2021 Media Watch Archives
Beach-bluff homes, lot cracking near damaged train track in San Clemente
The Orange County Register -
Without regular sand replenishment to provide a buffer to hold the ocean back, damage to homes and infrastructure will become a more common occurrence, said Brett Sanders, professor of civil and environmental engineering at UC Irvine. “Once the beaches are gone, we are quickly seeing damaging impacts to infrastructure. As soon as the beaches are gone, we lose railroad service, we see displacement of land, concrete gets cracked,” Sanders said. “Our beaches are incredibly important for providing protection for infrastructure and natural resources.” [Subscription required, campus-wide access provided by UCI Libraries. Sign-up here: https://guides.lib.uci.edu/news/ocregister] Read More
Kino Discovery is building an end-to-end solution for single-cell research
The Science Advisory Board -
Kino Discovery is working on a tissue sample-to-cell solution to make personalized medicine a reality. The early-stage startup was founded by University of California, Irvine [biomedical engineering associate] professor Jered Haun, PhD, and is a competitor in the inaugural BioTools Innovator contest. We spoke with Haun as part of our coverage of the competition. Read More
Apodaca: Recognizing Orange County warriors in the fight against climate change
Daily Pilot -
Take Brett Sanders, a professor of civil and environmental engineering. Sanders is an expert in water, specifically flooding and erosion. One of the projects his team at UCI has been working on is to develop new models to estimate how well infrastructure can withstand compounding hazards of successive fire and flooding events — crucial information given the increasing size and recurrence of such calamities. ... Sanders’ colleague, assistant professor Tiirtha Banerjee, is also a civil and environmental engineer, but his area of expertise is wildfires, another immensely important area of study. ... Another one of their colleagues, assistant professor Christopher Olivares Martinez, is also focused on the impact of wildfires on water quality. … [Professor] Jun Wu, whose specialty is environmental health, is researching the effects of pollution and climate change on health. [Subscription required, you can request an electronic copy of the article by sending an email to communications@uci.edu.] Read More
‘Flooding Can Happen Anywhere’: Here’s How to Stay Safe
Verywell Health -
According to Brett Sanders, PhD, professor of civil and environmental engineering, urban planning, and public policy [as well as interim associate dean for undergraduate student affairs] at the University of California, Irvine, flooding, especially urban flooding, has become a growing problem. “We have seen a major uptick in floods over the past decade," Sanders tells Verywell. "We have a history of hurricanes in the U.S. from Katrina, to Harvey, to Sandy." Read More
The Top 20 Coolest Schools 2021
Sierra Magazine -
2. University of California, Irvine
The Anteaters are in their own category in that they've ranked among Sierra's top 10 Cool Schools for 12 years in a row. And for good reason: UCI offers more than 150 sustainability-related programs and initiatives, 21 buildings are LEED Platinum, and the campus Pump2Plug program has been so successful that this summer, Secretary of Labor Marty Walsh visited UCI to learn more about how to implement sustainable vehicle infrastructure. (Since the program's launch in 2016, more than 350 participants have switched to electric vehicles and the campus boasts almost 200 EV charging stations.) Read More
The Anteaters are in their own category in that they've ranked among Sierra's top 10 Cool Schools for 12 years in a row. And for good reason: UCI offers more than 150 sustainability-related programs and initiatives, 21 buildings are LEED Platinum, and the campus Pump2Plug program has been so successful that this summer, Secretary of Labor Marty Walsh visited UCI to learn more about how to implement sustainable vehicle infrastructure. (Since the program's launch in 2016, more than 350 participants have switched to electric vehicles and the campus boasts almost 200 EV charging stations.) Read More
UCI study of traffic sensors to use city of Irvine streets
The Orange County Register -
Several roadways and intersections in Irvine are on the verge of getting a lot smarter thanks to a study of emerging technologies being conducted by the UC Irvine Samueli School of Engineering and the city. … Twenty-five intersections in the city, including nine on the UCI campus, will be equipped with next-generation traffic sensors designed to collect data in real time, with the information being used to implement instant adjustments to the flow of traffic, … The advanced sensors will be able to detect the traffic flow and then respond by adjusting the length of time a traffic light stays red, green or yellow, UCI Engineering Professor Scott Samuelsen, the principal investigator of the study, said. [Subscription required, campus-wide access provided by UCI Libraries. Sign-up here: https://guides.lib.uci.edu/news/ocregister] Read More
Converging AI and microfluidics for innovative diagnostic solutions
NS Medical Devices -
The convergence of AI and microfluidics is opening new doors every day. A group of electrical engineers, computer scientists and biomedical engineers at the University of California-Irvine recently reported the development of a new lab-on-a-chip using AI, microfluidics and nanoparticle inkjet printing that can improve the study of tumour heterogeneity, potentially enabling new approaches for reducing resistance to cancer therapies. Read More
For Many, Hydrogen Is the Fuel of the Future. New Research Raises Doubts.
The New York Times -
Jack Brouwer, director of the National Fuel Cell Research Center at the University of California, Irvine, said that hydrogen would ultimately need to be made using renewable energy to produce what the industry calls green hydrogen, which uses renewable energy to split water into its constituent parts, hydrogen and oxygen. That, he said, would eliminate the fossil and the methane leaks. [Subscription required, campus-wide access provided by UCI Libraries. Sign-up here: https://guides.lib.uci.edu/nytimes] Read More
Cities in Japan, Southern California showing the world that hydrogen is the future
KABC-7 -
The University of California at Irvine is leading the way in understanding hydrogen and its many uses. "We are standing at the precipice of an important realization that the world is coming to," says Dr. Jack Brouwer, director of the National Fuel Cell Research Center at UCI. "If we really want to achieve zero emissions in all sectors of the economy, we absolutely need hydrogen to do it," he adds. [starts at 2:20] Read More
Iran water: What's causing the shortages?
BBC News -
The amount of rainfall in Iran's main river basins between September 2020 and July 2021 was, in most places, substantially lower compared to the same period last year …. Researchers in the United States have gathered data using satellite imagery. This data compares rainfall up to March of this year against the 40-year average. The first three months of 2021 were all well below that average, according to the Center for Hydrometeorology at the University of California Irvine. Read More