May 9th, 2008, 3:00 am by grobbins
 Boeing-Huntington Beach has opened a $10 million center where it will test the guidance-and-navigation systems of some of the nation’s most advanced missiles, including the PAC-3, a surface-to-air missile that was used during the early days of the Iraq war in March 2003.
The Dynamic Advanced Radar Test (DART) facility has just been completed in Building 22, the famous “high bay” building near Bolsa Avenue where engineers worked on the Saturn V rocket that sent Apollo astronauts to the moon, as well as the Delta series of launch rockets and boosters used by the space shuttle fleet.
 DART features a large anechoic chamber that suppresses echoes and vibrations, allowing engineers to test the sensitive guidance “seekers” that missiles use to reach their targets. Boeing’s Huntington Beach and Anaheim plants specialize in such work, helping to create such weapons as the SM-3 missile kinetic warhead that the U.S. Navy used in February to destroy a crippled spy satellite high above Earth.
The new center “allows us to test tactical seekers in a real world environment rather than by flying the missile,” says Bill Richardson, a Boeing executive. “We can ‘virtually’ fly missiles in the anechoic chamber.”
 Boeing has long had a smaller chamber in Anaheim. But it decided to build a larger, more advanced facility in Huntington Beach, partly because it is moving many of its key programs there from Anaheim. Debra Rub-Zenko, vice president of weapons programs for Boeing’s Integrated Defense Systems, says the company also is positioning itself to handle more missile system test work in Huntington Beach, which has one of the largest engineering forces in Southern California. That work might eventuall include development of a new cruise missile for the Navy. Boeing is expected to compete for the contract.
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May 8th, 2008, 11:33 am by grobbins
 A magnitude 2.4 earthquake occurred near Ortega Highway, close to the border of Orange and Riverside counties, at 11:01 a.m., the U.S. Geological Survey says. The quake erupted 4.4 miles beneath the Earth’s surface, within a mile of the campground run by the Forest Service in the Cleveland National Forest. The quake appears to have occurred on the Elsinore fault system. But geologists say that there are other faults in that general area.
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May 8th, 2008, 3:00 am by grobbins
 They beat their brains out.
That’s the only way to describe what happened earlier this week when UC Irvine students faced off against faculty in the annual “Battle of the Brains” trivia bowl. Final score: Students 785, Faculty 650.
Student Katie Bordonak was gracious in victory, saying, “It’s not like we completely dominated them if that makes sense. It was a pretty fun game to watch.”
Would you have done any better than the faculty competitors? You can find out by trying to answer a sampling of the questions asked during the bowl competition. Click “Read the rest of this entry at the bottom to get the answers.)
1. Of all of the US states that begin with “New”, which one comes first alphabetically?
2. John Grunsfeld, grandson of a planetarium designer, flew on the 1999 shuttle mission to repair this. What did he repair?
3. In 1901 the American Cereal Company changed its name to this. What is the name?
4. What is the name of the university where Newton saw the apple fall?
5. In 2004 a new version of this coin depicted the peace medal Lewis & Clark gave to Indians during their exploration. What is this coin?
6. This religious sect known for its simple furniture invented the clothespin.
7. Napoleon’s sister Pauline asked that a nude statue of what person be
displayed at her funeral?
8. Hypoglycemia occurs when this organ secretes too much insulin:
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May 7th, 2008, 3:00 am by grobbins
 The state gave UC Irvine $27.1 million today to help build one of the largest stem cell research centers on the West Coast – a facility that will flesh out the university’s already large campus medical complex.
The gift was made by the California Institute of Regenerative Medicine, which awarded about $271 million to universities and consortia up and down the state that are trying to exploit the potential of stem cells to treat disease and injury.
The money comes from Proposition 71, the voter-approved initiative that earmarks an unprecedented $3 billion for the study of all types of stem cells.
As noted in an earlier post, the $27.1 just under half of the $60.5 million that UCI says it will cost to construct a three-story, 61,600 square foot research center next to the School of Medicine. The university will have to obtain the balance of the money from donors, and has already raised $12 million in private money for that purpose.
In hope of receiving the money, Peter Donovan, co-director of UCI’s Gross Stem Cell Research Center, said: “The funding from CIRM will be a great boost to stem cell research in general in the state and the nation.
“Our program will be greatly enhanced and allow us to create a new facility where we can bring together the best and the brightest to develop new treatments for human disease. To use an analogy with the automotive industry it will provide the space for an assembly line where we can put together the component parts to build new treatments for an array of human diseases and disorders and then safety test them prior to use in patients.
