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UCSD reveals surprise about rainbows
U~T San Diego | December 29, 2011
Computer scientist Henrik Wann Jensen, whose work in graphics earned him an Academy Award, teamed with student Iman Sadeghi to create simulations of the full spectrum of rainbows. They're trying to better depict rainbows in animated movies and video games. Full Story
Top 5 San Diego science stories of 2011
U~T San Diego | December 24, 2011
You expect scientific achievement in San Diego; it's one of the largest research centers in the country. But 2011 was an especially fruitful year. Here's a snap shot of five particularly newsworthy achievements and events. Full Story
Bioengineers create living 'neon signs' from bacteria
Wired | December 20, 2011
Biologists and bioengineers at the University of California San Diego have teamed up to create living neon signs made up of millions of bacterial cells that fluoresce in unison like light bulbs. Full Story
30 Under 30: Science
Forbes.com | December 19, 2011
30 scientists and innovators under age 30 who were worth highlighting in the pages of Forbes Full Story
Rare twin rainbows simulated in 3D
New Scientist | December 8, 2011
Don't rub your eyes, you're not seeing double. This picture shows a rare twin rainbow, in which two multi-coloured arcs sprout form the same point. Instead of seeking the end of the rainbow, researchers from the University of California, San Diego, have used a 3D computer model to figure out just how such twins are born. Full Story
Spam Works
BusinessWeek | December 8, 2011
Every day three-quarters of all e-mail that flies across the Internet is spam. Some of it tricks customers into installing a virus or forking over personal information to use illicitly. But many spam messages are advertisements for companies that sell real goods, usually prescription drugs, knock-off watches, and pirated software. Millions of Americans see it as a way to save on drugs Full Story
Fake Rainbows Lead to Scientific Discovery
ABC News | December 7, 2011
While nature and computer graphics may seem an unlikely pairing, computer science professor Henrik Wann Jensen and Iman Sadeghi, who was working on his thesis, realized they could more accurately simulate rainbows in 3-D, where raindrops could be rendered as spherical, rather than the usual 2-D simulations, where raindrops are conveyed as circles. Full Story
UCSD Team Working on 6,000 Piece Puzzle
KPBS | November 23, 2011
UC San Diego researchers are corralling the efforts of roughly 3,500 people in about 30 countries to solve what might be an impossible puzzle. Full Story
Help solve the 'world's hardest jigsaw puzzle'
San Diego Union-Tribune | November 19, 2011
If you love jigsaw puzzles and a tough challenge, you might want to help UC San Diego try to win a global competition in which players are using their computers to reassemble shredded documents and figure out a question about the information that emerges. Full Story
UC San Diego Researchers Map Calif. Solar Hotspots
KPBS | November 15, 2011
Jacobs School of Engineering Professor Jan Kleissl and a colleague used data gathered by the space shuttle Endeavor to calculate solar power production in California. Full Story
Tosser bot: Dog's best friend?
MSNBC | November 14, 2011
A scalable, ball-tossing robot that's reminiscent of a Segway with an independent streak could become your pet dog's new best friend. Full Story
UCSD's 'Trojan horse' attack on cancer
San Diego Union-Tribune | November 14, 2011
Can I launch a sneak attack on leukemia by tricking the immune system into welcoming drug-filled particles that are a million times smaller than an ant? Full Story
Video: Watch earthquake shake home wine rack
San Diego Union-Tribune | November 8, 2011
The UC San Diego Jacobs School of Engineering placed a fully stocked wine rack on its shake table and demonstrated what would likely happen to an unsecured rack during a 7.5 quake. The demonstration was done for Totally Unprepared, a TV program hosted by Susan Jekarl. Full Story
A Scientist's Life: Meet UCSD engineer Carlos Coimbra
San Diego Union-Tribune | November 7, 2011
Meet Carlos Coimbra, a 43 year-old associate professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at the University of California San Diego. Full Story
A Scientist's Life: 10 Things UCSD's Gabriel Silva Has Done
San Diego Union-Tribune | October 28, 2011
Meet Gabriel Silva, a bioengineer and neuroscientist at the University of California San Diego. Silva, 37, helps to explore how the various parts of the brain fit together and work as a system, and how the brain represents and processes information. Full Story
Video: What an earthquake could do to your home aquarium
San Diego Union-Tribune | October 23, 2011
A home aquarium can be so heavy you might assume that it isn't necessary to strap it to the wall to prevent it from falling over during an earthquake. The opposite is true, as the UC San Diego Jacobs School of Engineering recently showed in this shake-table demonstration. The demonstration was performed on behalf of the television show "Totally Unprepared." Full Story
San Diego Building Shaker To Test Guts Of Structure
KPBS | October 17, 2011
The skeleton of the structure reaches five stories above the shaking table. Square concrete columns wrap around reinforced steel bars. U.C. San Diego graduate student Michelle Chen surveys the tower from underneath her green hard hat. Full Story
Obama to honor UCSD's Chien for improving human health
San Diego Union-Tribune | October 15, 2011
On Friday, President Barack Obama will award Chien the National Medal of Science for bringing together the worlds of biology, engineering and medicine to improve human health, notably the ?river of life? that is the cardiovascular system. Full Story
One road out of ?the Valley of Death?
