A Sampling of Clips for
May 31 - June 03, 2003
*
UCSD faculty and staff may obtain a copy of an article by e-mailing
the University
Communications Office
Innovative, Multicenter
Study Of Schizophrenia Will Follow Disease Traits In Hunt For
Genetic Causes
ScienceDaily, June 3 – University
of California, San Diego will lead a consortium in
a $20 million national study to solve the mystery of schizophrenia
by identifying the genes that cause behavioral traits associated
with the mental illness. “I believe our research is an
important step in furthering our understanding of schizophrenia
and then identifying the critical, genetically mediated brain
dysfunctions that contribute to the disease,” said David
Braff, M.D., UCSD professor of psychiatry
and director of the seven-center Consortium on the Genetics
of Schizophrenia (COGS).
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2003/06/030603082215.htm
Similar article appeared
in:
San
Diego Union-Tribune, June 3
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/uniontrib/tue/news/news_1n3schizo.html
In Computing,
Weighing Sheer Power Against Vast Pools of Data
New York Times, June 2 – Two
leading American computer researchers from Microsoft’s
Bay Area Research Center are challenging the government’s
policy that federal money would be better spent directly on
the scientific research teams that are the largest users of
supercomputers, by shifting the financing to vast data-storage
systems instead of building ultrafast computers. (Quotes Larry
Smarr, an astrophysicist who is director of University
of California, San Diego’s California Institute
for Telecommunications and Information Technology).
*
No link available online.
Seaweed
Surprise: Marine Plant Uses Chemical Warfare To Fight Microbes
ScienceDaily, May 30 – Seaweeds
defend themselves from specific pathogens with naturally occurring
antibiotics, according to new research conducted by Paul
Jensen and William Fenical of the
University of California, San Diego’s
Scripps Institution of Oceanography and other
scientists. The finding helps explain why some seaweeds, sponges
and corals appear to avoid most infections by fungi and bacteria,
according to the study published on May 19 in the Proceedings
of the National Academy of Sciences.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2003/05/030530082615.htm
Fished out
U.S. News, June 9 – In a series
of recent reports, scientists warn that fish stocks are dangerously
overexploited and that many of the methods that provide the
fish, crustaceans, and mollusks we so enjoy are destroying the
very ocean habitats and ecosystems needed to rebuild the stocks.
(Quotes University of California, San Diego’s
Scripps Institution of Oceanography ecologist
Jeremy Jackson).
http://www.usnews.com/usnews/issue/030609/misc/9oceans.htm
High-Tech
Collaboration Helps Taiwan Fight SARS
ScienceDaily, June 3 – The Pacific
Rim Applications and Grid Middleware Assembly (PRAGMA), an international
collaboration consisting of fourteen founding institutions,
showed how relationships and expertise developed to tackle computational
research could also help thousands of SARS patients in Taiwan.
PRAGMA was launched at a March 2002 workshop hosted by the San
Diego Supercomputer Center at the University of California,
San Diego. (Quotes Peter Arzberger,
director of the Life Sciences Initiative at UCSD,
and co-founder and chair of PRAGMA's Steering Committee).
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2003/06/030603083806.htm
Berkeley
fuses biotech, engineering
San Francisco Chronicle, June 1 –
UC Berkeley broke ground last Friday on the $162 million Stanley
Bioscience and Bioengineering Facility, a humongous research
and teaching building scheduled to open in 2006. It will be
home to Berkeley's interdisciplinary studies in the biological
sciences, physical sciences and engineering. (Mentions University
of California, San Diego).
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2003/06/01/RE47264.DTL
A matter
of degree
San Diego Union-Tribune, June 3 –
Carolina Valder, a research assistant in the
anesthesiology department of University of California,
San Diego's medical school, was profiled. (Quotes UCSD’s
adjunct professor Robert Hecht-Nielsen, anesthesiology
professor Z. David Luo, and chemistry professor
Katja Lindenberg).
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/education/20030603-9999_1c3valder.html
A red carpet,
with stains
Seattle Times, June 2 – Microsoft
founder Bill Gates was at the University of California,
San Diego last week to give a speech on campus. Lindows.com
Chief Executive Michael Robertson, who founded music company
MP3.com, passed out 1,200 fliers before the speech criticizing
Microsoft for a lack of innovation and for acting ruthlessly
monopolistic. Microsoft is suing Lindows.com in Seattle, claiming
the company's name is too similar to that of its Windows operating
system. http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/businesstechnology/134868784_bdownload02.html
Five Questions
San Diego Union-Tribune, June 3 –
Bill Gates was asked five questions about personal technology
when he spoke at the University of California, San Diego
last week. He fielded questions from students at UCSD's
Jacobs School of Engineering and from the Preuss School, a 6th-through
11th-grade public charter school located on the UCSD
campus. http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/uniontrib/mon/business/news_mz1b2fiveque.html
Graduation
notes
San Diego Union-Tribune, DIANE BELL,
June 3 – Sydney Brenner, a Salk Institute professor and
winner of a Nobel in medicine last year, is giving Sunday's
commencement address at the University of California,
San Diego School of Medicine with a speech titled "The
Worst Medical Student of 1950: A Personal Memoir".
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/metro/bell/20030603-9999_1m3bell.html
A big day
on tap for La Jolla Playhouse
San Diego Union-Tribune, June 1 –
Melody Butiu, the gifted University of California, San
Diego acting grad played the title character in a new
play that was performed recently at the South Coast Repertory's
Pacific Playwrights Festival in Costa Mesa. http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/uniontrib/sun/arts/news_1a1welsh.html
A way of
seeing
San Diego Union-Tribune, June 1 –
Robert Irwin, the designer of the sculpture "Two Running
Violet V-Forms" (1981), part of the University
of California, San Diego's acclaimed Stuart Collection,
is profiled. http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/uniontrib/sun/arts/news_1a1irwin.html
