Media Watch
Turning trash to electricity in Orange County
Spectrum News 1 -
In 2021, the agency said the landfill in Irvine produced about 154,000 megawatt hours of energy and the landfill in Brea produced about 210,000 megawatt hours, for about a combined total amount of energy to provide electricity to about 50,000 homes. You’ll hear from the executive director of the agency and [Vincent McDonell, adjunct] professor from the University of California, Irvine who is an expert in energy systems about what he thinks about the trash-to-energy system. Read More
Rahim Esfandyar-Pour, University of California, Irvine – A Health Monitoring Wearable Operates Without a Battery
The Academic Minute -
Removing batteries from wearable tech can open it up to more people. Rahim Esfandyar-Pour, assistant professor of electrical engineering and computer science and biomedical engineering at the University of California, Irvine, explores how to do so. Read More
A Health-Monitoring ‘Wearable’ Without a Battery
Inside Higher Ed -
Removing batteries from wearable tech can open it up to more people. In today’s Academic Minute, Rahim Esfandyar-Pour of the University of California, Irvine, explores how to do so. Esfandyar-Pour is an assistant professor of electrical engineering and computer science and biomedical engineering at UC Irvine. A transcript of this podcast can be found here. Read More
The Celebratory Gesture That Is Said to Kill More People Annually Than Sharks
Grunge -
We humans, generally speaking, are rather hardy creatures. We may not have the great bulk of the elephant, the tough skin of the crocodile, or the formidable exoskeleton of the diabolical ironclad beetle, but we're rather resilient as a species. Incidentally, the latter, according to UCI professor David Kisailus (via Phys.org), is "a terrestrial beetle ... a little tank ... It can't fly away, so it just stays put and lets its specially designed armor take the abuse until the predator gives up." That's very tough. We're just relatively tough. This means, unfortunately, that we can die in a wide variety of quite implausible, statistically very unlikely ways. Read More
8 stunning SoCal sea caves to visit during the winter low tides
Los Angeles Times -
Brett F. Sanders, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at UC Irvine, studies flooding and erosion hazards. “Sea caves are always at risk of flash flooding from strong waves,” he says. “A big storm event can trigger an instability of the rock surrounding the cave, leading to a partial or even complete collapse of the cave.” Further, “with a big winter storm, the waves can be much bigger, which heightens the strength of currents in and out of the caves,” he says. [Subscription required, you can request an electronic copy of the article by sending an email to communications@uci.edu.] Read More
Successive atmospheric rivers test California’s infrastructure
Civil Engineering Source -
In some cases, another approach is “build more resilience to flooding,” particularly in areas near flood-prone waterways, says Brett Sanders, Ph.D., F.EMI, A.M.ASCE, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at the University of California, Irvine. … “That could mean that you offer resources to housing and to businesses that are along the stream and that have a higher likelihood of flooding,” Sanders says. … “Another possibility is that we invest as much as we can upstream to try to slow down the water before it gets into the channel,” Sanders says. “That's an investment in green spaces, in parks, in green infrastructure — natural resources that would let water infiltrate.” Read More
This Week on The Academic Minute (2023.01.23)
The Academic Minute -
Thursday. Rahim Esfandyar-Pour, assistant professor of electrical engineering and computer science and biomedical engineering at the University of California, Irvine, explores how creating a health monitoring wearable without a battery can help more people use them. Read More
Crystal Cove Conservancy finishes out 2022 with about $200,000 raised in end-of-year campaign
Daily Pilot -
Over the next year, the Crystal Cove Conservancy plans on collaborating with the UC Irvine Samueli School of Engineering for a kindergarten-to-college engineering program. “Over the next year, we’ll work together with our colleagues at UCI to develop curriculum goals, learning outcomes, and research partnerships, plus testing and piloting a program for at least one grade level,” [Kate] Wheeler said. [Subscription required, you can request an electronic copy of the article by sending an email to communications@uci.edu.] Read More
After the Deluge
Sierra Magazine -
With warmer temperatures, Southern California is particularly vulnerable to flooding from storms. A study by the University of California, Irvine, released last October and published in the journal Nature Sustainability revealed that flood risk is far more widespread than suggested by federal estimates, with low-income and marginalized communities including the homeless particularly at risk. … The UCI study also found that Black residents of LA County were 79 percent more likely than white residents to be living at risk of waist-high flooding, with Latinos and Asians 17 and 11 percent respectively more likely. Read More
After California’s deadly storms left towns and farmland flooded, residents are struggling to recover
NBC News -
“It’s going to take some time to reveal how bad this event is,” said Brett Sanders, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at the University of California, Irvine. “Consequences of natural disasters can linger for years, and often assistance comes too late for disadvantaged communities.” Sanders is among a handful of researchers at UCI studying how low-income neighborhoods are disproportionately at risk for and affected by flooding. He helped develop a high-resolution flood modeling platform that can assess risk every 10 feet across the 2,700-square-mile expanse of the greater Los Angeles basin. Read More