A Sampling of Clips for January 2^nd, 2008

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

Global Warming to Alter Calif. Landscape
Associated Press,Dec. 29 -- California is defined by its scenery, from the mountains that enchanted John Muir to the wine country and beaches that define its culture around the world. But as scientists try to forecast how global warming might affect the nation's most geographically diverse state, they envision a landscape that could look quite different by the end of this century, if not sooner. (Quotes Jeff Severinghaus, professor of geosciences at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in San Diego). More

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San Jose Mercury News
MSNBC
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No Picky Eaters Among Successful Argentine Ants
New York Times, Jan. 1 -- The Argentine ant is a very successful invasive species, having conquered territories far from its native South America. Once introduced, inadvertently, by people, it marches across the landscape, displacing local ant species and making an agricultural pest of itself. Researchers from the University of Illinois and UCSD have uncovered one secret to the ant’s success: dietary flexibility. More

The Undocumented Hesitate to Enter a Less-Alluring U.S.
Los Angeles Times, Dec. 26 -- Lorenzo Martinez, an illegal immigrant who has lived in Los Angeles for six years, has a message for his kin in Mexico's Hidalgo state: Stay put. The steady construction work that had allowed him to send home as much as $1,000 a month in recent years had disappeared. The 36-year-old father of four said desperation was growing among the day laborers with whom he was competing for odd jobs. (Quotes Wayne Cornelius, director of the Center for Comparative Immigration Studies at UCSD). More

Scientists: We've Entered a New Epoch, the Anthropocene
ABC News, Jan. 2 -- We humans are having such a dramatic impact on our planet that some leading scientists think the current era needs a new name. We're no longer in the Holocene epoch, they say. We're now well into what they are calling the Anthropocene. (Mentions Nobel laureate and now a part-time professor at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in San Diego Paul J. Crutzen). More

Discoveries
Chicago Tribune, Dec. 23 -- When doctors in the emergency room believe that someone is having a heart attack, they are mistaken 9.2 percent of the time, a new study indicates. Given that minutes matter with these patients and doctors have to act quickly in this setting, that percentage is tolerable. (Quotes Cedric Garland, professor of family and preventive medicine at UCSD, and participating member at the Moores UCSD Cancer Center in La Jolla). More

Scientists Developing New
Liver Drug That Teverses Damage of Binge Drinking
London Evening Standard, Dec. 28 -- Scientists are developing a cure for cirrhosis of the liver, the scarring caused by severe alcohol abuse, bringing new hope for help heavy drinkers. U.S. researchers have found that a drug can block over-production of tissue in response to injury as happens in liver cirrhosis and may also reverse existing damage. The drug could profoundly improve public health if clinical trials back up the findings. (Mentions professors of medicine at UCSD Martina Buck and Mario Chojkie). More

Reflection Brings Pain Relief
Baltimore Sun, Jan. 2 -- On the morning of July 2, 2006, Sgt. Nick Paupore was driving the lead Humvee in a convoy near Kirkuk, in northern Iraq, when a roadside bomb blew off his right leg above the knee. Within 48 hours, he was at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, where he has spent the past 18 months recovering. Soon after arriving, Paupore began to feel excruciating pain - in his missing leg. (Quotes Vilayanur Ramachandran, a neuroscientist at UCSD). More

Web Videos Make Science More Accessible
Associated Press, Dec. 31 -- Haim Weizman is a chemist by trade and an Internet moviemaker on the side. In his first video, a telegenic narrator in a lab coat swirls a flask as electronic music plays in the background. Created by four science and film students at UCSD, the video shows a typical recrystallization experiment straight out of Chemistry 101. More

Knot Theory: Why Everything Tangles
NPR, Jan. 2 -- Time for all that glitters, sparkles, blinks and sings or dances at the flip of a switch, to be packed away until next year. Time to wonder just how it is that Christmas lights to tie themselves in knots no matter how hard you try to outsmart them. (Mentions UCSD). More

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Science News

Business Education Under the Microscope
BusinessWeek, Dec. 26 -- The business-school world has been besieged by criticism in the past few months, with prominent professors and writers taking bold swipes at management education. B-school deans may soon be able to counter that criticism, following the launch of an ambitious study that seeks to examine the overall impact of business schools on society. (Mentions Robert Sullivan of UCSD Rady School of Management). More

CIGNA Defends Initially Denying Teen Transplant
CBS, Dec. 24 -- CIGNA Healthcare officials defended themselves on Monday against allegations the insurer acted maliciously when it initially rejected a liver transplant for a Northridge teen who later died, saying its experts determined the procedure may not have been "effective or appropriate." (Quotes Geri Jenkins, member of the CNA/NNOC Council of Presidents who works in a transplant unit at the UCSD Medical Center). More

Simply Standing Up May Help Burn Extra Calories
KTIV, Dec. 25 -- Want to burn off some of those extra calories you devoured this Christmas? Then stand up. Dropping those extra pounds may not be as difficult as you think. Stand up to lose weight. And sit down to fatten up. Physiologist Fabio Comana says, "Spend less time in the chair, get up and move around as much as you can throughout the day." Standing up, stimulates a fat burning enzyme, explains UCSD Professor and the American Council on Exercise Physiologist Fabio Comana. More

