A Sampling of Clips for January 17^th, 2008

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

In the Real World, a Slew of Side Effects from Statins
Business Week, Jan. 17 -- A tennis-playing 68-year-old, Dr. H. Denman Scott was talked into taking Lipitor in 2006 by his doctor because his "bad" cholesterol (LDL) was a borderline 130. "I had no symptoms," he says, but he followed the doctor's advice, and the drug dropped his LDL to 60. Then Scott, a retired professor of medicine, began to have muscle pain. After 10 months on the drug, he woke one morning with paralyzing soreness. (Quotes Dr. Beatrice Golomb of UCSD). More

Broadband with 250 Times More Kick
Brisbane Times (Australia), Jan. 16 -- A powerful new broadband tool, 250 times faster than a standard broadband connection in Melbourne, was used today to link researchers across the Pacific. The internet connection, which sends one gigabite per second, is being hailed as a cutting-edge mode for allowing world experts to collaborate from different countries in real time. Today the OptIPortal linked researchers at the University of Melbourne with others at UCSD, via giant screens, after an initial technical glitch that stalled the launch for more than 30 minutes. More

Successful Embryo Cloning Documented
San Diego Union-Tribune, Jan. 17 -- A team at the tiny San Diego biotechnology company Stemagen has become the first to document its successful cloning of human embryos by fusing donated egg cells with the DNA from skin cells of an adult man, according to an article that will be published online today by the journal Stem Cells.  (Quotes Larry Goldstein, director of UCSD's stem cells program ). More

As Human Cloning Advances, Ethics Debate Gets Louder
San Diego Union-Tribune, Jan. 17 -- The possible has become the probable. A human embryo has been cloned by using a woman's egg cells and a man's skin cells. Biology and morality have crossed paths again.
And so has a question for the ages: Just because you can do it, does it make it right? (Quotes Michael Kalichman, director of UCSD's research ethics program). More

San Diego's Lack of Resources Under Fire
KPBS, Jan. 17 -- If you want to know just how desperate San Diego city firefighters were last October, ask Rancho Bernardo Fire Captain John Thomson. So how did it get to this? - Firefighters riding in trucks that were once used as birthday party props? How could a community in California’s second largest city be so short on firefighting resources? The answer begins here. (Features interview with UCSD Political Science Professor Steve Erie). More

Twin Peeks
San Diego Union-Tribune, Jan. 17 -- Twins attract double takes. They appear extraordinary, maybe even a little strange. Just how alike are they, we wonder? How different?  Twins challenge our beliefs about individuality and the idea that every person is unique, says Nancy Segal, a professor of psychology at California State University Fullerton and the author of two books on the subject, “Entwined Lives” and “Indivisible by Two.” But scientists like Segal, who directs Fullerton's Twin Studies Center, are trying to understand what makes twins alike – and different. (Quotes Dr. William S. Kremen, an adjunct professor of psychiatry at UCSD). More

Young People at Higher Risk for HIV
KPBS, Jan. 16 --  The status and severity of HIV and AIDS in our country has been in a state of flux. Today, because of the availability of medical treatment, AIDS is not the death sentence it used to be. Drugs have their use and their purpose, but a person's behavior still has a lot to do with whether they'll get the disease and whether they'll stay healthy. (Features interview with Jennifer Blanchard, associate clinical professor of medicine at the UCSD Medical Center). More

The Preuss Letter
Voice of San Diego, Jan. 16 -- At UCSD criticism is surfacing that the explosive university-led audit of the Preuss School is "deeply flawed."
The audit, released in December, concluded that the lauded charter school changed students' grades, and that then-principal Doris Alvarez and several other staffers likely knew or directed the tampering. More

Similar story in
KPBS

City Lights
San Diego Reader, Jan. 17 -- With Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger proposing draconian cuts -- including closing 48 state parks and beaches, slashing Medi-Cal and school funding, and releasing 22,159 "low risk" inmates from state prisons -- it might not seem like the appropriate time to build UCSD's chancellor an $8 million mansion. More

Bush Grants Navy Waiver from Sonar Ruling
North County Times, Jan. 17 -- As California gray whales swam past San Diego County's shores, President Bush announced that he would allow the Navy to continue using sonar in anti-submarine warfare training off Southern California. (Mentions the Scripps Institution of Oceanography). More