A Sampling of Clips for 
November 04, 2003

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

Mapping DNA's Danger Zones
Discover Magazine, Nov. 2003-Two bioinformatics researchers from the University of California at San Diego have pulled the rug out from under a central tenet of evolution-that mutations appear at random in different parts of our DNA. Pavel Pevzner and Glenn Tesler compared the just-sequenced mouse genome with its human counterpart and analyzed where rearrangements, a common type of genetic mutation, occur. This work, which highlights how the two species have diverged over millions of years, shows unexpected zones of stability and change.
http://www.discover.com/issues/nov-03/rd/mapping-dnas-danger-zones/

Fighting It by Letting It Burn
Los Angeles Times, Nov. 4-Among the many cultural differences along the U.S.-Mexico border is a widely differing approach to the task of fighting brush fires. Mexican governments -- partially because of tight budgets -- do not attempt the quick suppression of brush fires that property owners and politicians in the United States demand of their firefighters. Richard Carson, professor of economics at UC San Diego, is one academic who favors the Mexican approach.
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-mexico4nov04,1,6572029.story

UCSD's Quiet New Cancer Czar
San Diego Metropolitan, Nov. 2003-Dr. Dennis Carson, who developed the 2-CdA, a standard treatment for hairy cell leukemia, has become the new director of the Rebecca and John Moores UCSD Cancer Center. Carson, an immunologist and biologist, is a member of an elite group of unique scientists who made groundbreaking discoveries and thereby healed many. And unlike most of that elite group, he also is a physician.
http://www.sandiegometro.com/2003/nov/coverstory.html

New Measure of Success Cited for Statistical Prediction
Electronic Engineering Times, Nov. 3-Renewed scrutiny of a statistical technique used by British intelligence to decode German military communications during World War II has opened new avenues in statistical prediction that researchers say could improve machine-learning software. Today's spell checkers, data retrieval methods and speech recognition systems use variations of the Good-Turing estimator, named for British mathematicians I.J. Good and Alan M. Turing. Recent work by Alon Orlitsky and his colleagues at the University of California-San Diego's Department of Electrical Engineering, has yielded a statistical estimator that the researchers say is more accurate than Good-Turing over time.
* No link available online.

Victims Describe Inferno
San Diego Union-Tribune, Oct. 29-They described tires melting as they tried to escape by car, flames that hissed up with volcanic force and speed, and desperate runs through a "tunnel of fire." Some of the 10 most critically injured fire victims at UCSD Medical Center's burn unit mustered the strength to talk of the horror of the fire's first 12 hours. (Quote by Dr. Daniel Lozano, the UCSD burn unit's clinical director.)
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/uniontrib/wed/news/news_1n29burn.html

Eliminate Vigorous Exercise for Now
San Diego Union-Tribune, Oct. 29-Exercising caution is the most strenuous activity health and fitness experts recommend for workout enthusiasts in San Diego County's polluted air. Although many gyms and health clubs have been closed this week because of unhealthful air quality, the few that are open have made adjustments to their facilities and schedules. (Quote by Dr. Mark Bracker, director of sports medicine at UCSD.)
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/uniontrib/wed/news/news_1n29fit.html

'Big Mac' Ranked 3rd Fastest Supercomputer
Associated Press, Nov. 4-A supercomputer made from 1,100 off-the-shelf Apple Macs at Virginia Tech now ranks third among the world's 500 fastest supercomputers, many of which handle with ease 1 trillion calculations per second. (Quote by Hassan Aref, former chief scientist at the San Diego Supercomputer Center.)
* No link available online.

Same article appeared in:
San Jose Mercury News, Nov. 4
http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/7179299.htm

Modesto Bee, Nov. 4
http://www.modbee.com/24hour/technology/story/1043925p-7335895c.html

Miami Herald, Nov. 4
http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/business/7179299.htm

Motorcade Honors Firefighter Killed
TheSanDiegoChannel.com, Nov. 4-Firefighters, law enforcement, safety services, and civilians turned out by the hundreds Monday to honor Novato fire Engineer Steven Rucker. Rucker was killed battling the massive Cedar Fire last Wednesday while saving homes in Wynola, near Julian. (Quote by Leslie Franz, Director of Health Sciences Communications at UCSD.)
http://www.thesandiegochannel.com/news/2604868/detail.html

Largest Iceberg Splits in Two
The Australian, Nov. 4-The world's largest iceberg has split in two after being pummelled by a powerful storm, the Antarctic Sun newspaper reported. B15, an 11,000sq km monster the size of Jamaica, has been blamed for the deaths of millions of penguins since it broke away from the Ross Ice Shelf in March 2000, blocking their access to the sea. Penguin researcher Gerald Kooyman of Scripps Institution of Oceanography told the newspaper that nearly 75 per cent of the emperor penguins previously counted at Cape Crozier on Ross Island are no longer around.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,7764875%255E1702,00.html

Same article appeared in:
Agence France Presse, Nov. 3
* No link available online.