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Research lab

University of California San Diego

Public research university in San Diego, part of the University of California system, noted for engineering, physics, and public health research.

Known aliases

  • Herbert Wertheim School of Public Health and Human Longevity Science
  • UC San Diego
  • UCSD
  • University of California - San Diego
  • University of California San Diego

Current stories

scienceOne report1 publisher

A provoked flare-up of chronic back pain raised default mode network activity in 114 adults

A study with UC San Diego co-authors scanned 114 adults with chronic back pain after a provoked flare and saw default mode network activity rise. An outside neuroscientist praised the design but said lingering pain or anxiety could also explain the signal.

Publishers:livescience.com

Reality

Evidence55
Adoption
Not scored
Hype gap+15
Incentives
Not scored
Confidence50
productOne report1 publisher

Briefly liquid grain boundaries lift UC San Diego-led perovskite devices to 24% to 26% efficiency

UC San Diego-led researchers report perovskite solar cells and LEDs at around 24% to 26% efficiency, grown with a temporary liquid phase. In the one durability result the report describes, the solar cells kept most of their efficiency through eight weeks of simulated sunlight.

Reality

Evidence42
Adoption
Not scored
Hype gap+25
Incentives
Not scored
Confidence45
productOne report1 publisher

Toyota and UC San Diego researchers dissolve a battery binder in water to free electrode materials

UC San Diego and Toyota researchers built a fluorine-free battery binder that dissolves in water, so electrode coatings come off their foils with a soak. For a cell maker, the first payoff is on the production line, where water replaces toxic solvents.

Reality

Evidence45
Adoption5
Hype gap+20
Incentives50
Confidence40
scienceOne report1 publisher

UC San Diego team builds a 'butterfly fly' with nine light-detecting cells per eye unit

Michael Perry's UC San Diego lab found the genetic switch behind the butterfly's ninth light-detecting cell per eye unit and rebuilt it in fruit flies. The flies' brains wired the extra cell to spare neurons they would normally discard, so the change to the eye was enough on its own.

Publishers:phys.org

Reality

Evidence55
Adoption
Not scored
Hype gap+15
Incentives
Not scored
Confidence50
leadershipOne report1 publisher

Givers set the minimum for a small gift about 70% above what recipients would take

People in a Wharton-led study set the smallest worthwhile gift about 70% above what recipients would accept, so many holding only a small sum gave nothing. For anyone running a giving drive, the authors' field test shows a lower ask brings in more contributors while pulling gifts down toward the amount asked.

Reality

Evidence55
Adoption
Not scored
Hype gap+20
Incentives45
Confidence50
scienceOne report1 publisher

Healthy-reef recordings pull coral larvae onto the structures nearest the speaker

Of 37 artificial structures placed in Kane'ohe Bay, Scripps-led trials found coral larvae settled most on those nearest a speaker playing healthy-reef sound. The result puts sound beside living coatings and 3D-printed surfaces as a restoration tool, so far tested in a single Hawaiian bay.

Publishers:phys.org

Reality

Evidence45
Adoption
Not scored
Hype gap+25
Incentives
Not scored
Confidence40
scienceOne report1 publisher

Oceanside teen with SCN2A epilepsy took his first unassisted steps after a drug made for his mutation

Connor Dalby, who had tried 12 or 13 anti-seizure drugs, took unassisted steps about four months after starting a drug built for his SCN2A mutation. His case, now in Nature Medicine, is a single patient, so how often made-to-order drugs like his work is still unknown.

Publishers:kpbs.org

Reality

Evidence40
Adoption3
Hype gap+15
Incentives
Not scored
Confidence45
scienceOne report1 publisher

Merriam-Webster adds AI words its own lexicographer says take programming knowledge to explain

Merriam-Webster added at least six AI and computing terms, including 'agentic' and 'vibe coding', to its online dictionary in September. The entries show that specialist AI terms now circulate in mainstream print, but the dictionary's method cannot tell how many general readers understand them.

Publishers:nature.com

Reality

Evidence55
Adoption40
Hype gap+10
Incentives25
Confidence60
scienceOne report1 publisher

UC San Diego test pits Planck's detectors against each other to vet a 0.37-degree twist in the oldest light

UC San Diego physicists compared eight Planck polarization maps against each other and recovered the same 0.37-degree twist as the standard analysis. The agreement gives cosmologists a second way to ask whether the rotation is in the sky or in the instrument, though the authors stress it does not confirm the twist is real.

