Talks at UCSD Between Officials from North Korea, U.S. and Other Countries Described as ‘Frank but Friendly’
Representatives from North Korea and the United States held talks last week at an unofficial forum sponsored by the UC Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation at UC San Diego. The meetings were attended by military and diplomatic officials from four other countries. More

A Prize Fit for a Prince
Prince Albert II of Monaco awarded the Roger Revelle Prize
UCSD's Scripps Institution of Oceanography rolled out the “green” carpet for an environmentally conscious royal visitor October 23. His Serene Highness Prince Albert, Head of State and Sovereign Prince of Monaco, was at Scripps to receive the Roger Revelle Prize for his efforts to support and communicate scientific research and protection of the environment on a global scale. More

Pulitzer-Prize Winning Columnist:
Transforming Women from Victims to Engaged Participants Key to Abating Global Poverty
Calling gender inequity the “central moral challenge” of this day, comparable with totalitarianism in the twentieth century and slavery in the nineteenth, Nicholas Kristof, a two-time Pulitzer Prize winning columnist for The New York Times, painted a picture of ferocious persecution and fantastic promise for the world’s more than 3 billion women. Kristoff spoke to an audience of about 800 people in a packed Price Center ballroom Wednesday night as part of the Helen Edison Lecture Series. More

Moores UCSD Cancer Center Team Awarded $20 Million by CIRM to Develop Drugs Against Leukemia Stem Cells
Researchers led by Dr. Dennis A. Carson, director of the Cancer Center, and Dr. Catriona Jamieson, director of the Cancer Stem Cell Research Program, have been awarded $20 million over four years to develop novel drugs against leukemia stem cells. More

Regeneration Can be Achieved
after Chronic Spinal Cord Injury
Scientists at the School of Medicine report that regeneration of central nervous system axons can be achieved in rats even when treatment is delayed more than a year after the original spinal cord injury. More

UC San Diego Ranks 6th in Nation for R&D Dollars
UC San Diego again ranks sixth among top U.S. universities in federal research and development expenditures for fiscal year 2008, with $491 million in federal R&D money and $842 million in total R&D expenditures. The numbers were announced by the National Science Foundation. More

Companies Show Up in Force for
Science and Tech Job Fair Despite Weak Economy
Qualcomm, Cisco, Amazon, Intuit Inc., Microsoft and Yahoo were just a few of the companies at the Career Services Center Science and Technology Job Fair Thursday afternoon. Almost a 1,000 students and alums crowded the Price Center to explore job opportunities and network with industry professionals. More

Students and Staff Compete for
Prizes in Halloween Costume Contest
The audience cheered in the spirit of All Hallow's Eve as students and staff members competed in the annual Halloween Costume Contest, sponsored by the UC San Diego Bookstore. Competitors exhilarated the crowd in hopes of vying for either the most creative, funniest, scariest or best group costume. They danced, joked and frightened their way to win the judges' votes on Oct. 30 at the Price Center. The festivities were followed by the annual Pumpkin Drop. View Slideshow

Medical Student on Forefront of 'Apps' Business
Being a full-time, third-year medical student is tough enough but Michael “Fuj” Fujinaka is also busy helping his fellow students learn. He answered his own questions about identifying heart murmurs by inventing a practical, high-tech learning tool. More

Electrical Engineers Go Head to Head
with Genius on Music Playlists
Electrical engineers recently pitted Genius – the music recommendation system in Apple’s iTunes – against two experimental music recommender systems. Genius appears to capture acoustic similarities among songs within the same playlist, the researchers found. More

Previously Unknown Volcanic
Eruption Helped Trigger Cold Decade
A team of chemists from the U.S. and France has found compelling evidence of a previously undocumented large volcanic eruption that occurred exactly 200 years ago, in 1809. More

Decades of Support: Mac Kenzie Foundation
Gives $1.7 Million in Medical Scholarships
Since 1977, a small foundation based in Los Angeles has made a big impact on nearly 800 medical students at UC San Diego. The Mac Kenzie Foundation has given $1.7 million in total donations for students in the UC San Diego School of Medicine. This year, the foundation gave $85,000, benefiting 24 students. More

Surgical Pioneer to Launch Groundbreaking
Treatment Center for Liver Disease at UC San Diego
Distinguished transplant and cancer surgeon Dr. Alan Hemming has been recruited to the School of Medicine to launch a multidisciplinary center for the treatment of advanced liver disease. . This innovative program is designed to offer adult and pediatric patients in the western United States a single destination for the treatment of complex liver disease. More