News Archive

October 30, 2015 — A new study has shown that changing ocean conditions have adversely impacted fish off California. The researchers compared data sets from the CalCOFI program and power plant cooling water intakes along the California coastline. The data show that fish abundance from both studies has declined sharply since 1970, with a 72 percent decline in overall larval fish abundance in the CalCOFI data set and a 78 percent decline in fishes from the PPI sampling.

October 21, 2015 — Donald Walter Wilkie, director of the Scripps Aquarium-Museum from 1965-1993 and founding director of the Stephen Birch Aquarium-Museum (now known as Birch Aquarium at Scripps Institution of Oceanography, UC San Diego), died on October 5, 2015, in San Diego. He was 84 years old.

October 15, 2015 — Steve Gallagher, a financial management and facilities operations executive with experience at several scientific organizations, has been selected to serve as assistant vice chancellor for finance and operations at Scripps Institution of Oceanography, UC San Diego. Gallagher’s career for the past 28 years has included a number of roles in management and program leadership, most recently at NOAA.

October 15, 2015 — The University of California, San Diego has been named the 11th most ethnically diverse college in the nation, according to a new report. Best College Reviews, a ranking service for American colleges and universities, recently released a list of the top 50 ethnically diverse schools.  Statistics and definitions of race/ethnicity for the list were gathered from the National Center for Education Statistics, Diverse Issues in Higher Education and school websites. According to the report, UC San Diego looks at diversity as an opportunity for education.

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 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 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 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.