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“Ten simple rules for women principal investigators during a pandemic” was published recently in PLOS Computational Biology. It’s perhaps important to note that despite its title, the article is careful to say that the cardinal rule is that there are no rules. So all 10 points outlined are in fact suggestions. Also despite its title, Rangamani says most of the 10 points outlined in the publication can apply to all caregivers juggling work and caregiving during the pandemic.

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As worldwide mandates prevented gatherings over the holiday season, crowds in Chile and Argentina donned masks and eye shields to take in some outdoor magic: a two-minute solar eclipse on December 14. A week before however, everyone had a chance to see what the eclipse might look like thanks to simulations generated on the recently launched 'Expanse' supercomputer at the San Diego Supercomputer Center (SDSC) at UC San Diego.

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By combining large amounts of low-fidelity data with smaller quantities of high-fidelity data, nanoengineers at UC San Diego have developed a machine learning method to more accurately predict the properties of new materials including, for the first time, disordered materials.

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New research from the University of California San Diego explores one possible mode of response to a climate in crisis: a massively funded program to deploy direct air capture (DAC) systems that remove CO2 directly from the ambient air and sequester it safely underground.

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Mutations that occur in certain DNA regions, called tandem repeats, may play a significant role in autism spectrum disorders, according to research led by Melissa Gymrek, assistant professor in the UC San Diego Department of Computer Science and Engineering and School of Medicine. The study, which was published in Nature on Jan. 14, was co-authored by UCLA professor of human genetics Kirk Lohmueller and highlights the contributions these understudied mutations can make to disease.

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Researchers at the University of California and San Diego State University have been awarded a $1.2 million UC Multicampus Research Programs and Initiatives (MRPI) grant to develop an advanced class of mobile telemanipulation robots. These easy-to-operate, low-cost robots called UC Iris will be used to grasp objects, open doors and perform other tasks to advance telehealth, allowing healthcare workers to safely conduct remote exams and providing quarantined Californians a safe way to interact outside their homes.

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As the waters off our coasts change due to human influences, scientists have found that the composition of shells of California mussels, a critical species found along the Pacific Coast, are weakening as a result of ocean acidification.

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Biologists have unraveled the mystery of how chromosomes are inherited correctly every time a cell divides. They discovered how a “matchmaker” molecule stops cell division until components are ready to be split. Alterations in the process can result in birth defects and certain cancers.

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While researchers have been studying chloride’s corrosive effects on various materials for decades, high-performance computers were recently used to create detailed simulations to provide new insight on how chloride leads to corrosion.

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University of New Hampshire (UNH) researchers recently used high-performance supercomputers to identify new inhibitor binding/unbinding pathways in an RNA-based virus. The findings could be beneficial in understanding how these inhibitors react and potentially help develop a new generation of drugs to target viruses with high death rates, such as HIV-1, Zika, Ebola, and SARS-CoV2, the virus that causes COVID-19.

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New research from the University of California San Diego shows that since modern crop varieties were introduced in the developing world starting in 1961, they have substantially reduced infant mortality, especially for male babies and among poor households.

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A broad coalition that includes UC San Diego scientists sets commitments for field trials of powerful gene drive technology. The multidisciplinary group encourages trials that are safe, transparent and ethical.

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Advance could pave the way for early warning system on COVID-19 and flu using wearables

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Researchers recently created detailed simulations showing how stiff red blood cells flow through blood vessels, deforming and colliding along the way.

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What happens when different strains of bacteria are present in the same system? Do they co-exist? Do the strongest survive? In a microbial game of rock-paper-scissors, researchers at the University of California San Diego’s BioCircuits Institute uncovered a surprising answer.

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Researchers have discovered a new superhighway network to travel through the Solar System much faster than was previously possible. Such routes can drive comets and asteroids near Jupiter to Neptune’s distance in under a decade and to 100 astronomical units in less than a century. They could be used to send spacecraft to the far reaches of our planetary system relatively fast, and to monitor and understand near-Earth objects that might collide with our planet.

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The San Diego Supercomputer Center (SDSC) at UC San Diego announced that its new Expanse supercomputer formally entered service for researchers following a program review by the National Science Foundation (NSF), which awarded SDSC a grant in mid-2019 to build the innovative system.

