Anti-racism Writer Challenges Audience to Examine
Ingrained Prejudices as Part of Black History Month
What do you do when you're an anti-racism activist and your own 6-year-old daughter tells you God is a white man? You start a conversation, which will hopefully help her understand privilege and prejudice a little better. That's the kind of conversation we all need to have, said Tim Wise, a well-know anti-racism writer and educator who came to speak at UC San Diego last week. More

Chancellor, Chemist Make Pickle Glow to
Light Up Students Interest in Science
How to you make a pickle glow? With the same chemistry principle that drives electric turbines, it turns out. Well, that and a couple of forks, clamps and a transformer. That's one of the discoveries dozens of Serra High School students made Wednesday during an experiment led by UC San Diego Chancellor Marye Anne Fox and her husband, James Whitesell, a UCSD chemistry professor. More

UCSD Tritones Warm Passengers Hearts on Valentine's Day with Surprise Performance in Baggage Claim Area
Passengers in the baggage claim area of Terminal 2 West of the San Diego International Airport were treated to a surprise interactive performance by UCSD's a capella group Feb. 14. Dressed in plain clothes and strategically placed in various areas of the baggage claim, more than 30 members of the Tritones unexpectedly began to serenade travelers with a medley of songs about love and friendship. The performance culminated in a six-part harmony a cappella performance. Performers also handed out more than 100 carnations to travelers during the show. More

Two Hearts Beat as One
Rare surgery gives cardiac patient a Valentine gift
This Valentine’s Day, Tyson Smith woke up with a brand new outlook and two beating hearts—his old failing heart and a newly transplanted heart. “I can tell that I am getting stronger every day,” said Smith. The team from the UC San Diego Center for Transplantation performed a rare, life-saving cardiac surgery called heterotopic heart transplantation, where Smith's own heart remained in place while a second donor heart was implanted. He now has two beating hearts. More

Physicists Build Bigger 'Bottles' of
Antimatter to Unlock Nature's Secrets
Once regarded as the stuff of science fiction, antimatter—the mirror image of the ordinary matter in our observable universe—is now the focus of laboratory studies around the world. While physicists routinely produce antimatter with radioisotopes and particle colliders, cooling these antiparticles and containing them for any length of time is another story. More

Key Culprit Identified in Breast Cancer Metastasis
When doctors discover high concentrations of regulatory T cells in the tumors of breast cancer patients, the prognosis is often grim, though why exactly has long been unclear. Now, new research at the School of Medicine suggests these regulatory T cells, whose job is to help mediate the body's immune response, produce a protein that appears to hasten and intensify the spread of breast cancer to distant organs and, in doing so, dramatically increase the risk of death. More

Unraveling How Prion Proteins
Move Along Axons to the Brain
Researchers at the School of Medicine have identified the motors that move non-infectious prion proteins—found within many mammalian cells—up and down long, neuronal transport pathways. Identifying normal movement mechanisms of these prion proteins may help researchers understand the spread of infectious prions within and between neurons to reach the brain, and aid in development of therapies to halt the transport. More

Newest Campus Apartments
Immerse Students in Sustainability
“Wind scoops” pull Pacific breezes into the energy-efficient rooms in UC San Diego’s newest student apartments, cooling them the old-fashioned way in buildings aligned to capitalize on wind and solar rays. Non-potable “recycled” water nourishes native outdoor plants through an efficient drip-irrigation system. The apartments’ plaster, paving, carpet and metal wall studs are made from recycled material, and the residents of the North Campus Housing Phase II project will bathe with water heated by sunlight instead of natural gas or electricity. More

Parents Finally Get to Take
Preemie Home on Valentine's Day
Baby Enzo was born weighing a little more than a pound after 25 weeks of gestation. After four months at the UC San Diego Medical Center’s NICU, where he battled infections, pneumonia and other medical problems, he finally got to go home Feb. 14. That’s the best gift his parents, Nina and Rodolfo Ocio, said they could hope for on Valentine’s Day. Watch a video about Enzo’s journey. More

Seven Young Faculty Members
Receive $50,000 Sloan Research Fellowships
The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation has awarded research fellowships to seven young faculty members at UC San Diego, the largest group from a single institution to be recognized this year. Fellows are nominated by their peers and selected by an independent panel of senior scholars. They receive two-year, $50,000 grants to pursue any line of research they choose. More

Composer Honored by Academy of Arts and Letters
Composer Rand Steiger, a member of UC San Diego's music faculty, has won the 2011 Walter Hinrichsen Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. The award is "for the publication of a work by a gifted American composer." It was established in 1984 by music publisher C.F. Peters Corporation, which will publish a new work to be written by Steiger. More