A Sampling of Clips for December 22^nd, 2008

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

How the West’s Energy Boom Could
Threaten Drinking Water for 1 in 12 Americans
ProPublica, Dec. 21 -- The Colorado River, the life vein of the Southwestern United States, is in trouble. The river is already so beleaguered by drought and climate change that one environmental study called it the nation's "most endangered" waterway. Researchers from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography warn the river's reservoirs could dry up in 13 years. More

Similar story in
San Diego Union-Tribune

Top 100 Stories of 2008
#4: Slime Is Turning the Seas Into Dead Zones
Discover Magazine, December 2008 -- More than half the fish that people hunt in the sea are gone, more than half the corals are gone too, and pollution is strangling vast stretches of seafloor. Writing in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences last August, marine ecologist Jeremy Jackson of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography sounded an ominous tone: “Mass extinction of multicellular life will result in profound loss of animal and plant bio­diversity, and microbes will reign supreme.” More

River of Life
The Washington Post, Book Review, Dec. 21 -- Of London's many pleasures, one of the most profound is a stroll along the south bank of the Thames on a warm summer evening, just as the long twilight begins to fade into night. (Written by Kathryn Shevelow, whose most recent book is "For the Love of Animals: The Rise of the Animal Protection Movement” and who teaches at UCSD) More

A Different Take on Great Ape Personhood
Wired, Dec. 21 -- Separated from Homo sapiens by an evolutionary eyeblink of eight million years or less, great apes — chimpanzees, gorillas, orangutans and bonobos — often seem a bit too much like us for our comfort. One wonders exactly what — or who — one is looking at. Are they aware of their circumstances? Are they any happier than you would be as captive entertainment? And though they're obviously not human, are they people? (Quotes Pascal Gagneux, a UCSD primate geneticist who advocates more-humane chimpanzee research) More

Don't Be So Glum, Americans; 2008 Was a Year of Happy Trends
Seattle Times, Opinion, Dec. 19 -- It's time to celebrate happiness. The chemistry of positive, joyful human interaction. Physical spaces that help lighten lives. Seriously? What's to be celebrated in a Christmas week that finds Americans wincing in the face of corporate collapses and the deep job losses of a roaring recession? My answer: Check some pretty amazing countervailing positives. (Mentions research by UCSD scientist James Fowler and Nicholas Christakis of Harvard Medical School, who found happiness spreads through social networks) More

Interview: Greg Papadopoulos and David Douglas
San Jose Mercury News, Dec. 21 -- "Citizen Engineer" was co-written by UCSD alumnus Greg Papadopoulos and David Douglas, both electrical engineers and computer scientists who are, respectively, chief technology officer and chief sustainability officer for Sun Microsystems. More

UCSD Tests Adult Stem Cells to Repair Hearts
San Diego Union-Tribune, Dec. 20 -- There are no more drugs to help patients with stage-end heart disease. A stent does no good, and valve replacements or bypasses are not valid options. So doctors at UCSD and several other centers around the country have received Food and Drug Administration permission to inject millions of bone-marrow stem cells from a donor directly into heart tissue that has been damaged by heart attacks More

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NBC San Diego

Obituary: Ralph A. Lewin; Marine
Biologist was Expert on Algae and Esperanto
San Diego Union-Tribune, Dec. 22 --  Ralph Lewin, who taught and did research at UCSD’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography for nearly 48 years, died of esophageal cancer Nov. 30 at a skilled-nursing facility in La Jolla. He was 87. More

New Rx: Minimize Drug Firm Influence
San Diego Union-Tribune, Dec. 22 --  You won't find pens embossed with medication names on Dr. James Hay's desk, and you won't catch him eating sandwiches that pharmaceutical sales representatives deliver to his office. He stopped accepting gifts from drug makers three years ago, but three of his partners at the North Coast Family Medical Group in Encinitas still do. (Quotes Dr. Larry Friedman, medical director of the UCSD Medical Group) More

Online-World Immersion Probes 'Possibilities of Transformation'
San Diego Union-Tribune, Dec. 21 -- Micha Cardenas is a 31-year-old man taking hormones to become a woman and a visual arts student at UCSD. So, it's not surprising perhaps that Cardenas views the boundaries of gender as being somewhat fluid and has questions about what it means to be male and/or female. More

Future of High-Tech Transport is Within Reach
San Diego Union-Tribune, Dec. 22 -- The problem with the future is the past. Nothing demonstrates the point better than transportation, the moving of people and cargo from place to place. Last week, I dropped in on “Maglev 2008,” an international conference hosted this year by General Atomics and the UCSD Jacobs School of Engineering. More

MacConnel, Morri tabbed for S.D. Art Prize honors
San Diego Union-Tribune, Dec. 21 -- As the new year approaches, so, too, does the third round for the San Diego Art Prize. True to years past, the established artist recipients have been announced first. For 2009, they are stalwarts of the local scene who are both acclaimed beyond San Diego: Kim MacConnel and Richard Allen Morris. MacConnel is a longtime faculty member at UCSD who emerged in the early 1970s as part of the Pattern & Decoration movement. One of the points of origin for P&D art, as it's sometimes called, was UCSD, where he earned his BFA and MFA degrees. More

Illegal Immigrants Finding It Hard to Get Work
North County Times, Dec. 20 -- A recent study by the Pew Hispanic Center, a research organization, reported that Latino immigrants ---- legal and illegal ---- have been hit hard by the nation's struggling economy, and some are returning home. (Quotes Gordon Hanson, an economist at UCSD who specializes in immigration issues) More

Experts: More Real Estate Pain Before Economic Gain
San Diego Business Journal, Dec. 22 -- James Hamilton, a professor of economics at UCSD, is regarded as one of the nation’s experts on geopolitics and the price of oil. He is widely read on econbrowser.com. More

Kudos
San Diego Business Journal, Dec. 22 -- UCSD students recently held toy-donation drives, worked on service projects in Mexico, or contributed time and talents this holiday season. UCSD has more than 70 service-based student organizations, which include UCSD Cares and the Associated Students Volunteer Connection. More

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