News Archive

October 8, 2015 — Birch Aquarium at Scripps Institution of Oceanography, UC San Diego, has named UC San Diego alumnus Harry Helling as its new executive director. Helling, who started his career more than 30 years ago as an associate curator at the T. Wayland Vaughan Aquarium on the Scripps Oceanography campus, is a passionate leader with extensive experience communicating and interpreting science for the public.

October 6, 2015 — The University of California, San Diego is named the 19th best university in the world in U.S. News and World Report’s second-annual global rankings, released today. The campus is one of only five public universities in the U.S. to make the top 20 in the list of the world’s top 750 colleges. The rankings measure factors such as research, global and regional reputation, international collaboration as well as number of highly-cited papers and doctorates awarded. The U.S. News Best Global Universities 2016 edition also features 22 subject rankings, in which UC San Diego received high marks for its academic areas, such as pharmacology and toxicology (4), neuroscience and behavior (6), biology and biochemistry (6), psychiatry and psychology (7), computer science (9), as well as molecular biology and genetics (10).

October 6, 2015 — The journal Nature ranked UC San Diego first in the United States and fourth worldwide in earth and environmental research in a new survey that rated institutions based on their total contribution to studies published in major science journals.

October 5, 2015 — The new documentary “HIV/SIDA: The Epidemic in Tijuana” offers an unflinching look at the challenges facing researchers from the University of California, San Diego as they attempt to identify and treat people who inject drugs, sex workers, transgender women and others who are at high risk for HIV infection in Tijuana.

October 5, 2015 — The most authoritative forum on the role of the polar regions in global climate change will be held Nov. 3-6, 2015, at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego. World-class leaders in science and diplomacy will come together in a symposium to review the latest findings from research on the impact of rising global temperatures on sea and land ice and their ecosystems at the top and bottom of the world.

October 1, 2015 — Scripps Oceanography researchers release early results of a seismic survey that shows how wave energy from as far away as the North Pacific Ocean shakes ice shelves in Antarctica and contributes to their breakup and collapse.

October 1, 2015 — Coral reefs in the Caribbean have been declining for decades, largely as a result of development, overfishing, and disease. An April 2012 oil spill threatened to further harm this fragile ecosystem on the island of Curaçao, as oil blanketed an area roughly the size of thirty soccer fields.

September 24, 2015 — The University of California at San Diego has received a $5.2 million grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to run the world’s largest outdoor shake table for the next five years. The table, which can carry structures weighing up to 2,000 tons, can replicate the ground motions of most of the world’s largest earthquakes. It has been used since 2004 as a resource for NSF-funded researchers from around the nation to test innovative technologies and designs for seismic safety of new buildings and retrofitting techniques for existing structures

September 23, 2015 — Scientists from UC San Diego are leading a novel pollution experiment at Imperial Beach, Coronado, and Tijuana. During the Cross Surfzone/Inner-shelf Dye Exchange project, researchers will perform three experiments releasing non-toxic bright pink fluorescent dye into beach waters and track its movements along the coast some 6.2-12.4 miles for nearly 36 hours.

September 22, 2015 — Machines that are much smaller than the width of a human hair could one day help clean up carbon dioxide pollution in the oceans. Nanoengineers at the University of California, San Diego have designed enzyme-functionalized micromotors that rapidly zoom around in water, remove carbon dioxide and convert it into a usable solid form.