Physical Sciences in the News

• Cell Phone Sensors for Toxins Developed at UC San Diego   
  A tiny silicon chip that works a bit like a nose may one day detect dangerous airborne chemicals and alert emergency responders through the cell phone network.
  

• UC San Diego Physicists Locate Long Lost Soviet Reflector on Moon   
  A team of physicists led by a professor at UC San Diego has pinpointed the location of a long lost light reflector left on the lunar surface by the Soviet Union nearly 40 years ago that many scientists had unsuccessfully searched for and never expected would be found.
  

• Chemistry and Biochemistry Professor Kimberly Prather has been Elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences   
  Kimberly Prather is one of four faculty members at UC San Diego elected to receive membership this year into one of the world’s most prestigious honorary societies.
  

• Lost Light from the Moon May Be Sent Astray by Dusty Reflectors   
  Lost Light from the Moon May Be Sent Astray by Dusty Reflectors
  

• Can the Newest Form of Carbon Be Made to Bend, Twist and Roll?   
  Can graphene—a newly discovered form of pure carbon that may one day replace the silicon in computers, televisions, mobile phones and other common electronic devices—be made to bend, twist and roll?
  

• Physicists Begin Quest for ‘Higgs’ Particle at European Collider   
  More than two dozen UC San Diego physicists and technicians began their long-awaited quest last week in a research facility below the Swiss-French border to find a hypothetical subatomic particle that they hope will allow them to finally tie together the fundamental forces and particles in nature into one grand theory.
  

• American Chemical Society’s 2010 Award for Creative Advances in Environmental Science & Technology Honoring Kimberly A. Prather   
  Chemistry and Biochemistry Professor Kimberly A. Prather, who was honored last week by the American Chemical Society last week at its national meeting in San Francisco for the “2010 Award for Creative Advances in Environmental Science and Technology,” knows how to overcome impediments.
  

Announcements and Clips

• Recipients in Physical Sciences for 2010 Hellman Faculty Fellows Announced  (Division of Physical Sciences, UC San Diego)
  

• Peter Wolynes, Professor of Chemistry & Biochemistry and of Physics, Receives Honorary Doctorate from the University of Stockholm in Sweden  (Division of Physical Sciences, UC San Diego)
  

• Security Brief: Cell phones to 'smell' biochem attack?  (CNN Blogs)
  

• Team Leader Seeks Nature's Ultimate Secret  (San Diego Union-Tribune)
  

• Sizing up Nanoparticles  (The Scientist.com)
  

• Alison Coil, assistant professor of physics, and Faik Akif Tezcan, assistant professor of chemistry and biochemistry, named 2010 Sloan Research Fellows  (Division of Physical Sciences)
  

• Geoffrey Burbidge Dies at 84; Astrophysicist Co-discovered How Elements are Synthesized in Stars  (Los Angeles Times)
  

Calendar

• Monday, 17 May 2010, First Annual Stanley L. Miller Memorial Lecture entitled: “Stanley L. Miller: The Father of Prebiotic Chemistry and More!” by Jeffrey Bada (UCSD/SIO)