A Sampling of Clips for July 15^th, 2008

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

UC Regents to Review Admissions Standards
San Diego Union-Tribune, July 15 -- After several years of internal debate, the University of California's faculty has finalized a proposal to recast the system's decades-old promise to admit one of every eight graduating high school seniors in the state. The revised formula would limit the UC admissions guarantee to one in 10 graduating seniors starting in fall 2012, but it's much more complicated than that. (Quotes James Posakony, a biological sciences professor who heads UCSD’s faculty, said he and other UCSD faculty are “cautiously supportive” of the proposal) More

Supercomputers Identify Potential New Drugs to Combat Bird Flu
US News and World Report, July 14 --  Like most viruses, the ones that cause flu are sneaky little things armed with an amazing ability to rapidly change their spots—that is, the viral molecules that launch a seek-and-destroy response from the human immune system. In the case of avian or "bird flu," new strains are popping up all the time and rendering old medicines and vaccines practically useless, which is seriously bad news if you're trying to prevent a possible world-wide epidemic. Now scientists have called upon the power of massive supercomputers to stay ahead of the changes and help keep a fresh supply of anti-virus treatments on hand for public health efforts. One UCSD team has isolated more than two dozen promising and novel compounds. In some cases, the compounds appeared to be equal or stronger inhibitors than are currently available anti-flu remedies. More

Pickets Ignore Order, Demand Better Pay
San Diego Union-Tribune, July 15 -- Despite a temporary restraining order against a strike, hundreds of UCSD service workers began picketing with their brethren statewide yesterday for better wages. They included custodians, groundskeepers, housekeepers and food-preparation employees who work for the UCSD campus and the UCSD Medical Center system. More

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Escondido Cracks Down on Illegal Immigrants
MSNBC, July 14 -- Officials in Escondido are trying to discourage illegal immigration by enacting ordinances that crack down on border-crossers and the residents who harbor them. Escondido, a city with a burgeoning Latino population, is considering outlawing the pickup of day laborers along some streets and restricting overnight parking without a permit - a move aimed at discouraging multiple families from sharing homes. (Quotes Wayne Cornelius, director of the Center for Comparative Immigration Studies at UCSD) More

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Fiction Yurt
The New Yorker, July 15 --  A year ago, Ms. Duffy, the fifth-grade English and history teacher, had come very close to losing it, what with her homeroom being right next to the construction site for the new computer lab, and her attempts to excise the Aztecs from the curriculum being thwarted, and her ill-advised affair with Mr. Polidori coming to an end. (Written by Sarah Shun-Lien Bynumm, professor in the department of literature) More

Nigella Hillgarth Executive Director, Birch Aquarium at Scripps
Earth 8 KFMB, July 15 -- Dr. Nigella Hillgarth is executive director of Birch Aquarium at Scripps, the public exploration center of world-renowned Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UCSD. She is a distinguished zoologist who came to the institution in 2002 from her position as executive director of Tracy Aviary, the nation’s largest bird park, in Salt Lake City, Utah. More

Empirical Answers to Metaphysical Questions
The Hindu, July 15 -- All the questions that great poets have raised, such as ‘What is poetry?’ and ‘What is a metaphor?’ can be answered from a scientific, empirical point of view, neurologist V.S. Ramachandran said on Monday. He was delivering the inaugural lecture at the Asian College of Journalism here. Addressing the class of 2009, Dr. Ramachandran, director of the Centre for Brain and Cognition and professor in the Psychology Department and neurosciences programme at UCSD, spoke largely about the key areas of his research: phantom limbs and Synesthesia. More

S.T.A.R.S. Names Spelling Bee Winners
The Riverside-Press Enterprise, July 14 -- Moreno Valley's Students-Teachers Achieving Real Success program announced the winners of its first annual spelling bee in June. Preliminaries ran March 3 through April 29 at all 41 S.T.A.R.S. after-school program sites. (Mentions Caroline Wesemuller, who graduated from Revelle College at UCSD, with a degree in human Biology and a minor in psychology in June 2008). More

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