“I can’t overemphasize the calamity that these events cause at the neighborhood level. Hundreds of health care facilities don’t have back-up generators,” said Jack Brouwer, an engineering professor and director of the National Fuel Cell Research Center at the University of California, Irvine.
David Kisailus is a professor of materials science and engineering at UC Irvine and a co-author of the study. He said: ‘This process achieves two goals at the same time. ‘On the one hand, it helps remove human urine from wastewater streams, mitigating environmental pollution and the buildup of unwanted nutrients. On the other hand, it produces a material that can be commercially marketed for use in a variety of settings.’ Read More
The scientists who made this discovery—a team from Purdue University and the University of California, Irvine—say the unique strategy employed by the diabolical ironclad beetle could inspire the creation of innovative materials, namely components capable of dissipating energy to prevent catastrophic breakage. David Kisailus, a professor of materials science and engineering at Purdue, led the new research. Read More
But with snow from the last storm still piled high in the mountains, concerns are growing about the rain combining with snowmelt to generate flooding, especially in the mountain canyons with creeks that could overflow. "Those collector creeks that are capturing all that snowmelt and rainfall at the same time are going to be seeing some of the highest flows we've seen in some time," said [Professor] Brett Sanders, a climate engineering expert at University of California, Irvine.
What makes the diabolical ironclad beetle (the insect's actual common name) so indestructible? To find out, researchers at the University of California, Irvine and their colleagues repeatedly drove over them with their cars. Yes, the creepy crawlers survived the tire test and countless other more exacting compression tests in the laboratory. After years of research, materials scientist David Kisailus and grad student Jesus Rivera determined that it’s the combination of the material and structure of the beetle's exoskeleton which is different than other beetles.
For many years, [associate professor] Alon Gorodetsky, Ph.D., and his research group have been working on materials inspired by squid.
As the coronavirus outbreak spread into the United States, Dr. Brian Wong, a plastic surgeon at the University of California, Irvine Medical Center, wanted to know what doctors on the front lines could do if they ran out of ventilators. In March, Wong organized daily conference calls on Zoom to brainstorm ideas with a couple of his colleagues, and they adopted the name Bridge Ventilator Consortium. Soon, medical professionals from all over the country began dialing in. … "I was amazed." Dr. Govind Rajan, an anesthesiologist at UCI, said.
“The properties of [reflectins’] unusual amino acid content give them a high refractive index,” explained Alon Gorodetsky, a biomolecular engineer at University of California, Irvine, who develops materials inspired by the optical properties of reflectins. … The squids’ color-changing system also motivated Gorodetsky’s team to develop materials with adjustable infrared reflectivity. Gorodetsky noted that this material could coat objects and hide them from infrared cameras, with potential applications in the military.
The diabolical ironclad beetle can withstand enormous forces, protecting it from predators — and potentially providing scientists with new designs for materials. … Three different types of supports on the sides of the beetle, where the elytra and the shell on the insect's underside meet, allow the beetle to be compliant so it can squeeze into rocks without crushing its organs, says David Kisailus, a [UCI] materials scientist …. Read More
For many years, Alon Gorodetsky, Ph.D., and his research group have been working on materials inspired by squid. In past work, they developed "invisibility stickers," which consisted of bacterially produced squid reflectin proteins that were adhered onto sticky tape. "So then, we had this crazy idea to see whether we could capture some aspect of the ability of squid skin tissues to change transparency within human cell cultures," says Gorodetsky, who is the principal investigator on the project.
UC Irvine researchers created a free smartphone app, dubbed TrackCOVID, which develops an anonymous graph of interactions by pooling user data every time an individual gathers with others or goes to a public place. App users can log their interactions and "checkpoints", or places visited, and the app anonymously links users' interactions as they congregate in the same places over time.
Researchers at the University of California, Irvine have successfully performed preclinical laboratory testing of a replacement heart valve intended for toddlers and young children with congenital cardiac defects, a key step toward obtaining approval for human use.
Jack Brouwer, Professor of Engineering at UC Irvine is ecstatic to see the change. "It's exciting to have this happening in our backyard. It's exciting also to be one of the first in the world to actually adopt this platform," he says. Professor Brouwer says green hydrogen can be used to power not only buildings and cars, but also jets, ships, trains and long haul trucks and its emissions won't harm people or the environment. … “The only emission is water," he says. Read More
“Always when there is a hurricane, you have compounding effects of ocean flooding — surge — and terrestrial flooding,” said Amir AghaKouchak, an associate professor of hydrology and remote sensing at the University of California at Irvine.
DWP is hardly the only Californian institution rushing to commit to hydrogen. SoCalGas, one of the state’s largest natural gas utilities, hopes to blend hydrogen into the gas network that supplies homes and businesses across Southern California.
Govind Rajan, an anesthesiologist at UC Irvine’s medical school and a contributor to the Bridge Ventilator Consortium ventilator project, described the use-case for that project as “only in situations where you don't have any ventilators available and the patient needs a ventilator.” In collaboration with the consortium, Virgin Orbit has designed a ventilator of the “automating-a-manual-resuscitator” variety. It’s nowhere near as complex as a critical care ventilator.
The key draw of hydrogen is its cost-effectiveness at longer durations. For a completely resilient, 100% renewable data center with zero emissions, using hydrogen would translate to a levelized cost of electricity amounting to $119 per MWh, said Jack Brouwer, a professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at the University of California, Irvine. … "Lithium-ion batteries are cheaper for short-duration storage, and they're more efficient.
That kind of contamination would make contact with the water dangerous, said Sunny Jiang, professor and chair of civil and environmental engineering at the University of California, Irvine.
Deadline: N/A
Company: Resonant Inc.
Products: RF filters for cellular phone market
Locations: Santa Barbara and San Francisco Bay Area
Qualifications needed: MSc.
Contact: Sohrab Samadian, Vice President of Engineering, ssamadian@resonant.com
