A Sampling of Clips for 
March 20 - 22, 2004

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

Carbon Dioxide Reported at Record Levels
New York Times, March 22-Carbon dioxide, the gas largely blamed for global warming, has reached record-high levels in the atmosphere after growing at an accelerated pace in the past year, say scientists monitoring the sky from this 2-mile-high station atop a Hawaiian volcano. The reason for the faster buildup of the most important ``greenhouse gas'' will require further analysis, the U.S. government experts say. Asked to explain the stepped-up rate, climatologists were cautious, saying data needed to be further evaluated. But Asia immediately sprang to mind. Leading climatologist from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, Ralph Keeling, whose father, Charles D. Keeling, developed methods for measuring carbon dioxide, noted that the rate "does fluctuate up and down a bit,'' and said it was too early to reach conclusions.
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/science/AP-Climate-Record-CO2.html

Similar articles appeared in:
Washington Post, March 20
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A11023-2004Mar20.html

Los Angeles Times, March 21
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-carbon21mar21,1,2734393.story?coll=la-headlines-nation

CBS News, March 20
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/03/20/tech/main607629.shtml

CNN News, March 21
http://www.cnn.com/2004/TECH/science/03/20/climate.record.ap

MSNBC News, March 21
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/4570557/

Associated Press, March 20
* No link available online.

USA Today, March 21
http://www.usatoday.com/weather/news/2004-03-21-co2-buildup_x.htm

Newsday, March 22
http://www.nynewsday.com/news/health/sns-ap-climate-record-co2,0,7143736.story?coll=nyc-healthhome-headlines

Boston Globe, March 20
http://www.boston.com/dailynews/080/nation/Carbon_dioxide_buildup_acceler:.shtml

Seattle Times, March 21
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2001884705_warm21.html

Washington Times, March 21
http://washingtontimes.com/national/20040321-121959-5762r.htm

Miami Herald Tribune, March 22
http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/nation/8236803.htm

San Diego Union-Tribune, March 20
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/science/20040320-1003-climate-recordco2.html

Contra Costa Times, March 21
http://www.contracostatimes.com/mld/cctimes/news/8240850.htm

Arizonia Daily Sun, March 21
http://www.azdailysun.com/non_sec/nav_includes/story.cfm?storyID=84157

Running on Empty
New Scientist, March 20-For the better part of a century, scientists and athletes have presumed, not unreasonably, that fatigue originates in the muscles themselves. Precise explanations have varied, but all have been based on the "limitations theory". In other words, muscles tire because they hit a physical limit: they either run out of fuel or oxygen or they drown in toxic by-products. In the past few years, however, Timothy Noakes and his colleague Alan St Clair Gibson, professors of exercise physiology at the University of Cape Town, South Africa, have taken a hard look at the standard theory. The deeper they dig, the more convinced they have become that physical fatigue simply isn't the same as a car running out of petrol. Fatigue, they argue, is caused not by distress signals springing from overtaxed muscles, but is an emotional response which begins in the brain. (Refers to research conducted by Peter Wagner, a professor of medicine a the University of California, San Diego.)
* No link available online.

Study Exposes Key to Killer Bugs' Invasion of the Body
New Zealand Herald, March 22-Scientists have discovered how bacteria that cause infections such as anthrax, bubonic plague and typhoid avoid the body's immune system - a finding that could pave ways to control the deadly diseases. In laboratory experiments using mouse cells, researchers at the University of California, San Diego pinpointed an enzyme called PKR that leads to the destruction of macrophages, large white blood cells that protect the body against pathogens. (Quote by Michael Karin, a professor at the University of California, San Diego.)
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/storydisplay.cfm?storyID=3555986&thesection=news&thesubsection=general

After 9/ 11; U.S. Policy Built on World Bases
San Francisco Chronicle, March 21-Government officials have been searching for suitable memorials to the thousands killed in the terrorist strikes of Sept. 11, but the most telling monument, which best illustrates the historic turn America's approach to global problems has taken since the attacks, may turn out to be an obscure American air base in the former Soviet republic of Kyrgyzstan. (Quote by Chalmers Johnson, a professor emeritus at UC San Diego and an Asia expert.)
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2004/03/21/MNGJ65OS4J1.DTL

UC Regents Censure Chairman
Copley News, March 19-The high-stakes debate over University of California admissions reached a crescendo Thursday when a majority of regents publicly reprimanded their chairman, John Moores, who has repeatedly said that the university is violating the law by considering race in admissions. In an unusual move, the regents censured Moores by voting 8-6 to pass a resolution stating that the views he expressed in a Forbes magazine opinion piece aren't the views of the board.
* No link available online.