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UC San Diego-led research is providing new details about honey bees and their defenses against preying hornets. Using a common iPad, James Nieh and his colleagues conducted the first study that demonstrates that a contagious warning signal counters fake news in social insects.

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A team of researchers has developed a flexible, rechargeable silver oxide-zinc battery with a five to 10 times greater areal energy density than state of the art. The battery also is easier to manufacture; while most flexible batteries need to be manufactured in sterile conditions, under vacuum, this one can be screen printed in normal lab conditions. The device can be used in flexible, stretchable electronics for wearables as well as soft robotics.

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UC San Diego’s nationally recognized, evidence-based Return to Learn program employs a comprehensive suite of education, monitoring, testing, intervention and notification tools that no other university is using. And the program continues to expand—including a recent introduction of weekly self-administered student testing kits, growth of the campus’s wastewater viral monitoring program and widespread use of the cellphone-based CA COVID Notify exposure notification system.

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A team of physicists and biologists investigate the effect that the geometry of the biological environment has on cellular movement. Their findings are published in the journal Science.

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A team of researchers recently created a pharmacophore model and conducted data mining of the database of drugs approved by the U.S. Federal Drug Administration (FDA) to find potential inhibitors of papain-like protease of SARS-CoV2, one of the main viral proteins responsible for COVID-19.

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Nanoengineers at the University of California San Diego have developed new and improved probes, known as positive controls, that could make it easier to validate rapid, point-of-care diagnostic tests for COVID-19 across the globe. The advance could help expand testing to low-resource, underserved areas.

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A team fielded for the first time by the San Diego Supercomputer Center (SDSC) at UC San Diego competed in this year’s Student Cluster Competition at the annual International Conference for High-Performance Computing, Networking, Storage, and Analysis (SC20) achieved fourth place overall among 19 teams during the 72-hour challenge.

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As case rates of COVID-19 reach new heights across the nation, many states and cities are tightening stay-at-home restrictions to stop the spread. New research suggests that that those suffering from economic hardships are less likely comply with new stay-at-home orders; however these same U.S. residents would be more likely to adhere to the new public health guidelines if their households received stimulus funds.

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Researchers have identified the first key biological switch that sounds an alarm in plants when plant-eating animals attack. The mechanism will help unlock a trove of new strategies for improved plant health, from countering crop pest damage to engineering more robust global food webs.

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Fifty-two faculty members and researchers at the University of California San Diego are among the world’s most influential in their fields according to Clarivate Plc.

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A research team, including scientists from UC San Diego, Argonne National Laboratory and Oak Ridge National Laboratory, wins the Gordon Bell Special Prize for High Performance Computing-Based COVID-19 Research, presented during the SC20 virtual conference.

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Pasteurized, donated breast milk is critical for feeding sick or premature infants. Operated by UC San Diego Health and located in the San Diego Blood Bank, the new facility represents one of the first groundbreaking partnerships between a blood bank and a mothers’ milk bank.

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A new kind of radar could make it possible for self-driving cars to navigate safely in bad weather. Electrical engineers at the University of California San Diego developed a clever way to improve the imaging capability of existing radar sensors so that they accurately predict the shape and size of objects in the scene. The system worked well when tested at night and in foggy conditions.

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What can the International Space Station teach us about mudslides here on Earth? Here is the connection: UC San Diego engineers are trying to better understand the role gravity plays in mudslides. That is why in 18 months, they will launch an experiment to the ISS via SpaceX and NASA to study mudslides in microgravity. The work is funded by a $400,000 grant from the National Science Foundation.

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The United States’ global leadership on science technology faces formidable competition from the People’s Republic of China; however the U.S. can take actions to maintain its competitive edge while enhancing innovation and protecting national security, according to a new report from the University of California San Diego.

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The San Diego Supercomputer Center (SDSC) at the University of California San Diego received two HPCwire awards for 2020, including ‘Best Use of HPC (High-Performance Computing) in the Cloud’, and ‘Best Use of HPC in Energy’.

