Media Watch Archives

"In general, there's two ways you can achieve transparency," UC Irvine's Alon Gorodetsky, associate professor, chemical & biomolecular engineering], who has been fascinated by squid camouflage for the last decade or so, said during a media briefing at the ACS meeting. "One way is by reducing how much light is absorbed—pigment-based coloration, typically. Another way is by changing how light is scattered, typically by modifying differences in the refractive index." The latter is the focus of his lab's research. Read More

For many years, Alon Gorodetsky, Ph.D., [associate professor, chemical & biomolecular engineering] 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. Read More

Typically, scientists use animals to study humans, but researchers at the University of California, Irvine reversed the system in their newest research. At the American Chemical Society 2023 meeting, researchers detailed how they used human cells to better understand squid camouflage. … “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,” said PI [and Associate Professor] Alon Gorodetsky, whose research group has been working on materials inspired by squid. The team at the University of California, Irvine focused their efforts on cephalopod cells called leucophores, which have particulate-like nanostructures composed of reflecting proteins that scatter light. Read More

A UC Irvine engineer is breaking a Guinness World Record using a drone and an internet connection. Under the direction of Peter Burke, [professor of electrical engineering and computer science], a drone in Irvine, California, was remotely operated by a pilot 11,000 miles away on a French island in the Indian Ocean. This new technology can be used in a variety of applications from rescue missions and railway safety inspections to water, forest and land surveying. [Starts :52] Read More