CleanTech San Diego and Long-Range Weather Prediction

Remember the San Diego Clean Tech Innovation and Commercialization Program that the von Liebig Center helped to run? Well, one of the projects selected (and funded at $50K) -- a novel scientific method for predicting extreme hot and cold weather events created at Scripps Institution of Oceanography (SIO) at UC San Diego -- spun out of Scripps into EarthRisk Technologies. The latest issue of "Explorations" the e-magazine from SIO has a nice story about the project.

"Scripps climate scientist Alexander Gershunov, along with postdoctoral researcher Kristen Guirguis, developed the new approach, which uses past weather information to predict extreme temperature and precipitation events. The method offers forecasts for regions around the world with lead times up to 40 days. Existing techniques for predicting weather don't offer strong data beyond 15 days. "

The full story by Shannon Casey is here. More info on the Von Liebig Center is here.

Raj Krishnan / Biological Dynamics in Voice of San Diego Feature Story

Our old friend Raj Krishnan is featured in a Voice of San Diego story about his quest to cure cancer via the startup company (Biological Dynamics) that grew out of his bioengineering PhD research here at the Jacobs School of Engineering. Read the VoSD story by Claire Trageser here.

Below is the video interview we did with Krishnan in December 2009.

Trey Ideker Paper in Nature Methods this Week

Researchers Map Thousands of MAPK Protein Interactions

Investigators, led by researchers at the University of California, San Diego, have mapped a huge network of protein interactions involving Mitogen Activated Protein Kinase (MAPK) pathways. Their study will be published in the advanced online edition of Nature Methods on September 19.

“MAP kinases play an important role in human disease and as drug targets, so a better understanding of their thousands of interactions will likely identify new targets,” said principal investigator Trey Ideker, PhD, chief of the Division of Genetics at UC San Diego. Ideker is also a professor in the Department of Bioengineering here at the Jacobs School.

Read the full story by Debra Kain here.

Bridge Column Shake Video...have you seen it yet?

If you haven't seen the 24 foot bridge column swaying on the shake table, check out this video on the Jacobs School YouTube Channel.

New! Calit2 Research Video

December 2010 marks the California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology's 10th anniversary. Calit2's research unites faculty, students and technical professionals at UC San Diego and UC Irvine with private-sector partners and state or federal funding agencies to explore how emerging information technologies and ...telecommunications can transform arenas vital to the state's economy and our citizens' quality of life. In its second decade, Calit2 aims to focus much of its research on four application thrusts of broad societal importance: culture; energy; the environment; and health.



To do so, Calit2 will continue to invest in the development of cutting-edge technologies that can enable advances across multiple sectors and industries. Building on past successes, Calit2 will focus these enabling technologies on wireless communications, photonics, cyberspace, as well as nanotechnology and micro-electro-mechanical systems (MEMS). The institute will continue to develop 'living laboratories' and research spaces to house multidisciplinary collaborations -- ensuring that the breadth and crosscutting nature of Calit2's research teams will result in new technologies, systems and expertise that are consistent with the institute's successes to date.See More

Bridge Column Shake Video on Union Tribune Web Site

The video of yesterday's bridge column shaking, along with a summary of the project and some insights from structural engineering professor Jose Restrepo, are on the Science Quest blog.

Bridge Column Shake Footage on YouTube

A short clip from yesterday's shake test is on the Jacobs School YouTube channel. Learn more at the http://nees.ucsd.edu/.



The seismic behavior of full-scale bridge columns designed based on current Caltrans practice is being investigated using the UCSD shake table as part of an extensive test program with E-Defense (Japan) and UC Berkeley in an effort to improve current bridge design and analysis practices. Learn more: http://nees.ucsd.edu/projects/2010-bridge-column/