A Sampling of Clips for 
June 12, 2006

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

San Diego Vote Shows
Few Cross the Political Divide
Los Angeles Times, June 11 -- It's the rare election that offers both parties more reason for concern than optimism, but that may be exactly the verdict from last week's congressional special election in San Diego County. The result highlighted the GOP's continuing vulnerability in this year's battle for control of Congress. But it also suggested that Democrats are not yet positioned to squeeze the maximum benefit from that vulnerability. (Quotes UCSD political scientist Gary Jacobson) More

The Inner Beauty of Spam
The Chronicle of Higher Education, June 12 -- A visual artist at UCSD has found a use for spam — not the gelatinous meat product, but the kind that clogs up your e-mail inbox with offers of cheap Rolexes and rapid weight loss. Alex Dragulescu, manager of the university's Experimental Game Lab, makes art out of Internet trash by "recycling" junk e-mail messages into intricate
computer art. More

Byetta Weight Loss
Doubles for Diabetics at 2 Years
USA Today, June 10 -- Patients taking the recently launched diabetes drug Byetta lost twice as much weight in years than they did in an initial 30-week study, and the medicine kept their blood sugar just as well under control, researchers said Saturday. Results of the two-year extension study of the drug co-marketed by Amylin Pharmaceuticals Inc. and Eli Lilly and Co. were presented at the American Diabetes Association scientific meeting in Washington. (Quotes Dr. Robert Henry, the study's lead investigator, and a professor of medicine at UCSD) More

Fox Predicts Mexico's Successes
Could Eliminate Illegal Crossings
San Diego Union-Tribune, June 10 -- Could Mexico's plunging birthrate and growing economy end illegal immigration to the United States? Mexican President Vicente Fox says they could. As soon as 2015, Mexico will be using “100 percent of its work force,” he said, and his countrymen won't need to cross the border in search of jobs. (Quotes Wayne Cornelius, director of the Center for Comparative Immigration Studies at UCSD) More

Crossing over: Toxic waste
San Diego Union-Tribune, June 12 -- While U.S. politicians debate how best to keep illegal immigrants from crossing the border, huge holes plague America's system for counting and inspecting toxic waste migrating north from Mexico. (Quotes Kathryn Kopinak, a guest scholar at UCSD’s Center for U.S.-Mexican Studies) More

SDSC Breaks Ground on Building Expansion
HPC Wire, June 12 -- On June 8, UCSD Chancellor Marye Anne Fox and San Diego Supercomputer Center Director Fran Berman broke ground on the Center's 80,000 square foot building expansion. SDSC's building extension will double the size of the national science, engineering and technology center, adding needed room for trillions of bytes of data, powerful supercomputers and more than 400 professional multidisciplinary staff. The building extension marks SDSC's 21st year and an era of expanded national leadership for the Center. More

First National TeraGrid
Conference Begins Monday
Eyewitness News, Indianapolis, June 12 -- Scientists and researchers who are coming together thanks to the nation's largest computer grid will have a chance to meet face-to-face on June 12-15 at the first national TeraGrid conference in Indianapolis. (Mentions the San Diego Supercomputer Center) More

Give It a Shot: Vaccines Best Defense Against Infectious Disease
North County Times, June 10 -- Vaccination is medicine's everyday miracle. In exchange for a few minutes and enduring a low-cost injection, people get years or a lifetime of immunity to deadly diseases. For thousands of years, plagues and epidemics killed everyone from peasants to kings all over the world. The great events of human history are largely tied to these epidemics: The death of 90 percent of New World populations through smallpox; the Black Death of 14th-century Europe; plagues that hurried the Roman Empire's decline; and the epidemic that hit ancient Athens in 430 B.C. during the Peloponnesian War with Sparta. (Quotes Dr. Thomas Kipps, a professor of medicine at the Moores Cancer Center at UCSD) More