A Sampling of Clips for September 29^th, 2009

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

The 1.258 Trillion-Barrel Question
San Diego Union-Tribune, Sept. 28 – The Earth contains a finite amount of oil. Burned to power our vehicles, heat our homes and light our cities, this fuel is a nonrenewable resource. So when Peter Maass, author of “Crude World: The Violent Twilight of Oil,” asked experts how much oil remains, it was not an innocuous question. The answer could spur or doom research into alternative energy sources, even sustain or overthrow governments. Oil barons around the world, though, confidently reassured Maass. As of this year, they insist, the world's reserves of crude amount to 1.258 trillion barrels. (Quotes Mark Zumberge, a research geophysicist at Scripps Institution of Oceanography) More

Speedier Computer Circuits Created
UPI, Sept. 28 – Physicists at UCSD say they've created speedy integrated computer circuits capable of working in very cold environments. The circuits, built with particles called "excitons", can operate at commercially cold temperatures, bringing the possibility of a new type of extremely fast computer based on excitons closer to reality, researchers said. More

Fighting Botnets with Doc Savage
Voice of San Diego, Sept. 27 – The poster outside the third-floor office in the UCSD computer sciences building depicts Doc Savage, the big-muscled, bald-headed, fearsome-faced comic book hero. Inside the office sits a different Doc Savage. Stefan Savage is a pale-faced, 40-year-old, T-shirt-and-shorts-wearing college professor in UCSD’s Department of Computer Science and Engineering. But in the world of cybercrime fighting -- where the strength of your code, not your biceps, is what matters -- this Doc Savage cuts quite the imposing figure. More

Helping People Escape from Iron Grip of Grief
Herald Tribune, Sept. 29 -- Each of the 2.5 million annual deaths in the United States directly affects four other people, on average. For most of these people, the suffering is finite -- painful and lasting, of course, but not so disabling that two or 20 years later the person can barely get out of bed in the morning. (Quotes Sidney Zisook, a professor of psychiatry at UCSD) More

'Ms. Hempel Chronicles' from
Sarah Shun-Lien Bynum Gives Us
Seventh-Grade: New in Paperback

Cleveland.com, Sept. 25 -- Now is the perfect time to pick up UCSD literature professor Sarah Shun-Lien Bynum's delightful book about a seventh-grade English teacher, Ms. Hempel Chronicles. Beatrice Hempel considers herself to be "just another line of defense in the daily eight-hour effort to contain" her hormonal students. She has trouble distinguishing what is appropriate in the classroom, and while she can appreciate the power of literature, the predominant reason she chooses Tobias Wolff's "This Boy's Life" for her class to study is that "she quietly thrilled" to the swear words. More

Social Art (Don't Call it Relational Aesthetics)
Chicago Now, Sept. 28 -- I'm going to write about the closing of Dutch artist Berit Nørgaard's residency to introduce the subject of an interesting art movement that may define experimental art for the next decade.
Unfortunately, they had to give this type of art the worst name ever:  Relational Aesthetics. Even "Relationship Art" would have been better, because I understand what "aesthetics" means as an art term, but sometimes it's used in reference to monks and then I'm totally lost. Anyway, as Nørgaard put it, "it's a terrible name, because if you're working with the public, you want to call it something that people are going to understand." (Mentions Grant Kester, chair of UCSD’s Department of Visual Arts) More

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