News Archive

March 21, 2017 — A team of current and former students at UC San Diego in computer science, economics and aerospace engineering have launched a Kickstarter crowdfunding campaign to raise funds to launch the Firefly Smart Mirror, the first voice-controlled, tablet-based smart mirror.

March 21, 2017 — CNS postdoctoral researcher Alper Sinan Akyurek and CSE professor Tajana Rosing developed an algorithm for controlling batteries that can decrease the utility cost of an actual building by up to 50 percent compared to a building powered without the use of batteries.

March 21, 2017 — An international team of scientists, led by researchers at University of California San Diego School of Medicine and University of California San Francisco, has developed a novel genetic score that allows individuals to calculate their age-specific risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease (AD), based upon genetic information.

March 21, 2017 — Graduate students at the University of California San Diego will stage an original work and performance on Thursday, March 23, in the Qualcomm Institute on the university campus. Their interdisciplinary work, “The Burden of Selfhood”, will explore the themes of feminism, identity and technology.

March 21, 2017 — Standard antidepressant medications don’t work for everyone, and even when they do they are slow to kick in. In an effort to find better depression treatments, researchers at University of California San Diego School of Medicine discovered that inhibiting an enzyme called Glyoxalase 1 (GLO1) relieves signs of depression in mice. Moreover, inhibiting GLO1 worked much faster than the conventional antidepressant Prozac.

March 20, 2017 — Hundreds of visitors recently helped usher in “Making Communities: Art and the Border,” an exhibition that shines a light on immigrant communities as a source of creativity. During its opening, several UC San Diego artists participated in a speaking program addressing the recent rhetoric citing Mexico as a source of crime and economic decline. Curated by Ph.D. alumna Tatiana Sizonenko (’13), this third major exhibition in a series of programs celebrating the Department of Visual Arts’ 50th anniversary—“VISUAL ARTS @ 50: ART INTO LIFE—is on view now through April 13 at three distinct campus locations: the University Art Gallery (UAG), the SME Visual Arts Gallery (SME) and the Cross Cultural Center galleries.

March 20, 2017 — Faced with a downturn in visitors, the San Diego History Center (SDHC) decided to take an innovative approach to boosting museum attendance – let visitors determine how much they wanted to pay for their visit. The museum’s “Give Forward” admissions program launched in October 2016 and, to date, has given it a significant boost in attendance. This fundamental shift in admissions was inspired by the research of Ayelet Gneezy and Uri Gneezy, faculty at the Rady School of Management at UC San Diego, and experts in charitable giving. Working with the Rady School professors, the museum determined the best way to increase admissions was to allow visitors to contribute based on their experience in the museum, instead of paying a set admissions fee. In addition, the museum highlights to visitors that admissions donations help pay for other people to visit in the future.

March 20, 2017 — Genetic mutations that cause cancer also weaken cancer cells, allowing researchers to develop drugs that will selectively kill them. This is called “synthetic lethality” because the drug is only lethal to mutated (synthetic) cells. Researchers at UC San Diego School of Medicine and Jacobs School of Engineering developed a method to search for synthetic-lethal gene combinations. The technique, published March 20 in Nature Methods, uncovered 120 new opportunities for cancer drug development.

March 20, 2017 — Kyoto University of Japan, one of the University of California San Diego’s international partners, will open an office in San Diego in early April, both campuses have announced.

March 16, 2017 — To help promote cooperation between educational institutions in the United States and Mexico, the UC San Diego Center for U.S.-Mexican Studies co-launches the Mexico Studies Chair, hosting a Fulbright-Garcia Robles scholar to research and teach on campus.