Reality

Evidence55
Adoption
Not scored
Hype gap+10
Incentives30
Confidence55
investOne report1 publisher

Forging a 1024-bit RSA signature through an HSM costs under 0.3% of factoring the key

UC San Diego and Inria researchers forged a 1024-bit RSA signature through an HSM in 1,380 core-years, against at least 500,000 to factor the key. The attack only works with raw, unpadded signing access, so how exposed a custodian is depends on how its HSM is configured.

Reality

Evidence58
Adoption
Not scored
Hype gap+12
Incentives
Not scored
Confidence52
investOne report1 publisher

Researchers forge RSA signatures from a hardware security module by making it sign 4 billion raw numbers

UC San Diego and INRIA researchers forged RSA signatures on a 1,024-bit key inside a hardware security module after about 4 billion signing requests. The key stayed inside the device throughout, so for custodians the exposure is in signing settings, starting with the FIPS mode the researchers switched off.

Publishers:decrypt.co

Reality

Evidence45
Adoption
Not scored
Hype gap+10
Incentives
Not scored
Confidence40
scienceOne report1 publisher

Half a million variants later, the initiator becomes a sequence you can design

A UC San Diego lab measured expression across about 500,000 initiator variants and fit a model to the result. The prevalence headline is the least useful part of it.

Reality

Evidence40
Adoption
Not scored
Hype gap+35
Incentives50
Confidence45
buildOne report1 publisher

UC San Diego and Inria oracle attack cuts textbook RSA-2048 security by 22 bits

UC San Diego and Inria researchers report an attack, not yet peer reviewed, that cuts textbook RSA-2048 from 2^112 to 2^90 operations. It needs billions of queries against a raw RSA private key, so unmonitored HSMs and key-management services are the first place to look.

Publishers:tomshardware.com

Reality

Evidence35
Adoption
Not scored
Hype gap+20
Incentives
Not scored
Confidence40
scienceOne report1 publisher

UC San Diego's cross-check reproduces the standard calibration pattern across eight Planck maps

UC San Diego physicists cross-checked eight Planck polarization maps and found their relative calibration matches the standard analysis. The test cancels any rotation all detectors share, so the hinted 0.37-degree twist still needs an absolute angle reference.

Publishers:phys.org

Reality

Evidence55
Adoption
Not scored
Hype gap+15
Incentives35
Confidence55
scienceOne report1 publisher

Escape neurons in glassfish fire when a virtual neighbour vanishes from the screen

A UC San Diego team imaged thousands of neurons in transparent 12-millimetre fish watching computer-generated schools, and found midbrain cells that treat a partner's sudden absence much as they treat a partner's flight.

Reality

Evidence64
Adoption
Not scored
Hype gap+18
Incentives58
Confidence66
scienceOne report1 publisher

TU Wien slides high-harmonic X-rays continuously between the comb's fixed teeth

High-harmonic X-ray sources normally emit only at integer multiples of their driving laser. A TU Wien and UC San Diego method detunes the driver instead, filling in the frequencies between two neighbouring harmonics.

Publishers:phys.org

Reality

Evidence58
Adoption
Not scored
Hype gap+18
Incentives66
Confidence55
scienceOne report1 publisher

Feeding a classifier 4D movies of mitochondria lifts drug-mechanism accuracy from 56% to 75%

UC San Diego researchers treated cancer cells with 25 mitochondria-perturbing compounds, collected 40,000 single-cell 4D movies, and trained a model that sorted the drugs by mechanism with the labels withheld.

Publishers:phys.org

Reality

Evidence62
Adoption12
Hype gap+24
Incentives68
Confidence55
scienceOne report1 publisher

NSF backs a diatom-inspired route to the rare earths locked in coal ash

A five-year, $3.3 million project led at Worcester Polytechnic Institute will test whether the biology that builds sea sponge skeletons can break silicon-rich industrial waste apart gently enough to free the minerals inside.

Publishers:sciencedaily.com

Reality

Evidence45
Adoption
Not scored
Hype gap+35
Incentives70
Confidence50
scienceOne report1 publisher

A 10,000-dog button study moves dog cognition's evidence off owner surveys

For years, dog cognition mostly asked owners what their dogs were like. Rossano's soundboard project and two newer studies measure the dogs instead, though the published account is short on samples and controls.

Reality

Evidence38
Adoption40
Hype gap+30
Incentives55
Confidence45

Earlier coverage