Eating Red Meat Sets Up Target for Disease-Causing Bacteria
Offering another reason why eating red meat could be bad for you, an international research team, including University of California, San Diego School of Medicine professor Ajit Varki, M.D., has uncovered the first example of a bacterium that causes food poisoning in humans when it targets a non-human molecule absorbed into the body through red meats such as lamb, pork and beef. More

Rebuilding Their Lives
On a warm Tuesday afternoon, Judy Davis, a UCSD staff member, and her husband, Ken, stood on an overhang, looking down on the busy construction site that surrounds their new home. It had been exactly one year to the day since the Harris fire came through Deerhorn Valley, near Jamul, turning the home the couple had shared for 23 years into a jumble of rubble and twisted iron. Now, a new wooden frame topped by a plywood roof rises where the home’s ruins stood. Davis smiled and hugged her husband. They kissed. More

Genetic Clock Makers at UC San Diego Publish Their “Timepiece” in Nature
UC San Diego bioengineers have created the first stable, fast and programmable genetic clock that reliably keeps time by the blinking of fluorescent proteins inside E. coli cells. The clock’s blink rate changes when the temperature, energy source or other environmental conditions change, a fact that could lead to new kinds of sensors that convey information about the environment through the blinking rate. More

California, Canada Campuses Combat
Greenhouse Gas Emissions with Green IT
In one of the first efforts of its kind, universities in Canada and California are pledging to work together to reduce greenhouse gas emissions on their campuses while developing so-called ‘green cyberinfrastructure’ – information technology that improves energy efficiency and reduces the impact of emissions on climate change. More

Field-Hospital-on-a-Chip Project
Awarded to NanoEngineer from UC San Diego
With a $1.6M grant from the U.S. Office of Naval Research (ONR), UC San Diego NanoEngineering professor Joseph Wang will lead a project to create a “field hospital on a chip” that soldiers can wear on the battlefield. The automated sense-and-treat system will continuously monitor a soldier’s sweat, tears or blood for biomarkers that signal common battlefield injuries such as trauma, shock, brain injury or fatigue. More

Potent Greenhouse Gas More Prevalent
in Atmosphere than Previously Assumed
A powerful greenhouse gas is at least four times more prevalent in the atmosphere than previously estimated, according to a team of researchers at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego. Using new analytical techniques, a team led by Scripps geochemistry professor Ray Weiss made the first atmospheric measurements of nitrogen trifluoride (NF3), which is thousands of times more effective at warming the atmosphere than an equal mass of carbon dioxide. More

Put the Protein Pieces Together
with Algorithms: Solving “the Mass Spec Data Mess”
A new proteomics project promises to revolutionize routine blood tests, vaccine development, cancer diagnostics, and many other important biomedical challenges. UC San Diego engineers and scientists have received a five-year $4.94 million grant from the National Center for Research Resources, a part of the National Institutes of Health, to develop algorithms and software for deciphering all the proteins that are present in biological samples. More

UC San Diego Named “Tree Campus USA”
Site; Will Hold Tree Planting Event November 12
The University of California, San Diego, will hold a tree planting ceremony Nov. 12 in recognition of its designation as one of nine college campuses in the U.S. to be cited by the Arbor Day Foundation for best practices in campus forestry. More

CISA3 Researcher Hopes to Find Hidden Tomb
of Genghis Khan Using Non-Invasive Technologies
According to legend, Genghis Khan lies buried somewhere beneath the dusty steppe of Northeastern Mongolia, entombed in a spot so secretive that anyone who made the mistake of encountering his funeral procession was executed on the spot. Once he was below ground, his men brought in horses to trample evidence of his grave, and just to be absolutely sure he would never be found, they diverted a river to flow over their leader's final resting place.  More