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Researchers at the University of California San Diego have identified new mechanisms in neurons that cause Alzheimer’s disease. In particular, they discovered that changes in the structure of chromatin, the tightly coiled form of DNA, trigger neurons to lose their specialized function and revert to an earlier cell state. This results in the loss of synaptic connections, an effect associated with memory loss and dementia.

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A new process for restoring spent cathodes to mint condition could make it more economical to recycle lithium-ion batteries. The process, developed by nanoengineers at the University of California San Diego, is more environmentally friendly than today’s methods; it uses greener ingredients, consumes 80 to 90% less energy, and emits about 75% less greenhouse gases.

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The National Science Foundation awards $22.5 million to a partnership between the Center for High Throughput Computing (CHTC) at University of Wisconsin – Madison and the Open Science Grid (OSG) to advance open science via the practice of distributed High Throughput Computing (dHTC).

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Finding just the right model to study human development—from the early embryonic stage onward—has been a challenge for scientists over the last decade. Now, bioengineers at the University of California San Diego have homed in on an unusual candidate: teratomas.

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With the support of a $4 million grant, UC San Diego School of Medicine has launched a program to expand and diversify the pipeline of child and adolescent psychiatrists in California.

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The National Science Foundation has awarded $39 million to a team of engineers and computer scientists at the University of California San Diego to build a first-of-its-kind testbed to better understand how to integrate distributed energy sources such as solar panels, wind turbines, smart buildings and electric vehicle batteries into the power grid. The goal is to make the testbed available to outside research teams and industry by 2025.

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A new study by Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California San Diego and the Norwegian University of Life Sciences has found that a species of brain-infecting parasite can disrupt the metabolism of its host—the California killifish—both before and after infection.

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This is a crucial time for each and every university to consider the role that Black studies plays in its intellectual and institutional formation, according to the conveners of the Black Studies Project (BSP) at UC San Diego. The current political moment has not only heightened the urgency of grappling with questions of Blackness and anti-Blackness, but has underscored the critical role that Black studies scholars and scholarship must play in this ongoing dialogue. Black studies has never been more relevant.

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A new report evaluating the efficacy of climate action plans and commitments of the 100 largest U.S. cities finds the leadership of these municipalities stands as an important counter to the federal government’s rollback of climate policies and departure from the Paris Agreement. Yet, despite genuine achievements by some, roughly two-thirds of cities are currently lagging in their targeted emissions levels, and, on average, all cities in the report need to cut their annual emissions by 64% by 2050 in order to reach their respective goals.

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According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, thousands of oil spills occur each year in the United States. Although the majority of incidents involve less than one barrel, the spills have wreaked economic and environmental devastation for decades. Researchers recently created supercomputer simulations to better understand the fate of oil droplets for effective countermeasures.

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A team of researchers from UC San Diego, UCLA and the University of South Carolina has demonstrated how membrane-formation takes place in water from natural alkaline sources like soda lakes and hydrothermal oceanic vents.

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The Mexico Violence Resource Project—a new initiative from the University of California San Diego’s Center for U.S.-Mexican Studies—was recently launched to provide policymakers and journalists analysis and information to better understand the complicated escalation of violence in Mexico.

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The transport of nine types of plastics floating in Lake Erie was modeled in two studies that used the Comet supercomputer at the San Diego Supercomputer Center (SDSC) to compare a two-dimensional model with a new Great Lakes microplastic dataset and then develop the first ever three-dimensional mass estimate for plastic in Lake Erie.

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The University of California San Diego’s Center for Energy Research (CER) has been awarded two grants from the Department of Energy (DOE) for research focused on developing environment-friendly and cost-competitive energy sources and systems.

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New research from the University of California San Diego reveals that Democratic control of state houses leads to substantial improvement in women’s incomes, wages and unemployment relative to men.

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While researchers around the world race to develop an effective and safe COVID-19 vaccine, a team from the San Diego Supercomputer Center (SDSC) at UC San Diego contributed to a study led by Vanderbilt Vaccine Center of Vanderbilt University Medical Center (VUMC) on T cell receptors, which play a vital role in alerting the adaptive immune system to mount an attack on invading foreign pathogens including the Coronavirus SARS-CoV-2.

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Project focuses on lipids (fat molecules) as the starting point to understand the evolution of eukaryotic cells, carrying implications for human health and disease.