A Sampling of Clips for July 11^th, 2008

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

The Search for the Hidden da Vinci
Wall Street Journal, July 11 -- It was midnight in the great hall of the Palazzo Vecchio here, and scientists were stalking the cold ghost of a vanished masterpiece. Armed with an infrared reflectometer, they searched for hidden traces of a mural by Leonardo da Vinci that helped change the course of Western art. The fabled artwork may be concealed within the walls, masked for centuries by overlays of paint, plaster, brick -- and a thick patina of misinformation. For 30 years, Maurizio Seracini, director of UCSD’s Center of Interdisciplinary Science for Art, Architecture and Archaeology and pioneer in forensic art analysis, has been experimenting with noninvasive imaging techniques to find the da Vinci mural -- should it still exist -- without touching or disturbing the equally priceless frescoes painted over it. More

UC San Diego Boasts World's Sharpest Video Wall
Chronicle of Higher Education, July 10 -- Colleges have long jockeyed for position in the race to own the fastest-supercomputer, but now some research institutions also strive to install the biggest and best video wall. The title is now apparently held by UCSD, which announced in a press release this week that its new HIPerSpace is “the highest-resolution display system for scientific visualization in the world.” It’s definitely bigger than your home plasma TV—its screen is more than 30 feet wide and almost 8 feet high. And it’s made up of about 286.7 million pixels. More

Mandate on Algebra May Pose Challenge
San Diego Union-Tribune, July 11 -- Stephanie Ramirez is one of the success stories. The student at El Camino High School in Oceanside said she received a B in Algebra I when she was in eighth grade. Summer school between seventh and eighth grade helped, as well as her ambitions to become an anesthesiologist. “That requires a lot of math and science,” Stephanie, 15, said yesterday. (Quotes Jeffrey Remmel, associate dean of physical sciences and a professor of mathematics at UCSD) More

Latinos Want Hopefuls to Address Core Issues
San Diego Union-Tribune, July 11 -- Presidential candidates John McCain and Barack Obama will be using the National Council of La Raza convention, which begins tomorrow in San Diego, as a platform for courting the increasingly significant Latino vote.  Convention organizers hope to press the senators for answers on some of the thorniest issues affecting Latinos, among them immigration policies and solutions to the nation's health insurance and mortgage crises. (Quotes Jorge Mariscal, director of the Chicano Studies program at UCSD) More

Fulbright Scholars Meet U.S. Officials at Gaza Border
San Francisco Chronicle, July 10 -- U.S. visa officials drove to the Gaza border Thursday to meet with three Fulbright scholars from Gaza — going to unusual lengths to work around an Israeli travel ban that jeopardized their prestigious U.S. government scholarships. Israel had denied entry to the three Palestinian university students, thus preventing them from traveling to the U.S. Consulate in Jerusalem to apply for their visas. Instead, U.S. officials, carrying fingerprinting equipment for the visa applications, drove to the Erez Crossing on the Israel-Gaza border Thursday and met with the Gaza students. (Mentions UCSD) More

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Brothers’ Newfound Motto: Less Stress, More Wine
San Luis Obispo County News, July 11 -- Daniel Daou and his brother Georges don’t want to make just good wine from their newly planted Westside Vineyard—they seek to bottle “world renowned wines.” “We’ve never had modest goals,” Daniel admits. The Lebanese-born brothers who were raised in Paris immigrated to the United States with their parents in the late 1970s. After graduating with electrical and computer engineering degrees from UCSD in 1988, they set off to establish their own Internet company with $50,000 borrowed from their father. More

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