Robot Learns to Smile and Frown
A hyper-realistic Einstein robot at the University of California, San Diego has learned to smile and make facial expressions through a process of self-guided learning. The UC San Diego researchers used machine learning to “empower” their robot to learn to make realistic facial expressions. More

Astrophysicists Solve Mystery in Milky Way Galaxy
A team of astrophysicists has solved a mystery that led some scientists to speculate that the distribution of certain gamma rays in our Milky Way galaxy was evidence of a form of undetectable “dark matter” believed to make up much of the mass of the universe. In two separate scientific papers, the most recent of which appears in the July 10 issue of the journal Physical Review Letters, the astrophysicists show that this distribution of gamma rays can be explained by the way “antimatter positrons” from the radioactive decay of elements, created by massive star explosions in the galaxy, propagate through the galaxy. More

Existing Parkinson’s Disease Drug May Fight Drug-Resistant TB
Existing drugs used in the treatment of Parkinson's disease could be repositioned for use in the treatment of extreme drug-resistant tuberculosis, which kills about 2 million people each year, according to a study led by researchers at the University of California, San Diego. The rise of these strains of TB throughout the world, including industrialized countries, poses a great threat to human health. More

Obituary Notice Renowned Geophysicist: George G. Shor, Jr.
George G. Shor, Jr., professor emeritus of geophysics at Scripps Institution of Oceanography, UC San Diego, died July 3, 2009, at his home in La Jolla, Calif., from complications following several strokes. He was 86 years old. Shor’s distinguished career included helping develop the nation’s consortium of research ships operated by oceanographic institutions and participating in the creation of the California Sea Grant program. More

Researchers Testing Virus-Gene Therapy Combination Against Melanoma
Researchers at the Moores UCSD Cancer Center are injecting a modified herpes virus into melanoma tumors, hoping to kill the cancer cells while also bolstering the body’s immune defenses against the disease. More

Sulfate Lens Enhances Climate Warming Properties of Atmospheric Soot
Particulate pollution thought to be holding climate change in check by reflecting sunlight instead enhances warming when combined with airborne soot, a new study by researchers at the UC San Diego have found. Like a black car on a bright summer day, soot absorbs solar energy. Recent atmospheric models have ranked soot, also called black carbon, second only to carbon dioxide in potential for atmospheric warming. But particles, or aerosols, such as soot mix with other chemicals in the atmosphere, complicating estimates of their role in changing climate. More

UC San Diego School of Medicine Appoints
Founding Chief of New Division of Biomedical Informatics
The University of California, San Diego Health Sciences has appointed Lucila Ohno-Machado, MD, PhD, chief of its new Division of Biomedical Informatics in the Department of Medicine. Ohno-Machado will work closely with physicians at the UC San Diego Medical Center, with various academic departments at the university, as well as with scientists at the San Diego Supercomputer Center and the California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology (Calit2) at UC San Diego. More

UC San Diego Undergrads Embark on
Summer of International Collaborative Science
The largest group ever of UC San Diego undergraduates in the Pacific Rim Undergraduate Experiences (PRIME) program -- 33 -- has embarked on a nine-week summer adventure: working as researchers in laboratories across the Pacific Rim and India. They left for their destinations last week. PRIME is a unique program which provides undergraduates with hands-on, full-time research experiences in internationally collaborative settings. More

High Carbon Dioxide Levels Cause Abnormally Large Fish Ear Bones
Rising carbon dioxide levels in the ocean have been shown to adversely affect shell-forming creatures and corals, and now a new study by researchers at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego has shown for the first time that CO2 can impact a fundamental bodily structure in fish. More

Olympics Committee Hears Plea from Preuss School
Student to Include Squash in 2016 Olympic Games
There she stood, a tiny 13-year-old facing 15 distinguished members of the International Olympics Committee —a prince, ambassadors, CEO’s of international firms, gold medalists—seated around a conference table in Lausanne, Switzerland. In steady tones, Hanna Fekede Balcha, representing Surf City Squash of San Diego, the Preuss School at UC San Diego and the world youth squash community, presented her case for including squash in the 2016 Olympic Games. More

Anti-inflammatory Drugs May Defeat a Treatment-Resistant Type of Cancer
Effective drugs for treating a chemotherapy-resistant form of lymphoma might already be on the market according to a study that has pieced together a chemical pathway involved in the disease. By following the trail of several molecular flags that mark this type of cancer, a team from the University of California, San Diego, the Burnham Institute for Medical Research and the University of Copenhagen Hospital have discovered that anti-inflammatory drugs used to treat arthritis will shrink lymphoma tumors in mice. More