Solar Collaborative

San Diego, CA, April 15, 2009 -- The University of California, San Diego, in collaboration with UC Davis will use a two-year, $700,000 grant from the California Energy Commission to expand the development and use of solar energy in the state.

quote from the story below:

The Jacobs School of Engineering continues to be a leader in developing
sustainable solutions for society," said Jacobs School Dean Frieder Seible. "The
Solar Energy Collaborative is another example of our commitment to accelerate
the creation and use of renewable energies. The Jacobs School was instrumental
in installing the first set of photovoltaic arrays on campus. As a constant
reminder that our campus is actively engaged in developing green technologies,
we installed a public LED display by the Charles Lee Powell Structural
Engineering Laboratory to make students, faculty, staff, and other passersby
aware of the daily generation and consumption of energy on campus. With
about 1 megawatt of photovoltaic capacity, and 1.4 more megawatts coming online
later this year, the UC San Diego campus currently generates and manages more
photovoltaic energy than any other campus in the UC system."

Music Search Engine Facebook Game Launch

The Facebook game is live! Players have fun learning new music and testing their musical knowledge with other players in real time. The UC San Diego computer scientists and electrical engineers (which hail from UC San Diego's Computer Audition Laboratory) will use the data collected (anonymously) from these games to improve their new breed of music search engine. Read about the project in this music search engine press release, and in this Jacobs School alumni magazine (Pulse) article on the experimental music search engine.

There are several Jacobs School of Engineering band's that could benefit, once their songs are added to the Facebook games.

Computer science Ph.D. candidate Carolina Galleguillos is the vocalist and star of Juna. (Juna is playing a gig this Friday night in San Diego at Beauty Bar. You must be 21 to enter.)

Her Ph.D. faculty advisor, Serge Belongie, is the front man for the band SO3. They have a new album out "Lose the Girl". Get all your SO3 updates here.

Earthquake-Safe Buildings

Structural engineers at the Jacobs School are dedicated to figuring out how to build the safest buildings possible...buildings that will both protect the people in and around tham...and buildings that will withstand seismic events so that they can be used afterward.

Out at UC San Diego's Englekirk Structural Engineernig Center, there is always something new happening related to learning how to build earthquake-safe infrastructure. Recently, structural engineering professor Benson Shing was out at the table shaking a masonry structure. Read the story here...and if you haven't already, click on the video above and see what is going on.

Life Sticks: UCSD paper in Science this week

While Benjamin Franklin said “In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes,” a UC San Diego bioengineer has something to add to this list: “the stickiness of life.”

In a “Review” article published this week in the prestigious journal Science, Adam Engler highlighted a recurring theme in all corners of biology: life sticks. Cells need to stick together. No matter what kind of cells they are. Cells within bacteria, fungi, sponges, nematodes and humans, for example, all need to stick together; but they do not use exactly the same proteins to do the sticking together.

According to Adam Engler from UC San Diego, there is something inherent in the nature of the ever-present sticking together task that cause common form and function to emerge.

The new article connects a wide range of seemingly different disciplines, and Engler hopes publishing the study in Science will encourage more scientists to look beyond their specific disciplines and ask and answer bigger questions.

Read the full press release here:
http://www.jacobsschool.ucsd.edu/news/news_releases/release.sfe?id=834

Robert C. Cowen from the Christian Science Monitor covered the story. Check it out here.

Adam Engler lab Web page:
http://ecm.ucsd.edu/

Science Paper:
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/short/324/5924/208

“Multiscale Modeling of Form and Function,” by Adam J. Engler from the
University of California, San Diego; Patrick O. Humbert from Peter MacCallum Cancer Center; Bernhard Wehrle-Haller from Centre Medical Universitaire; and Valerie M. Weaver from University of California, San Francisco; appears in the 10 April 2009 issue of the journal Science, published by AAAS.

Props to Calit2

Read Bruce Bigelow's Xconomy story on Calit2.

Taaz Technology Updates

Thanks to UC San Diego alumnus turned entrepreneur Satya Mallick for sending me a couple of updates on his Jacobs School spin out company, Taaz.com. Mallick started the company with computer science professor David Kriegman.

You can watch the original Taaz.com video below (part of our new video portal)



Read about Taaz.com here.

Satya informed me of two recent updates:

1. The Taaz.com virtual makeover technology is now integrated into the InStyle.com Web site. Check it out...and put yourself, or your favorite celebrity, on the cover of InStyle.

2. Now, when you are working on a virtual makeover at Taaz.com, if you find some makeup that you like, you can click "buy it" and immediately purchase the products you have just been trying out online.

Have fun with your online makeovers!

Concrete Canoe Floats off UC San Diego Campus