A Sampling of Clips for December 14^th, 2009

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

Facebook Tweaks, Intel Chip Delay and Leak
The New York Times, Dec. 13 -- Facebook's new privacy policy was rolled out this week and although we have known for months that it was coming, it grabbed a lot of headline attention just the same. Of course, there were plenty of complaints from users about various aspects of the changes, so Facebook has already made some tweaks. In other news, Intel's Larrabee delay, announced last week, carried over into this week. (Mentions UCSD) More

China Lashes Out at U.S. at Climate Conference
USA Today, Dec. 11 -- A diplomatic spat on Friday between the USA and China, the world's top two polluters, highlighted a difficult turn in negotiations for an agreement to stop global warming. Chinese Vice Foreign Minister He Yafei said he was "shocked" by comments that his U.S. counterpart, Todd Stern, made earlier this week. Stern said China is too prosperous to be included in a group of poor countries who may receive U.S. taxpayer funds to help them cope with the consequences of climate change. (Quotes Ray Weiss, a geochemist at UCSD's Scripps Institution of Oceanography) More

'Acidifying Oceans' Threaten Food Supply, UK warns
BBC News, Dec. 14 -- Acidification of the oceans is a major threat to marine life and humanity's food supply, Hilary Benn has warned as the UN climate summit resumes. The UK environment secretary said that acidification provided a "powerful incentive" to cut carbon emissions. Ocean chemistry is changing because water absorbs extra CO2 from the air. (Mentions UCSD’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography) More

Changes to Established Medicine Hit Resistance
San Diego Union-Tribune,Dec. 13 -- The head of the federal panel that recommended fewer breast-cancer screenings for women younger than 50 was unapologetic when he addressed members of Congress recently. “Our message was misunderstood,” Dr. Bruce “Ned” Calonge said. “The task force stands behind the evidence and the conclusions based on the evidence.”( Quotes Dr. Theodore Ganiats, executive director for UCSD’s Health Services Research Center) More

San Diego’s PaxVax Developing Oral Tablet Vaccine,
Looks to Raise More Cash With Support of Seattle’s Ignition Capital
San Diego Union-Tribune, Dec. 9 -- PaxVax, a San Diego startup backed by Seattle’s Ignition Capital, has raised $2 million of a planned $6 million investment round, according to a document filed Friday with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The biotech was founded in early 2007 to develop new oral vaccine technology based on a common cold virus called the adenovirus. The company says its vaccine, which is administered as oral tablets, avoids much of the requirements that conventional vaccines require—including cold storage for the vaccine itself and inoculation by qualified medical personnel. PaxVax says its oral tablets can be stored and distributed at room temperature, and are self-administered. (Mentions UCSD) More

Subscribe Science Local News
San Diego Union-Tribune, Dec. 14 -- 3.6 estimated amount of information, in zettabytes, that American households collectively consumed on a daily basis in 2008. A zettabyte is 1 billion trillion bytes or a 1 followed by 21 zeros. It’s been estimated that if every word ever spoken by humans were recorded and stored, it would require 42 zettabytes of memory.  (Based on UCSD’s Global Information Industry Center report “How Much Information?”) More

Sapphire Energy Co-Founder Sees Solutions
in Algae for Drugs as Well as Biofuels
San Diego Union-Tribune, Dec. 14 -- The potential of algae as a clean energy source has been generating a lot of entrepreneurial excitement in San Diego. At last count, 10 local companies are busy working on technologies focused on transforming ordinary pond scum into “green crude” one day capable of powering aircraft, trucks, automobiles, and even utility plants—and easing the world’s energy problems. It is a bold vision—but one that may be selling algae short. That thought occurred to me after I had a chat with Stephen Mayfield, a leading expert on the genetics of algae who recently moved his lab from the Scripps Research Institute to UCSD. More

Discovery May Change Plants’ Makeup'
San Diego Union-Tribune, Dec. 14 -- Biologists at UCSD have identified a protein that controls how plants respond to carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, a fundamental discovery that could someday lead to profound changes in how domesticated plants function. Future crops and commercial tree species might be engineered to absorb more CO2 — a greenhouse gas and major cause of global warming — and use less water, a boon in places vulnerable to drought or rising temperatures. More

Trying to Reach ‘Abrasive Ecstatic Stasis’
San Diego Union-Tribune, Dec. 13 -- “I don’t understand people who are only interested in one thing, musically or otherwise,” said David Wightman, who wears nearly enough hats — creatively speaking — to stock a chapeau shop. Only a few quarters away from completing his Ph.D. in music composition at UCSD, this Indiana native writes contemporary classical and electronic music pieces that draw from an array of traditional and experimental styles and approaches. More

A Fresh Way to Listen to the Masters
San Diego Union-Tribune, Dec. 13 -- Lukas Foss, the late American composer and conductor, liked to say he wanted his performances of the classical repertoire to sound “as if the ink were still wet.” During his tenure as music director of the Milwaukee Symphony, sometimes he succeeded and sometimes he didn’t, but his aspiration to look at a work through fresh eyes has stayed with me. (Mentions UCSD) More

Anti-Gravity Treadmill: Therapy that's Like a Walk on the Moon
Sacramento Bee, Dec. 11 -- A treadmill developed at NASA Ames Research Center more than a decade ago for exercising in space has seen more athletes than astronauts lately. AlterG, a Fremont, Calif., startup, has sold more than 200 of the "anti-gravity" physical therapy and training treadmills, which are based on the NASA prototype, at $75,000 each. The buyers have mainly been sports teams, college athletic departments and hospitals, but the maker hopes to eventually push prices down to where individuals could own one. (Mentions Alan Hargens, professor of orthopedic surgery at UCSD School of Medicine) More

Report: Preuss School Among Top 10 in Nation
Del Mar Times, Dec. 11 -- The Preuss School at UCSD was ranked ninth among the top 10 charter schools in the country by U.S. News & World Report, it was announced Thursday. The Preuss School was also ranked 32nd among all high schools in the country in the magazine's annual "America's Best High Schools" edition, according to UCSD. The Preuss School, which has 746 students, is a charter middle and high school that focuses on college preparatory education for low-income students. More

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