“If successful this process will revolutionize the way medicine is practiced in the 21st century. The funding will be another step in making UCI an epicenter of stem cell research in the state.”
Do you think that stem cell research will lead to important medical treatments within a decade?
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May 6th, 2008, 4:00 am by grobbins
 Legendary writer-editor-publisher Stan Lee, who co-created such iconic comic book superheroes as Iron Man, Spider-Man, the Hulk and the Fantastic Four, will discuss his career Thursday at UC Irvine during a lecture that will be followed by a screening of the film “Spider-Man 2.” (Click here for Lee photo gallery.)
Lee, who is 85, will appear in Room 100 of Social Science Hall on Ring Road. UCI says tickets cost $5 for students, $6 for campus faculty and staff and seniors, and $7 for non-UCI students. General admission is $10. The event is expected to be a sellout, so UCI is advising people to buy tickets early, between 1 p.m. and 5 p.m., in Room 235 of the Humanities Instructional Building.
Lee is still writing and producing a variety of projects. But most of his fame stems from his stewardship of Marvel Comics and his co-creation of such superheros as Spider-Man in the 1960s. Many of those characters have been turned into hit movies, including “Iron Man,” which grossed more than $100 million when it opened over the weekend.
 Years ago, Lee told an interviewer, “To be honest, when I was writing these stories a million years ago, I never thought about movies at all one way or another. It would have seemed almost miraculous for these things to be movies someday. To me, they were just comic books that I hoped would sell so I could keep my job.”
Lee’s fans are legion, which is why we’re including this trivia contest.
1. What is Lee’s real last name?
2. Who are the two best-known artists who worked with Lee?
3. What is the title of Lee’s first published story?
4. What were some of Lee’s early pen names?
5. Which former U.S. president began each day by reading the Spider-Man newspaper strip?
6. What was the first TV series based on Lee’s work? Read the rest of this entry »
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May 6th, 2008, 3:30 am by grobbins
 UC Irvine biologist Alex McPherson is in Beijing, teaching an advanced biology course for top Chinese students. Here’s his latest dispatch about the experience.
We are into the more computer intensive portion of the “X-ray Methods in Structural Biology” course here in Beijing, China (transplanted from Cold Spring Harbor, New York), and I have less of a role to play, so yesterday I took the day off and taxied into the center of Beijing. I had not been here since 2004. The central points of interest are the Forbidden City where the emperors dwelled, which I judge to be about the size of the Irvine Spectrum in area (quite different in architecture), and across a wide boulevard, Tiananmen Square where history was made in 1989.
Tiananmen is claimed to be the largest public square in the world, and it is surrounded on three sides by grand, imposing, Stalin-esque buildings of heavy stone, and dominated by an obelisque and mausoleum that marks the tomb of Mao Tse Tung. With the murky air here (think Riverside in August) it is not possible to see all the way across. Both are literally mobbed by tourists, a very few from the West, almost all Chinese. And this is a Tuesday afternoon.
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May 5th, 2008, 3:00 pm by grobbins
A British newspaper has linked the recent fatal shark attacks off San Diego County and Mexico to global warming — an inference that’s unfounded, according to a prominent California researcher.
In a widely-distributed story, the London Observer on Sunday quoted University of Florida shark expert George Burgess as saying “…as long as we have an increase in human hours in the water (through population growth), we will have an increase in shark bites.”
The Observer then said, “Another contributory factor to the location of shark attacks could be global warming and rising sea temperatures. ‘You’ll find that some species will begin to appear in places they didn’t in the past with some regularity,’ (Burgess) said. ‘”
The remarks appeared in a story headlined, “Surge in fatal shark attacks blamed on global warming.”
“Off San Diego, warmer waters would not increase the number of adult white sharks as they are really more temperate (water animals),” says Greg Cailliet, director of the Pacific Shark Research Center in Moss Landing.
“Even when they swim to Hawaii and the central Pacific over winter and spring, they tend to be in deep, cooler water. This is thought to be due to their internal circulatory mechanism for heat retention. They would probably have a much higher metabolism, and hence ‘burn up’ more easily, if they stayed near the warm surface very long …
“…If (the) water warmed, more tropical sharks, including the tiger shark, might come farther north. This sometimes happens, at least temporarily, with El Nino conditions. And, if it increased the number of humans swimming, surfing, etc. in the ocean, the likelihood of encounter would possibly increase. I do not know what warming might do to potential shark, especially white shark, prey.”
