Scripps researchers tackle the holy grail of climate change modeling -- What happens in Vegas may stay in Vegas, but what happens on the way there is a different story. As imaged by Lynn Russell, a professor of atmospheric chemistry at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego, and her team, air blown by winds between San Diego and Las Vegas gives the road to Sin City a distinctive look. http://explorations.ucsd.edu/Features/2009/Fine_Details/

Scripps scientists explore the Gulf of California to uncover its rich geological history and new ocean crust emerging from the seafloor -- The Sea of Cortez, or Gulf of California as it is known in the United States, is rich in history, which began long before John Steinbeck and Ed Ricketts' chronicled their seagoing accounts in 1940's Log from the Sea of Cortez. http://explorations.ucsd.edu/Features/2009/Birth_of_an_Ocean/

Scripps scientists explore the Gulf of California to uncover its rich geological history and new ocean crust emerging from the seafloor -- The Sea of Cortez, or Gulf of California as it is known in the United States, is rich in history, which began long before John Steinbeck and Ed Ricketts' chronicled their seagoing accounts in 1940's Log from the Sea of Cortez. http://explorations.ucsd.edu/Features/2009/Big_One/

You might have noticed them: a plague of ants found in many gardens in the San Diego area. They seem pervasive, and they are – part of a supercolony that stretches from here to Ukiah 100 miles north of San Francisco.

http://ucsdnews.ucsd.edu/newsrel/events/05-09AntsMarching.asp

At a recent IEEE technology conference, UC San Diego electrical engineers presented a solution to their problem with the song “Bohemian Rhapsody,”—and it’s not that they don’t like this hit from the band Queen. The electrical engineers’ issue with “Bohemian Rhapsody” is that it is too heterogeneous... http://ucsdnews.ucsd.edu/newsrel/students/05-09Barrington.asp

Marine biologists employ genetic barcoding in the quest to positively identify fish species.

http://explorations.ucsd.edu/Features/2009/Life_Behind_Bars/

As carbon dioxide is pumped into the atmosphere, about one-third of the excess is taken up by the oceans, where it converts to an acidic form with potentially dangerous ecosystem consequences.

http://explorations.ucsd.edu/Features/2009/Carbonated_Oceans/

In the Sierra Neveda, snowpack will shrink by 30 to 90 percent by the end of the century. On the other side of the planet, in the Himalayas, about 70 percent of glaciers are set to disappear. These changes are both caused by climate change and will lead to dramatic water shortages for hundreds of millions of people across the globe, scientists said during a press conference Wednesday at UC San Diego. http://ucsdnews.ucsd.edu/thisweek/2009/05/11_icemelt.asp

The San Diego region, home to more than 500 biotechnology companies, is poised to become a “Green Houston,” as world renowned geneticists, biologists, and engineers at UC San Diego, The Scripps Research Institute and other local research institutions join with their industry counterparts in a broad-scale research effort to develop advanced transportation fuels from algae. http://ucsdnews.ucsd.edu/thisweek/2009/05/04_algae.asp

An intrepid group of University of California, San Diego undergraduates has designed and build a robotic mouse from scratch. The electrical engineering and computer science undergraduates from the Jacobs School of Engineering also wrote the software to teach the robot to solve a maze. The team unveiled their mouse at the IEEE Region 6 Southwest Area Spring Meeting on Saturday, April 25th, held at UC San Diego. http://ucsdnews.ucsd.edu/newsrel/students/05-09MicroMouse.asp