La Jolla News Nuggets

Stepping Up to the plate for student athletes

Gary Jacobs, son of Qualcomm founder Irwin Jacobs, and his wife, Jerri-Ann Jacobs, have donated $2 million to UC San Diego, Gary’s alma mater. Half will go to UCSD’s Division of Social Sciences and half to UCSD Athletics, where it will fund the Jerri-Ann and Gary Jacobs Family Baseball Scholarship.

“As a Division III school when I was a student and now as a Division II school, athletics were not a unifying tradition for both students and alumni,” said Gary Jacobs. “We believe the move to Division I will provide excitement on campus and an opportunity for alumni to reconnect with UC San Diego.”

A 1979 UCSD graduate, Gary Jacobs played intramural soccer and volleyball in his student days. He also helped run a campus program that provided baseball umpires to local little leagues.

Brian Malarkey’s Wood Yu opens for breakfast, lunch

San Diego-based celebrity chef Brian Malarkey is opening Wood Yu in the Alexandria Real Estate (ARE) Equities’ Torrey Ridge Science Center near Torrey Pines Reserve. The eatery is described by owners Puffer Malarkey Collective — which also created the nearby Farmer & the Seahorse — as “fusing popular flavors to create a new genre of Baja Asian Street Food.”

Wood Yu, 10578 Science Center Drive, features a large indoor/outdoor space able to seat 160. Breakfast is served 9 a.m. to 10:30 a.m., lunch from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m., Monday-Friday. (858) 812-5555.

Rare good climate news from Scripps

A paper in the journal Science posits that a doomsday scenario people had worried about with climate change probably won’t happen. There likely will be no Arctic methane “burp” caused by climate destabilization. In the long-feared scenario, global warming would have caused Arctic permafrost to melt and release enough greenhouse gas to accelerate warming. However, similar ancient events suggest only minor releases of methane.

“It is a rare piece of good news about climate change,” said Jeff Severinghaus, the Scripps Institution of Oceanography geoscientist who began pursuing the question in the 1990s, analyzing samples of gases trapped in ice during a period of deglaciation between 18,000 and 8,000 years ago.

“I’m happy to come to the public and say this burp is something we don’t have to worry about,” he added.

There is a good news/bad news aspect, however. Severinghaus is also part of a science team that reported this week in the journal Nature that methane emissions related to fossil fuel use have been vastly underestimated.

La Jolla Music Society sets open house at The Conrad, March 7-8

La Jolla Music Society (LJMS) will welcome the community into its home, The Conrad Prebys Performing Arts Center, March 7-8. In partnership with the architecture open house event “OH! San Diego,” LJMS will open its doors for two days of performances, activities and tours.

Saturday, March 7 will kick things off with free, family-friendly performances by La Jolla Music Society’s Education Partners, including students from the Community Music Center, San Diego Civic Youth Ballet, San Diego Youth Symphony Chamber Orchestra, La Jolla High School Chamber Ensembles, and Mission Bay High School Mambo Orchestra.

Attendees will have the opportunity to get involved with activities like a drum circle by Drummers Without Borders, an instrument petting zoo, Yoga by Riffs accompanied by live music, guitar lessons from Education Ambassador-in-Residence Pablo Sainz-Villegas, an art activity provided by the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, and an instrument building station provided by Studio ACE.

Performances by Chiara Capobianco, Joanna Gerolaga, Aaron Markland, and Javid & Naoko will take place throughout the day in the Wu Tsai QRT.yrd. The afternoon concludes with headlining performances by local favorites the Whitney Shay Trio, and Peter Sprague and Leonard Patton in the relaxed atmosphere of The JAI, as well as a compelling program from Malashock Dance in The Baker-Baum Concert Hall.

On Sunday, March 8, the LJMS staff will conduct free tours of The Conrad. This will also provide the public with the opportunity to hear more about La Jolla Music Society’s acclaimed SummerFest, which runs July 31-Aug. 21 this year.

Head to ljms.org to learn more, or call (858) 459-3728.

Sweet idea! Cookie booth at Warwick’s

For the ninth consecutive Girl Scout cookie season, La Jolla Troop 4861 ran a booth in front of Warwick’s. A third of its profits will be given to homeless veterans, a third for leadership experiences, and a third for a troop swim party, said Carla Ingle, who co-leads the troop with Jennifer Garza and assistant leader Karina Carruth.

“It’s the perfect place to sell cookies,” added store owner Nancy Warwick, a Girl Scout alum with fond memories of selling cookies in La Jolla. “Many of the troops and their cookie customers are regulars who love the sense of community that defines the store — and who can resist a box of Thin Mints?”

Heatwave exposure linked to risk of preterm birth

More than just causing discomfort, regional heatwaves have been associated with a number of health risks, particularly for children and the elderly. A new study by researchers at UC San Diego identified another important at-risk group: people who are pregnant and their unborn infants.

The study, published Feb. 11 in Environment International, found that exposure to heatwaves during the week before birth was strongly linked to an increased risk of preterm delivery — the hotter the temperature or the longer the heatwave, the greater the risk. In particular, longer duration heatwaves were associated with the highest risk of a preterm birth.

“We knew from previous studies that exposure to extreme heat during the last week of pregnancy can accelerate labor,” said senior author Tarik Benmarhnia, Ph.D., assistant professor of epidemiology at UCSD School of Medicine and Scripps Institution of Oceanography. “But no one had tried to figure out exactly what kinds of conditions could trigger preterm births. Is it the temperature? Is it the combination of the temperature and the humidity? Is it the duration of the heatwave? It’s important to ask these questions to know when we need to intervene and inform pregnant people to stay inside and stay cool.”

Preterm birth is defined as birth before 37 weeks of pregnancy, which normally lasts at least 40 weeks. While the difference might not seem significant, preterm birth can cause a variety of health problems in infants, from respiratory and cardiac ailments and difficulty controlling body temperature to increased risk for brain hemorrhages and long-term health concerns such as cerebral palsy, learning difficulties, and vision and hearing problems.

The researchers used data collected by the California Department of Public Health that included information about every single birth in the state of California between 2005 and 2013, comprising nearly 2 million live births during the summer months. The study found that while the baseline rate of preterm birth was 7 percent of all pregnancies, under the most conservative definition classifying a heatwave (an average maximum temperature equal to or greater than the 98th percentile, averaging 98.11 degrees and lasting at least four days), the risk of preterm birth increased by 13 percent.

Congressional art contest open to teens

The office of U.S. Congress member Scott Peters is accepting submissions for the Congressional Art Competition, a showcase where San Diego high school students in District 52 may submit original pieces for a chance to see theirs hang in the U.S. Capitol for one year.

“As a former board member of the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego and a leader in the Murals of La Jolla effort, I am excited about our seventh year of providing this amazing opportunity,” Peters said. “It is a chance to celebrate the artistic talent of students in San Diego, Coronado and Poway, and also encourage students to explore their creativity in a way that will foster a lifelong love of the arts.”

Since the competition began in 1982, more than 650,000 high school students have competed nationwide. Interested students or parents should call (858) 455-5550 or visit scottpeters.house.gov/artcompetition

— Compiled by Corey Levitan from local reports.