  The apparent universality of jet quenching observed in heavy ion collisions
at RHIC for light and heavy quarks, as well as for quarks and gluons, is very
puzzling and calls for a theoretical explanation. Recently it has been proposed
that the synchrotron--like radiation at strong coupling gives rise to a
universal bound on the energy of a parton escaping from the medium. Since this
bound appears quite low, almost all of the observed particles at high
transverse momentum have to originate from the surface of the hot fireball.
Here I make a first attempt of checking this scenario against the RHIC data and
formulate a "Universal Bound Model" of jet quenching that can be further tested
at RHIC and LHC.
