Media Watch
11 Scientific Advancements Inspired by Sci-Fi Stories
Mental Floss -
Alon Gorodetsky, an associate professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering at UC Irvine, is one of the scientists working on human invisibility. Gorodetsky says he was “inspired by a lot of science fiction-type stuff that I used to love as a kid ….” In a 2020 Nature Communications paper, Gorodetsky and a team of scientists outlined how they used a protein from the opalescent inshore squid, which—like many other cephalopods—can camouflage itself by changing color to match its environment, to turn human kidney cells almost completely transparent. Gorodetsky believes this is just the start; his goal is to “make human skin that can change its transparency, like squid skin.” Read More
AIAA Announces its Class of 2023 Associate Fellows
AIAA -
The American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) is pleased to announce its newly elected Class of 2023 Associate Fellows. … The grade of Associate Fellow recognizes individuals “who have accomplished or been in charge of important engineering or scientific work, or who have done original work of outstanding merit, or who have otherwise made outstanding contributions to the arts, sciences, or technology of aeronautics or astronautics.” … Class of 2023 AIAA Associate Fellows: … Haithem Taha, [associate professor of mechanical & aerospace engineering], University of California, Irvine …. Read More
Startups & Innovations - New Hires
Orange County Business Journal -
Vialase Inc., an Aliso Viejo glaucoma-focused medtech startup, has hired executives to its board and C-suite. … The company’s CEO, Tibor Juhasz, previously cofounded Irvine medtech company IntraLase, which harnessed similar laser technology. Juhasz is currently a biomedical engineering [and ophthalmology] professor at University of California, Irvine. [Subscription required, you can request an electronic copy of the article by sending an email to communications@uci.edu.] Read More
Startups & Innovations - Funding
Orange County Business Journal -
ValVention Inc., an Irvine cardiovascular device company, received a $350,000 grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The funding supports the study of ValVention’s FoldaValve, a transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR) system, which can help restore blood flow to patients suffering from aortic valve stenosis – a disease in which the heart valve narrows and reduces blood flow to the body. … The device originated at California Institute of Technology and was developed at University of California, Irvine by Professor of [Biomedical] Engineering and Medicine Arash Kheradvar. [Subscription required, you can request an electronic copy of the article by sending an email to communications@uci.edu.] Read More
Sick Beats: Using Music and Smartphone to Attack a Biosafety Room
Hackaday -
As it turns out, perhaps one who has read a new paper on the potential for hacking biosafety rooms using music. The work was done by University of California Irvine researchers [Anomadarshi Barua], [Yonatan Gizachew Achamyeleh], and [Engineering Professor Mohammad Abdullah Al Faruque], and focuses on the negative pressure rooms found in all sorts of facilities, but are of particular concern where they are used to prevent pathogens from escaping into the world at large. Read More
Best of Last Week—New map of universe, smart home vulnerabilities and young people at risk of hearing loss
Science X -
In technology news, a team of researchers at the University of California, Irvine, discovered a way to use music to trigger a deadly pathogen release—a finding that showed that people working in negative-pressure rooms could be easily put at risk by criminals using smartphones. Read More
A Southern California town reckons with its disappearing beaches
MarketPlace -
Sand helps buffer the coast from storms …. It keeps the waves from digging into the base of coastal bluffs. So what happened to all that sand? The ocean has been sucking up sand faster than it can be replaced, according to Brett Sanders, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at the University of California, Irvine. Besides storm surges and sea-level rise, there’s also an inland side to the problem, he said. “We’ve kind of been slowly starving our coasts of the sediment supply that it needs to be healthy and resilient,” Sanders said. Read More
GATC Aims to Slash Time for Drug Testing
Orange County Business Journal -
An Irvine-based startup [GATC Health Corp.] is trying to convince investors that it can use artificial intelligence to dramatically reduce the time needed to show if a drug can work in a clinical trial. … In addition to landing a sizeable amount of funding, the company has attracted several notable board members, advisers and employees, and has close ties to researchers at the University of California, Irvine. … “Their scientific leadership are incredibly intelligent individuals who have experience in the field,” Dr. Jonathan Lakey, a professor emeritus in surgery and biomedical engineering at UCI, told the Business Journal. … GATC announced a partnership with Dr. Christie Fowler, an [associate] professor of neurobiology at UCI, for pre-clinical programs to determine the novel drug candidates’ safety and efficacy in reducing opioid consumption, withdrawal symptoms and relapse. [Subscription required, you can request an electronic copy of the article by sending an email to communications@uci.edu.] Read More
Is This Experimental Green Suburb the Future of Single-Family Housing?
Bloomberg -
Some homeowners will have one more option during a blackout: using their car to charge their house. … These homeowners can participate in a three-year trial to lease Kia EV6 crossovers imported from South Korea that have bi-directional batteries, according to Scott Samuelsen, [Founding Director, Advanced Power and Energy Program and a] professor of mechanical, aerospace and environmental engineering at UC Irvine, which will design and manage the experiment. Read More
What is hydroelectric energy and how does it work?
The Conversation -
Brian Tarroja, UCI associate professional researcher and lecturer of civil and environmental engineering writes, “Hydropower facilities capture the energy in flowing water by using a device called a turbine. As water runs over the blades of a turbine – kind of like a giant pinwheel – they spin. This spinning turbine is connected to a shaft that spins inside a device called a generator, which uses an effect called induction to convert energy in the spinning shaft to electricity.” Read More