There’s a great deal of mystery about sharks. California Fish and Game, for example, says it doesn’t even have a reasonable estimate of the number of great whites in state waters — though the figure is thought to be low.
And shark attacks haven’t uniformly increased with the growth of California’s population, as this chart illustrates.
White shark attacks on humans in California
| Decade |
Attacks |
Fatalities |
| 1920s |
1 |
0 |
| 1950s |
13 |
4 |
| 1960s |
11 |
0 |
| 1970s |
20 |
0 |
| 1980s |
18 |
3 |
| 1990s |
26 |
1 |
| 2000s |
7 |
3 |
| Total |
95 |
11 |
(Source: California Department of Fish and Game)
Do you think that global warming could lead to an increase in shark attacks on humans?
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May 5th, 2008, 3:00 am by grobbins
 A new Harvard University study that takes one of the most detailed looks yet at life expectancy in the United States has turned up a striking finding: The average life span of men in Orange County grew by almost four years during 1983-99, roughly twice the rate for that of women.
On average, women still live about five years longer than men. (The national averages are 80.4 for women, 75.2 for men.) But the report indicates that men have been closing the gap in Orange County, reflecting a nationwide trend.
Average life span in Orange County
| Year |
Men |
Women |
| 1961 |
69.04 years |
75.94 years |
| 1983 |
73.68 years |
79.78 years |
| 1999 |
77.42 years |
81.78 years |
The reasons for the change are only partly understood, says researcher Ari Friedman, who co-authored the new study, “Reversal of Fortunes: Trends in County Mortality and Cross-County Mortality Disparities in the United States.”
For example, Friedman said that over the nation’s history, women were slower to take up smoking, so they were less prone than men to die of heart disease. But that changed over time and has contributed to a smaller increase in longevity for women.
“Diabetes and hypertension also seem to play a role” in the faster growth in longevity among some men, Friedman said.
 UC Irvine neurobiologist Claudia Kawas, who did not contribute to the Harvard study but is an international expert on aging, said:
“The (longevity) gap has been closing for a number of years and I don’t think we understand all the issues starting with:
1. Why is there a gap in the first place? Although some of the explanation may be health habits like smoking, that is unlikely to be the entire explanation since many species have this gap and it is always the female that lives longer.
2. “… death rates (include) many things like AIDS deaths, drug and alcohol deaths, suicide, etc. Historically these all affected women less than men, but it is likely that women made ’strides’ in some of these over the time period, unfortunately.
3. There also may be some ethnicity and immigration issues. We have high numbers of Hispanic and Vietnamese people in O.C. But men and women who immigrate may be different. For example, Hispanic men in O.C. may be more likely to come for work at jobs that require a certain amount of vigor and good health while Hispanic women may migrate for other reasons and not have the same level of health. That last comment is pure speculation, but tries to give you an idea of how the health of men and women here could be different for reasons not really relevant to longevity in general.”
How long do you think you’ll live?
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May 4th, 2008, 11:53 am by grobbins
 A magnitude 3.7 earthquake erupted at 11:16 a.m. about 38 miles southeast of San Clemente, in the north-central region of San Diego County, near the Palomar Observatory, the U.S. Geological Survey says. The quake began 2.7 miles beneath the Earth’s surface, on an unidentified fault. The shaking lasted only a few seconds and was comparatively light, seismologists said. There have been no reports of significant damage. CLICK HERE for quake updates.
Today’s OC weather record
Chilly week ahead for Orange County
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May 4th, 2008, 4:00 am by grobbins
 The annual Eta Aquarid meteor shower will reach its peak in the hours before dawn Monday and its possible that stargazers will see a flurry of “shooting stars” as specks of dust from an ancient comet strike burn up in Earth’s atmosphere.
“Apparently, Earth will pass through a denser part of the stream of particles shed by the comet,” said Michael Bakich, a senior editor at Astronomy.com. “That would mean we’re see more meteors.
“Usually, you might have to wait 3-5 minutes to see a meteor. But this year, we might see one or two a minute, and possibly a couple of dozen within a few minutes time if we do go through a dense part of the comet stream.”
Most of the particles from the comet are the size of the head of a pin. But some of them strike the upper atmosphere in a way that causes them to produce a brief but brilliant fiery trial, making them a “shooting star.” The particles strike the atmosphere at 80,000 to 100,000 mph.
Bakich said that star gazers should look for the meteors above the east-southeast horizon.
Have you ever seen a shooting star?
Today’s OC weather record
Chilly week ahead for Orange County
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