Media Watch
After landslide, an Orange County beach town finds itself between a bluff and a hard place
Los Angeles Times -
“If you invest in the beach and the sand protects the railroad, then the railroad protects the toe of the slope at Casa Romantica,” said Brett Sanders, a UC Irvine professor of civil and environmental engineering. “But then you have to think about the instability of the slope itself. There are different risks that have to be managed, and engineers can help.” [Subscription required, you can request an electronic copy of the article by sending an email to communications@uci.edu.] Read More
Squid Camouflage Inspires Human Invisibility: Is it Possible?
Discover Magazine -
Underneath the rubbery skin of a squid, you’ll find a community of cells and muscles that work together to create the color and texture changes these animals are known for. This buzzing cellular network is difficult to study, however, and marine biologists and other researchers failed to cultivate a squid’s skin cells in a laboratory setting for decades. Now, thanks to recent work done at the University of California, Irvine, a workaround for culturing similar skin cells has been achieved. … To [UCI associate] professor Alon Gorodetsky and his team, the reflectin proteins seemed the perfect biomolecule for forming similar particles in mammalian (human) cells. Read More
Irvine innovators making an impact
Irvine Standard -
Tibor Juhasz, CEO and founder, Vialase. Juhasz helped develop LASIK cornea surgery using femtosecond (a quadrillionth of a second) lasers, a technique that has helped 30 million people. The UCI professor of ophthalmology and biomedical engineering has since developed femtosecond surgery for cataracts and now is conducting clinical trials to treat glaucoma with femtosecond beams. Read More
Irvine innovators making an impact
Irvine Standard -
Rahim Esfandyar‑Pour, Assistant professor of electrical engineering and computer science and biomedical engineering, UC Irvine. Esfandyar-Pour and his team have invented a health-monitoring wearable many times thinner than a human hair – that operates without a battery. Read More
Irvine innovators making an impact
Irvine Standard -
Iryna Zenyuk, Associate professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering, UC Irvine. As director of UCI’s Zenyuk Lab, she pioneered a novel approach to convert and store electrochemical energy in an effort to reduce the world’s carbon footprint. Read More
LADWP prepares for flooding in the Eastern Sierra
Spectrum News 1 -
Multimedia journalist Christian Galeno spoke with a UC Irvine professor of civil and environmental engineering [Brett Sanders] and assistant GM of LADWP’s water division [Anselmo Collins] about LA’s infrastructure issues. Read More
'We're Not Prepared': Experts Call for Doubling Levee Protections as California Faces Increasing Floods
KQED -
As floodwaters recede, [Jeffery] Mount and Brett Sanders, his peer at UC Irvine, said this is the perfect time to rethink and update the state’s aging infrastructure to accommodate the future climate. Fewer than 10% of levees in the greater Bay Area have a federal risk rating, according to a KQED analysis of the National Levee Database. “The recent California storms showed us pretty clearly there’s a lot at risk and systems we think are there to protect us may not perform as we expect,” said Sanders, an engineering professor, of levees across the Central Valley and Central Coast that failed during winter storms. … “There will always be floods that are beyond the capacity of systems,” he said. “So, are we doing what we need to do to protect even those that aren’t protected?” Read More
UCI Receives $6M Grant to Study Jaw Joint Implant
Orange County Business Journal -
UCI said it received a $6 million grant from the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine to perform preclinical trial studies on jaw joint implant Hyaleon. Hyaleon, the main product of UCI-based startup Cartilage Inc., aims to treat adults living with a temporomandibular joint (TMJ) disorder. According to officials, about one in four adults suffer from a TMJ pathology, and up to 70% of cases involve displacement of the TMJ disk. “Total joint replacement is performed for end-stage cases, but this is considered to be a drastic step,” Kyriacos Athanasiou, a biomedical engineering researcher at UCI who led the development of Hyaleon, said in a statement. [Subscription required, you can request an electronic copy of the article by sending an email to communications@uci.edu.] Read More
3 Significant Benefits to Living in a Community Microgrid, and What That Even Means
Hunker -
Clean energy communities are very slowly popping up all over the country, including in Menifee, California, where KB Home recently launched two all-electric, solar, and battery-powered microgrid communities — the first in California — in partnership with solar solutions company SunPower, the University of California, Irvine, the U.S. Department of Energy, Southern California Edison, Schneider Electric, and Kia. Every home in these communities comes equipped with connecting solar panels, a solar-powered battery, and connection to the community's battery. When the sun is shining, each home generates its own electricity, which reduces or even eliminates the need to be connected to a traditional grid. Read More
Crystal Cove’s latest restoration focuses on past, but also a future facing climate change
The Orange County Register -
“Crystal Cove is a unique State Park in California because it is a place where we can contemplate the challenges of balancing environmental needs against cultural needs, against today’s recreational needs,” said Brett Sanders, a UC Irvine professor of civil and environmental engineering. “And realize that it’s not going to be easy.” [Subscription required, campus-wide access provided by UCI Libraries. Sign-up here: https://guides.lib.uci.edu/news/ocregister]. Read More