San Diego Union-Tribune | October 14, 2011
Would you be surprised if a researcher at a top U.S. university discovered a breakthrough for a medical problem that kills 215,000 people a year but couldn?t find funding to commercialize the discovery? You wouldn?t if you?d ever heard of the ?Valley of Death.? Full Story
Solar Forecasting? Next Big Thing in Sun-based Power?
Electric Light & Power | October 11, 2011
Solar forecasting is still in its infancy. One place it is being developed is the University of California?s San Diego (UCSD) campus, where the Department of Energy is taking an interest?to the tune of a $1.93 million grant in 2010 with $500,000 cost share from the California Energy Commission?in developing ways to make solar energy more reliable through forecasting. Full Story
Hospital model to mimic catastrophic earthquakes
Center for Health Reporting | October 3, 2011
A five-story building now under construction at UC San Diego will soon be equipped with hospital beds, computers, a surgical center and even an intensive care unit.Then the shaking begins. Full Story
UCSD engineer wins nation's top science award
San Diego Union-Tribune | September 27, 2011
A UC San Diego researcher who made major discoveries about blood flow, advancing everything from the treatment of sickle cell anemia to atherosclerosis, will receive the National Medal of Science, the highest honor of its kind given in this country. Full Story
Can smartphones get attuned to your moods?
San Diego Union-Tribune | September 26, 2011
University of California San Diego engineering professor Gert Lanckriet is looking for ways to use the sensors in smartphones to figure out what you?re doing and how you?re feeling. He says the sensors that track movement, location, light and changes in your voice could collectively produce a snapshot of your mood. Full Story
Bacterial 'dark matter' genome sequenced with one cell Read more: http://www.nctimes.com/blogsnew/business/scitech/article_204f6c9d-4613-5a05-a95e-be
North County Times | September 18, 2011
Scientists from UC San Diego, the J. Craig Venter Institute and Illumina Inc. have increased access to this hidden realm by developing a new method to read DNA from just one cell. That means the inability to grow samples of exotic microbes in the lab will become less of a barrier to understanding them. Full Story
'The Ph.D Movie' to play Thursday at UCSD
San Diego Union-Tribune | September 13, 2011
The fall quarter doesn't begin until Sept. 22. But students will get a preview -- or is it a reminder? -- of the crazed lives of doctoral students on Thursday when "The Ph.D Movie' is screened at UC San Diego. Full Story
As if Commercials Weren't Bad Enough Already
American Scientist | September 13, 2011
Here's how Sungho Jin, a world-renowned materials expert at the UC San Diego Jacobs School of Engineering, described his invention: "For example, if people are eating pizza, the viewer smells pizza coming from a TV or cell phone. And if a beautiful lady walks by, they smell perfume. Instantaneously generated fragrances or odors would match the scene shown on a TV or cell phone." Full Story
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2011/09/11/national/main20104377.shtml
CBS News | September 11, 2011
On only this can the world agree: On Sept. 11, 2001, two planes crashed into the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in Manhattan. A short time later, both fell. Nearly every other detail of the terrorist attacks - from the reasons the towers fell to the actual number of planes hijacked to the blame for the events - on that day has been incredibly fertile ground for the production of alternating theories about what actually happened. Full Story
Sept. 11 10th Anniversary Special
Discovery Channel Canada | September 7, 2011
The Discovery Channel's Daily Planet recently visited the UC San Diego Department of Structural Engineering and Englekirk Structural Engineering Center as part of a 9/11 anniversary special looking at technological advances designed to thwart future attacks. The Discovery crew filmed the department's blast simulator, the only one of its kind in the world, and interviewed Professor and department Chair Gil Hegemier, an expert in blast mitigation. Full Story
UCSD to guide cameras on spacecraft bound for moon
San Diego Union-Tribune | September 7, 2011
NASA today launched a pair of small spacecraft that will give middle school students an unprecedented opportunity to study the moon by way of cameras guided by undergraduates at UC San Diego. Full Story
PINs Not So Personal: Study
