions Moores' gifts to UCSD)
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/metro/20031213-9999_1n13moores.html

UCSD's Roosevelt College Comes Alive
San Diego Union-Tribune, Dec. 14- An architectural review of the$106 million Eleanor Roosevelt College, which opened this fall.
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/uniontrib/sun/homes/news_mz1h14ucsd.html

Video-Game Art
New York Times, Dec. 14-You may not think of video games as art, at least not in the same way that a painting by Picasso is art. Yet highbrows have always nursed a secret passion for low forms, if only to keep their taste from going stale, and video games are the latest pop phenomenon to be upgraded from economy to museum class. Artists who favor the game mode are a curiously solemn bunch. Tellingly, three students at the University of California at San Diego courted controversy last summer with their "9-11 Survivor," a mock computer game set amid the crumbling twin towers. Their goal, they say, is to counter the deadening repetition of televised images of 9/11 mainly by adding the format of interactivity and (why deny it?) a dollop of sensationalism.
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/14/magazine/14VIDEO.html

Fall of Tyrants
San Francisco Chronicle, Dec. 15-The United States is apparently eager to do with Saddam Hussein something similar to what it did in Japan and Germany after World War II, to use the capture and trial of the leaders of a conquered country as a tool not only to establish guilt but to erase the physical and psychological legacies of a totalitarian regime and plant the seeds of a U.S.-friendly democracy. A number of experts on America's experience in World War II say the task may well backfire if not handled with great delicacy. (Quote by Chalmers Johnson, a professor emeritus at University of California at San Diego.)
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2003/12/15/MNGRQ3NCG21.DTL

Early Farmers Warmed Climate
New Scientist, Dec. 13-Our tampering with Earth's climate didn't begin just a few decades or centuries ago, but 8000 years before, with the birth of agriculture. This controversial theory drastically widens the debate about the timing and extent of humans' impact on the Earth. (Quote by Geochemist Jeff Severinghaus at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography.)
http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99994464

Beagle 2 - the Next Great Martian Hope
Baltimore Sun, Dec. 15-Mars is and always was dead. In the years since, however, scientists have questioned whether Viking 1's instruments were sensitive enough. Of the new generation of robots closing in on the Red Planet this month, the British-built Beagle 2 may have the best shot of putting to rest the debate over what, if anything, Viking detected in the Martian dunes that summer day 27 years ago. (Quote by Jeffrey Bada, a scientist at Scripps Institution of Oceanography.)
http://www.sunspot.net/news/health/bal-te.marsbeagle15dec15,0,960228.story?coll=bal-news-nation

The Case of the Mysterious Mind
New Scientist, Opinion, Dec. 13-Like most crime thrillers, Radiant Cool is a whodunnit. But it also claims to solve a much deeper mystery: consciousness. Psychologist and author Susan Blackmore delivers her verdict. (Refers to research conducted by Patricia Churchland, chair of the psychology department at the University of California at San Diego.)
* No link available online.

Agency's Aim is to Aid Latino Foster Kids
San Diego Union-Tribune, Dec. 14-For a time, Juanito didn't know whom to call "mom." He is one of nearly 8,000 foster children in San Diego County who have been removed from their biological parents because they were abused or neglected. Natalia Molina, a 32-year-old teacher of Ethnic Studies at UCSD, has been Juanito's foster mother for nearly a year. Now, she and her husband are in the process of adopting him.
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/uniontrib/sun/currents/news_1c14foster.html

Working to Make Something of the Region's Future
San Diego Union-Tribune, Opinion, Dec. 14-On the Sunday morning of the fire that swept into Scripps Ranch, this column described other evidence of birth: the sudden hatch of civic organizations, including something called the Civic Initiative, an outgrowth of the San Diego Council for Design Professionals; to the Quality of Life Coalition, an emerging collection of economic development agencies and environmentalists; UCSD's more academic Civic Collaborative and Envision San Diego, a five-year program, sponsored by SDSU, that will combine face-to-face gatherings, student involvement, online debate and a series of public conversations held by KPBS, SignOnSan Diego, The San Diego Union-Tribune's Web site, and other media.
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/uniontrib/sun/opinion/news_mz1e14louv.html

Disclosures by Peregrine put off Again
San Diego Union-Tribune, Dec. 13-Peregrine Systems said yesterday it is again delaying the release of its financial results for fiscal 2003, which ended March 31, as well as results for the first two quarters of fiscal 2004. (Quote by Michael Willoughby, a professor of accounting at the University of California San Diego.)
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/business/20031213-9999_1b13prgn.html

Palomar Technologies Looks to Smaller Electronics for Bigger Sales
North County Times, Dec. 15-As electronics makers look to the economic recovery to boost sales, Palomar Technologies of Vista plans to ride the rising tide. Palomar's newest product, an automated machine that precisely manipulates and attaches extremely small electronic and photonic (optical electronics) parts, was given a Most Innovative New Products Award by UCSD Connect on Wednesday. Connect is a program of UCSD Extension that encourages the development of new technology companies in the San Diego area.
http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2003/12/14/business/news/12_13_0316_30_41.txt