Media Watch
Future of housing? Solar Decathlon kicks off Thursday in Irvine with new takes on sustainable living
The Orange County Register -
As sea levels rise and natural disasters devastate towns, collegiate teams across the nation are focusing on sustainability and safety as they design the home of the future. The entry by Team Orange County, with participation by UC Irvine, Chapman University ... highlights the importance of conserving water, with a xeriscaped garden irrigated by recycled greywater.
Today in L.A.
NBC 4 -
This out of UC Irvine. … A paralyzed man is able to walk thanks to amazing technology and a dedicated team.
How a paralyzed man walked again
Time -
The breakthrough was the work of a team led by Zoran Nenadic, an associate professor in biomedical engineering at the University of California, Irvine, who took advantage of the fact that while a spinal cord injury severs the neural connection to the legs, it does no damage at all to the region of the brain that is responsible for sending the command that gets the legs moving in the first place.
Paralyzed man walks again using signals transmitted from his brain to his legs
BuzzFeed -
Dr. Zoran Nenadic, a neurologist at the University of California, [Irvine], said in a statement: “We’ve been able to, for the first time, allow a person to walk hands-free without pressing buttons. It’s a short distance, of course, but in terms of significance, it’s a very exciting step.”
Paralyzed man moves legs using brain-reading device
BBC -
The researchers at the University of California, Irvine, used a brain-computer interface to bypass the damage in a man who had been paralyzed for five years. … One of the researchers, Dr. An Do, said: "We showed that you can restore intuitive, brain-controlled walking after a complete spinal cord injury.”
15 solar-powered homes designed for the Solar Decathlon
Digital Trends -
As part of the U.S. Department of Energy Solar Decathlon, 15 schools are competing to design and build operational solar-powered houses. ... University of California, Irvine, Chapman University, Irvine Valley College, and Saddleback College ... Considering its southern California location, it’s not surprising the Casa Del Sol has drought-resilient landscaping.
Increasingly, droughts and heat waves are happening at the same time
The Christian Science Monitor -
California's four-year drought is a case in point, says Amir AghaKouchak, a civil engineer at the University of California, Irvine and the new study's senior author. Looking only at 2014 and using precipitation as the indicator, "it is a serious drought, but it is not that extreme," he says.
Feature: Saving Iran's great salt lake
Science -
Some Iranian officials have tended to blame the weather – droughts and rising temperatures. But others concede that policy has had a major impact. Water management in the basin “has played the central role in the lake’s demise,” says Soroosh Sorooshian, director of the Center for Hydrometeorology and Remote Sensing at the University of California, Irvine.
Partners in crime: U.S. heat waves, droughts occurring together more frequently
USA Today -
The double whammy of overlapping droughts and heat waves is happening more frequently than it used to, according to a new study by climate scientists. “Heat waves can kill people and crops while worsening air quality, and droughts exacerbate those serious impacts,” said lead author Amir AghaKouchak, an environmental engineer from the University of California, Irvine.
Water and climate: Recognize anthropogenic drought
Nature -
California's current extreme drought must be a lesson for managing water in a warmer, more densely populated world, say Amir AghaKouchak and colleagues. ... Amir AghaKouchak is an assistant professor in the Center for Hydrology and Remote Sensing, ... David Feldman is a professor in the Department of Planning, Policy and Design, ...and Travis Huxman is a professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology [at UCI.]