18th Sculpture in UC San Diego’s Stuart Collection Is Both Homey and Disorienting

Photos by Philipp Scholz Rittermann

The artist wasn’t sure it could be done. When Do Ho Suh first proposed “Fallen Star” to UC San Diego’s Stuart Collection, he “never thought it would be realized.” A cottage built from scratch and permanently joined to an existing campus building – several stories up in…

Stem cell grants covers heart failure, Alzheimer’s disease, ALS and spinal cord injuries

Five scientists from the University of California, San Diego and its School of Medicine have been awarded almost $12 million in new grants from the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM) to conduct stem cell-based research into regenerating spinal cord injuries, repairing gene mutations that cause amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and…

Physicists have trapped and cooled exotic particles called excitons so effectively that they condensed and cohered to form a giant matter wave.

This feat will allow scientists to better study the physical properties of excitons, which exist only fleetingly yet offer promising applications as diverse as efficient harvesting of solar energy and ultrafast computing.

“The realization of the exciton condensate in a trap opens the opportunity…

Applicants Asked to Apply by June 8

San Diego Supercomputer Center. Photo: Alan Decker

The San Diego Supercomputer Center (SDSC) at the University of California, San Diego, is expanding upon its successful Gordon Summer Institute program to include both its Gordon andTrestles supercomputers, with participants invited to focus on specific challenges in their areas of…

Applicants Asked to Apply by June 15

The San Diego Supercomputer Center (SDSC) at the University of California, San Diego, will host its ninth annual Cyberinfrastructure Summer Institute for Geoscientists (CSIG’12) August 6-10. Since 2004, CSIG has been funded each year by a grant from the Earth Science Division (EAR) of the National Science Foundation (NSF).

The theme for CSIG’12 is…

Scripps-led analysis of tiny marine organisms indicates early promise in areas ranging from inflammation to skin conditions

Darkly colored cyanobacteria overtake a Hawaiian coral reef. Photo credit: Jennifer Smith

A seaweed considered a threat to the healthy growth of coral reefs in Hawaii may possess the ability to produce substances that could one day treat human diseases, a new study…

An interdisciplinary team of scientists at UC San Diego composed of physicists, biologists, chemists, bioengineers and psychologists has received a five-year, $7 million grant from the U.S. Department of Defense to investigate the dynamic principles of collective brain activity.

The innovative research effort, which is being funded by the Office of Naval Research under the Defense Department’s MultiUniversity Research Initiative, or MURI, will…

Biologists at UC San Diego have discovered that a small dose of a commonly used crop pesticide turns honey bees into “picky eaters” and affects their ability to recruit their nestmates to otherwise good sources of food.

The results of their experiments, detailed in this week’s issue of the Journal of Experimental Biology, have implications for what pesticides should be applied to bee-pollinated crops and shed light on one of the main…

Findings suggest possibility of boosting their health benefit

For the first time, researchers at the University of California, San Diego have peered inside a living mouse cell and mapped the processes that power the celebrated health benefits of omega-3 fatty acids. More profoundly, they say their findings suggest it may be possible to manipulate these processes to short-circuit inflammation before it begins, or at least help to…

Findings mixed in India, Nepal, Pakistan and Bangladesh

Child brides in Rayer Bazar, Dhaka, Bangladesh. Images courtesy of MH Kawsar.

Findings mixed in India, Nepal, Pakistan and Bangladesh

Each year, more than 10 million girls under the age of 18 marry, usually under force of local tradition and social custom. Almost half of these compulsory marriages occur in South Asia. A new…

Biologists at the University of California, San Diego have succeeded in engineering algae to produce potential candidates for a vaccine that would prevent transmission of the parasite that causes malaria, an achievement that could pave the way for the development of an inexpensive way to protect billions of people from one of the world’s most prevalent and debilitating diseases. Initial proof-of-principle experiments suggest that such a vaccine could…

Controlled trial shows improved spasticity, reduced pain after smoking medical marijuana

Controlled trial shows improved spasticity, reduced pain after smoking medical marijuana

A clinical study of 30 adult patients with multiple sclerosis (MS) at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine has shown that smoked cannabis may be an effective treatment for spasticity – a common and disabling symptom of…

Researchers at the Comprehensive Alzheimer’s Program at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine have announced two new clinical trials for patients with either mild to moderate Alzheimer’s disease (AD) and one trial for Mild Cognitive Impairment.

“Two of these studies represent an exciting new approach to treating Alzheimer’s, focusing on improving memory in patients with early symptoms of impaired memory and possibly slowing…