Dollar signs for eyes - cartoonists have been drawing them for years, and the artists, while whimsical, may have been onto something. According to new research from UC San Diego, areas of the brain responsible for vision respond more strongly to objects of value. Led by John Serences, assistant professor of psychology and head of the Perception and Cognition Lab at UC San Diego, the study is published in the Dec. 26 issue of the Cell Press journal Neuron. More

The University of California, San Diego Medical Center is the first hospital in California to enroll patients in a multi-center clinical trial, sponsored by Angioblast Systems Inc., to examine the safety and feasibility of administering adult stems cells to treat congestive heart failure. The cells, derived from bone marrow, are injected by a catheter directly into the heart muscle. Sixty patients will be recruited for this clinical trial through UC San Diego Medical Center and hospitals nationwide. More

Bioinformatics researchers at the University of California, San Diego and Genentech have developed a new, quicker way to sequence monoclonal antibodies - a process that is many times faster than the sequencing technology typically used by academic and industry researchers today. The breakthrough is detailed in the December 2008 issue of Nature Biotechnology, in an article titled, "Automated de novo protein sequencing of monoclonal antibodies." More

San Diego State University (SDSU) and the Moores Cancer Center at the University of California, San Diego (UC San Diego) are joining forces to help explain and eliminate cancer disparities. The five-year combined $15 million grant from the National Cancer Institute (NCI) of the National Institutes of Health will fund research, education and community outreach programs in the San Diego region with the goal of reducing differences in cancer incidence and deaths in the population. More

The University of California, San Diego plans to store power produced at night from a planned 2.8 megawatt "green" fuel cell and use the energy during peak-demand hours the following day when electricity rates are highest. Implementation of the advanced energy storage system at UC San Diego, one of the greenest universities in the nation, was made possible by the Nov. 21 approval by the California Public Utility Commission (CPUC) of a measure designed to lower peak demands on the state's electrical power grid. More

Why do some species of birds lay only one egg in their nest, while others lay 10 or more? A global study of the wide variation among birds in this trait, known as the "clutch size," now provides biologists with some answers. More

An international team of biologists has discovered a new species of microsporidia, a single-celled parasite of animals, in a roundworm used in genetic laboratories around the world. More

A laugh can be infectious. You don't need a sophisticated study to tell you that. But does this happy contagion vanish as quickly as a smile? New research from James Fowler of UC San Diego and Nicholas Christakis of Harvard Medical School shows that happiness spreads far and wide through a social network - traveling not just the well-known path from one person to another but even to people up to three degrees removed. More

Scientists from Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego returning from research expeditions in Mexico have captured unprecedented details of vibrant sea life and ecosystems in the Gulf of California, including documentations of new species and marine animals previously never seen alive. Yet the expeditions, which included surveys at unexplored depths, have revealed disturbing declines in sea-life populations and evidence that human impacts have stretched down deeply in the gulf. More

Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego has been awarded $12 million by the U.S. Department of Commerce (DoC)/National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) to construct a new laboratory building on the Scripps campus for research on marine ecosystem forecasting. This new building will become a resource for marine ecological research at Scripps and for other national and international ocean science organizations that address the management of marine resources. More

Despite broad "dolphin safe" practices, fishing activities have continued to restrict the growth of at least one Pacific Ocean dolphin population, a new report led by a researcher at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego has concluded. Populations of dolphins in the Eastern Pacific were expected to increase in abundance after successful regulations and agreements were enacted to reduce dolphin deaths as a result of fishing "bycatch," cases in which animals are caught unintentionally along with intended targets. More

Combine the aphorisms that "practice makes perfect" and "timing is everything" into one and you might get something resembling findings published in this month's issue of Psychological Science. Proper spacing of lessons, the researchers report, can dramatically enhance learning. And larger gaps between study sessions result in better recall of facts. More

University of California, San Diego Health Sciences leaders have announced that they have executed a formal Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with Johnson &l Johnson Pharmaceutical Research & Development, L.L.C. (J&JPRD), with the objective of developing future collaborations in biomedical research and education to advance human health. More

Cities across Asia get dimmer: Impacts on glaciers, agriculture and the monsoon get clearer

Cities from Beijing to New Delhi are getting darker, glaciers in ranges like the Himalayas are melting faster and weather systems becoming more extreme, in part, due to the combined effects of man-made atmospheric brown clouds (ABCs) and greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. More

Dense networks of blood vessels thought to spur cancer's growth could actually hinder rather than promote tumor progression, according to a new study at the University of California, San Diego. More