Sex Work, Border Society and Stigma: Questions for Stephanie Strathdee
Voice of San Diego, Dec. 28 -- Earlier this year, UCSD researcher Stephanie Strathdee released a study chronicling various characteristics of female sex workers in Tijuana and other border cities. The results were shocking. Twenty-seven percent of the women Strathdee studied tested positive for at least one sexually transmitted infection; 14 percent almost always use drugs before sex; 73 percent have clients who use drugs. When examining sex workers with U.S. clients, she found the median price per sex act with a condom was $20. The price for a sex act without a condom: $30. More

Rebalancing of Values Kindles Change in America
San Francisco Chronicle, Dec. 23 -- Although no one can be certain how the state primaries and caucuses in the next two months will shape the Democratic and Republican races for president, one thing is already clear: Ralph Nader's claim that this is another "Tweedledee-Tweedledum election that offers little real choice to voters" is as false as it is absurd. (Quotes UCSD politics Professor Gary Jacobson). More

If You Fear death, You Might Be Sealing Your Own Fate
Orlando Sentinel, Jan. 1 -- Everyone has heard the expression "scared to death." But can the mind actually influence life and death -- or at least our well-being? Medical science is asking the same question. (Quotes David Phillips, professor of sociology at UCSD). More

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The Seattle Times

The Week: Stories and Photos from December 16-22
San Diego Union-Tribune, Dec. 23 --  The principal of a nationally recognized charter school at UCSD quit last week after a grade-tampering scandal. Doris Alvarez was placed on paid leave from the Preuss School in September when allegations that teachers issued undeserved grades first became public. She had served as principal since the school opened in 1999. More

Surgical Care Affiliates
and UCSD Medical Center to Partner in Surgical Center
KRNV, Dec. 26 -- Surgical Care Affiliates (SCA), one of the country's largest providers of specialty surgical services, announced today that it has entered into a joint venture relationship with the UCSD  Medical Center. More

Colleagues Shift Into Holiday Mode
San Diego Union-Tribune, Dec. 26 -- On Christmas morning, San Diego fire Battalion Chief John Thomson was going on the second day of a 72-hour shift. But he didn't mind. He volunteered to work yesterday so another firefighter could spend the holiday with his father, a retired firefighter who has cancer.  (Quotes UCSD junior Kerissa Barron). More

Analysts Suggest that Leader's Death to Hinder Democracy
San Diego Union-Tribune, Dec. 28 --  Yesterday's assassination of opposition leader Benazir Bhutto is a grave blow to the fight for democracy in Pakistan and could embolden terrorists in that region, San Diego academics and other analysts said. The Bush administration and other political leaders had hoped for reconciliation between Bhutto, a secular leader and former prime minister, and the increasingly unpopular President Pervez Musharraf. (Quotes Susan Shirk, director of the Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation at UCSD). More

Our Environment Assessing San Diego's Hope
Voice of San Diego, Dec. 28 -- Taken together, the region's numerous environmental challenges can seem overwhelming. The world is getting warmer. Massive fires have scorched the region's native vegetation twice in the past four years. The air is cleaner than it once was, but each rainfall closes the region's beaches and sends millions of gallons of sewage coursing into the Pacific Ocean near the U.S.-Mexico border. We posed this simple question to the region's researchers, politicians, activists and educators: Are we toast? (Quotes Tim Barnett, marine physicist at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography). More

Pay for College Chiefs Rising Fast
Christian Science Monitor, Jan. 2 -- When former Sprint Nextel executive Gary Forsee landed a job as president of the University of Missouri system in December, his annual salary dropped from $21.3 million to $400,000, reflecting the huge disparity in pay between the private sector and academia. Still, Wall Street and ivy towers share this in common: charges that the top dogs make too much money. (Mentions UCSD). More

Program Offers Free Early-Detection HIV Test
San Diego Union-Tribune, Dec. 27 -- What if an HIV test could determine whether you were infected as recently as a week ago, rather than the regular detection period of three weeks to six months? A blood test now offered in San Diego County has a much more timely accuracy than any of the blood or saliva tests normally used. It is available for free at three locations in the region as part of a joint research effort by UCSD’s Antiviral Research Center and the county's Health and Human Services Agency. More

San Diego Supercomputer Expansion Topped at UCSD
San Diego Daily Transcript, Dec. 28 –UCSDconstruction officials, San Diego Supercomputer Center officials, Barnhart Inc. and Esherick Hamsey Dodge & Davis Architects (EHDD) celebrated the topping off concrete on the 80,000-square-foot expansion of the San Diego Supercomputer Center (SDSC). More

Dieting Detours
San Diego Union-Tribune, Jan. 2 -- Resolution: Lose weight.
There it is, right at the top of your New Year's list. Again. But, this year you swear you're going to do it. You're motivated, dedicated and maybe a little desperate. (Quotes Dr. Santiago Horgan, director of the Center for the Treatment of Obesity at the UCSD). More

Our Efforts to Help Children with Autism
San Diego Union-Tribune, Jan. 2 -- When Jenny McCarthy appeared on “The Oprah Winfrey Show” last year, many were shocked to learn that her son suffers from autism. Holly Robinson-Peete and Toni Braxton are two more celebrity mothers who are publicly speaking out about having children with autism with the goal of increasing the public's awareness of the disorder and its prevalence. (Mentions UCSD). More