NBC San Diego | September 1, 2011
When you go to the ATM, you probably cover up your PIN in some way, so that no one can take a video of you punching it in. However, new research suggests that it may take more than a cover-up to protect your PIN. Full Story
UCSD Professor Teaches Computers To Listen To Music
KPBS | August 29, 2011
UCSD Electrical Engineering Professor Gert Lanckriet is teaching computers to know what you want to hear based on where you are and what you are doing. Going jogging? Your personal music device will play something upbeat. Chilling out after work? It will play something mellow. Full Story
A Scientist's Life: 10 Things UCSD's Serge Belongie Has Done
San Diego Union-Tribune | August 1, 2011
Meet Serge Belongie, a professor of computer science and engineering at the University of California, San Diego. Belongie, 36, sees the world more fully than most. Full Story
Solar panel options expand, help cool buildings
USA Today | July 29, 2011
As solar energy continues to expand, and companies such as SunPower announce new low-cost leasing options, there's other positive news: rooftop panels can not only help power a home or building, they can also cool it. Full Story
Computer Drives to Start Your Day Quicker
The New York Times | July 27, 2011
Solid-state drives, or S.S.D., which are comprised of microchips and have no moving parts, easily cut the boot time in half. And opening applications happens in a blink, as does retrieving documents, images and movies. Full Story
Students Reinvent Micromouse Competition
The IEEE Institute | July 27, 2011
The annual IEEE Micromouse competitions draw participants from nearby universities. Because some IEEE regions are so large, several contests are held for geographic areas within a region. Unfortunately, that sometimes results in less than a handful of contestants?which doesn't make for an exciting contest. To boost the excitement quotient, a group of student members at the University of California at San Diego decided to organize their own micromouse event, which was held in May. Full Story
UCSD student thrives after incident in Congo
San Diego Union-Tribune | July 26, 2011
Rich promise seems to radiate from Espoir Kyubwa. He is two years into a University of California San Diego program that will grant him a doctorate in bioengineering and a medical degree. And he has recently won a prestigious fellowship that will pay him $46,500 a year for up to five years as he pursues the education he plans to use to help people in his native country, the Democratic Republic of Congo. Full Story
UCSD to try to fly balloon across the U.S.
San Diego Union-Tribune | July 25, 2011
UCSD is trying to become the first university to send a zero-pressure balloon across the country, propelled only by the capricious winds of the jet stream. Full Story
The Secret Air-Conditioning Power of Solar Energy
The Atlantic Monthly | July 22, 2011
There are plenty of benefits to using solar panels?notably clean energy, long-term electric-bill savings, utility rebates, and tax incentives. But one recently discovered side effect might be especially attractive to people suffering through this weekend's heat wave: Solar panels also keep buildings cool. Full Story
UCSD offers new programs for working engineers
San Diego Union Tribune | July 19, 2011
The San Diego Union Tribune covers the new Master of Advanced Study programs at the UC San Diego Jacobs School of Engineering. Full Story
App-Specific Processors to Fight Dark Silicon
Technology Review | April 28, 2011
A processor etched with circuits tailored to the most widely used apps on Android phones could help extend the devices' battery life. Researchers at the UC San Diego have created software that scans the operating system and a collection of the most popular apps and then generates a processor design tailored to their demands. The result can be 11 times more efficient than today's typical general-purpose smart-phone chip, says Michael Taylor, who leads the GreenDroid project w Steven Swanson. Full Story
Microrockets Take Off
Chemical & Engineering News | April 26, 2011
Nanoengineers Joseph Wang and Liangfang Zhang of the University of California, San Diego, and coworkers show that tube-shaped microrockets functionalized with antibodies can cruise through human blood serum. Full Story
Prof George Tynan on KPBS San Diego Week
KPBS | March 18, 2011
Prof George Tynan, Associate Vice Chancellor for Research and Professor of Engineering Science talks about the nuclear situation in Japan on KPBS TV San Diego Week. Full Story