UCSD Professors Receive Honors
Kiyoteru Tokuyasu, David Woodruff, Raffi Aroian, Daniel Dubin, Susan Taylor and George Feher, professors in the biology and physical sciences divisions at UCSD, are being recognized for their achievements.
Tokuyasu, a professor emeritus in biology, received the 2000 Distinguished Scientist Award from the Microscopy Society of America. He is the third scientist at UCSD to receive the award.
Woodruff, a biology professor, received the honorary degree of doctor of science from his alma mater, the University of Melbourne, Australia, for his work on 100 research papers presented in his thesis on the evolution and conservation of animal species.
Aroian, an assistant professor of biology, received two awards: the New Investigator Award in the toxicological sciences from the Burroughs Wellcome Fund, based in North Carolina; and the Beckman Young Investigator Award, awarded by the Arnold and Mabel Beckman Foundation.
Dubin, a physics professor, received the 2000 Award for Excellence in Plasma Physics Research from the American Physical Society for his outstanding contributions to the field.
Taylor, a chemistry and biochemistry professor, received the 2001 Francis P. Garvin-John M. Olin Medal from the American Chemical Society for her contributions as a female chemist.
Feher, a research professor in physics, is being named a fellow of the Biophysical Society for his part in the use of physical methods to study biological systems and in investigations of the primary processes in photosynthesis.
UCSD Scientists Awarded $3 Million ‘Biocomplexity’ Grant
The National Science Foundation has awarded physicists and biologists at UCSD a $3 million grant to study the development of the ameboid protozoan Dictyostelium discoideum, an organism commonly known as slime mold.
The grant is being awarded for five years and was one of 16 grants awarded by the foundation this month to study the effects of the interaction between living things on all levels with their environment.
UCSD scientists will collaborate with researchers at Cornell University to attempt to connect the underlying genetic information about slime mold to its morphology and multicellular organization.
The scientists said they chose slime mold because it is the simplest organism to study for their purposes.
Supercomputer Named one of Fastest in Nation
With a recent upgrade to a speed of 1.7 tera flops, or 1.7 trillion calculations per second, Blue Horizon, the National Partnership for Advanced Computational Infrastructure computer at the San Diego Supercomputer Center has been ranked No. 8 on the list of the top 500 supercomputers.
The speed is a 70 percent increase over previous speeds. It will allow scientists to gather information more efficiently.
Blue Horizon is helping researchers probe demanding computing problems, such as determining chemical reaction rates, designing new materials, stimulating the nervous system, modeling water and pollutant transport, modeling climate and predicting storms and understanding the origins of the universe.
The list was compiled by the University of Mannheim and the University of Tennessee.
Impact of Internet on Agriculture to be Examined
Business and university experts will gather Dec. 4 at the University of California’s annual Executive Seminar on Agricultural Issues in Sacramento to discuss the effect of e-commerce on agriculture.
Participants in the seminar will gain a better understanding of the technological and economic influences that dot-com businesses could have in world markets, California farms and agricultural supply.
The seminar will feature speeches by industry experts representing companies such as John Deere and Bank of America. The speakers and participants will go over economic trends in the field and review issues facing California specifically.