No Place for Absurdity
San Jose Mercury News, March 21-This month marks the 100th anniversary of the birth of Dr. Seuss -- Theodor Seuss Geisel -- the great children's author and the father of such immortal figures as the Cat in the Hat, the Grinch, Horton, the Lorax and, lest we forget, the Sneetches. The tributes are wide and various. They include -- besides the many lame attempts at imitating his verse by the journalists covering them -- the unveiling of a statue of the author seated with the Cat in the Hat at the Geisel Library at the University of California, San Diego; a yearlong commemoration at his alma mater, Dartmouth College; and his elevation to the twin Mount Rushmores of popular culture: a postage stamp and a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/editorial/8241016.htm

Lines in the Sand
San Diego Union-Tribune, March 22-Residents of pristine, isolated Baja fishing town are split over how to balance development pressure with cross-border calls for conservation. (Refers to research conducted by Enric Sala, a researcher at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography.)
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/mexico/20040322-9999-news_1n22bahia.html

Is Shift in Structure of Power Ahead?
San Diego Union-Tribune, March 21-In 1973, even San Diego's legendary mayor Pete Wilson could not persuade voters to change the City Charter to give the mayor more power than the city manager. When Mayors Maureen O'Connor and Susan Golding attempted to launch similar initiatives during their terms in the 1980s and 1990s, the political environment wasn't any more accepting. Today, as the city struggles with one of its worst fiscal crises ever, supporters of the resurgent movement, including Mayor Dick Murphy, believe voters are ripe for a change. (Quote by Steve Erie, a political science professor at the University of California, San Diego who favors the strong mayor reform.)
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/metro/20040321-9999-news_1m21strong.html

Is This a City With More Money than Will?
San Diego Union-Tribune, Neil Morgan, March 21-We all know of San Francisco and its family fortunes. Those titans who followed the Gold Rush have long been San Diego's alibi for all unfortunate civic contrasts. In our impoverished San Diego, we argue, with its low property tax base, modest sales tax and the lowest big-city hotel room tax in the West, we are a poor man's heaven in the sun. But this poor-city myth doesn't work any longer. San Diego has fortunes now too. One example is that UCSD is halfway toward its goal in this region's first $1 billion funding campaign.
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/metro/morgan/20040321-9999_1m21morgan.html

Bush Budget plan Decried by Agencies Facing Cutbacks
Copley News, March 19-Under the little-known Even Start Program run by the U.S. Department of Education, the government provides $240 million to help families break out of poverty. Even Start is among 65 programs facing elimination by Bush, who wants to save $4.9 billion from the budget. Many programs facing the administration's proposed ax are relatively hidden in the vast federal bureaucracy - from Even Start to an Olympics secondary schooling program in Chula Vista. Another program facing elimination is the $18 million National Writing Project, based at UC Berkeley the past 30 years. The project is designed to improve the teaching of writing in the nation's schools and includes 100,000 students from an array of universities, including the University of California San Diego.
* No link available online.

Biomedical Informatics is Hot New Field
Wisconsin State Journal, March 21-With the tech industry slow to hire, experts point to a nascent field called biomedical informatics as a potential source of new jobs. Biomedical informatics uses complex computer databases and equations to sort and analyze biological data such as the results from pharmaceutical clinical trials. (Quote by Maryann Martone, associate adjunct professor of neuroscience at the University of California, San Diego.)
http://www.madison.com/wisconsinstatejournal/biz/70640.php

Planetarium Issues 'Passport' to Stylish Journey
Rocky Mountain News, March 19-A Cosmic Journey, the first program to debut in the Denver Museum of Nature & Science's newly renovated Gates Planetarium last June, was big on science but a bit short on excitement. The goal is to show that despite our egocentric tendencies, the Earth is just a tiny blue dot in a vast universe. With the speed of light, the tour moves away from home, past neighboring planets such as Mars, Jupiter and Saturn before pausing at the Orion nebula. A massive, interstellar cloud of gas and dust, the nebula is where stars are born. The colorful, green-tinted images of this impressive star nursery were created by the San Diego Supercomputer Center based on observations from the Hubble Space Telescope.
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/movies/article/0,1299,DRMN_23_2738198,00.html