How the Pathology of Parkinson’s Disease Spreads
Accumulation of the synaptic protein α-synuclein, resulting in the formation of aggregates called Lewy bodies in the brain, is a hallmark of Parkinson’s and other related neurodegenerative diseases. This pathology appears to spread throughout the brain as the disease progresses. Now, researchers at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine and Konkuk University in Seoul, South Korea, have described how this mechanism works. More

Cheat-Resistant 3D iPhone Game Relies on Score-Checking Replays
Aliens are stealing your beloved sheep and you’ve got to stop them. That’s the premise for TowerMadness, a new 3D iPhone game that is one of the most cheat-resistant iPhone games available, according to its three developers, all with ties to the University of California, San Diego. More

UC San Diego Installs High-Efficiency Sun-Tracking Solar Panels
The University of California, San Diego has begun producing electricity with newly installed solar panels made by Concentrix Solar that automatically track the sun as it crosses the daytime sky and concentrate sunlight onto hundreds of electricity-producing solar cells, each smaller than a shirt button. More

Consulting with Clouds: A Clear Role in Climate Change
The role of clouds in climate change has been a major question for decades. As the earth warms under increasing greenhouse gases, it is not known whether clouds will dissipate, letting in more of the sun’s heat energy and making the earth warm even faster, or whether cloud cover will increase, blocking the sun’s rays and actually slowing down global warming. More

UC San Diego’s $3 Million NSF Grant to Fund Science Festivals
The University of California, San Diego has received a $3 million grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to support the 2010 San Diego Science Festival and fund the creation and growth of Science Festivals nationwide. The grant award follows the highly successful first annual San Diego Science Festival, held March-April 2009. The San Diego Science Festival strives to highlight San Diego as a national and global leader in scientific innovation. More

Scripps-Led Study Shows Ocean Health
Plays Vital Role in Coral Reef Recovery
The new research study led by scientists at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego suggests that by improving overall ocean health, corals are better able to recover from bleaching events, which occur when rising sea temperatures force corals to expel their symbiotic algae, known as zooxanthellae. Coral bleaching is a phenomenon that is expected to increase in frequency as global climate change increases ocean temperatures worldwide. More

New Life Histories Emerge for Invasive Wasps, Magnify Ecological Harm
A switch from annual to multiyear colonies and a willingness to feed just about any prey to their young have allowed invasive yellowjacket wasps to disrupt native populations of insects and spiders on two Hawaiian islands, a new study has found. By analyzing the DNA from bits of prey snatched from foragers returning to nests, ecologists from the University of California, San Diego, found that introduced yellowjacket wasps kill or scavenge prey from 14 different taxonomic orders of animals, even reptiles and birds. More

Continuing Excellence: UC San Diego Medical Center Among Nation’s Best
UC San Diego Medical Center is once again the only San Diego hospital ranked among the nation’s best in six specialties in U.S. News & World Report’s new 2009 “America’s Best Hospitals” issue. UC San Diego Medical Center is recognized among the nation’s best in Respiratory Disorders, Cancer, Kidney Disorders, Psychiatry, Rheumatology, and Urology, in the 2009 – 2010 issue of “Best Hospitals,” available today on newsstands in select areas. More

New Drugs Faster from Natural Compounds: a UC San Diego Breakthrough
Researchers have invented computational tools to decode and rapidly determine whether natural compounds collected in oceans and forests are new—or if these pharmaceutically promising compounds have already been described and are therefore not patentable. This University of California, San Diego advance will finally enable scientists to rapidly characterize ring-shaped nonribosomal peptides (NRPs) More

Leading Pathogen in Newborns Can Suppress Immune Cell Function
Group B Streptococcus (GBS), a bacterial pathogen that causes sepsis and meningitis in newborn infants, is able to shut down immune cell function in order to promote its own survival, according to researchers at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine and the Skaggs School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences. Their study, published online July 13 in the Journal of Experimental Medicine, offers insight into GBS infection – information that may lead to new medical therapies for invasive infectious diseases that affect nearly 3,500 newborns in the United States each year. More

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