In the News

— December 2, 2024 —

Temporary Scalp e-Tattoos That Scan Brain Waves Could Replace Traditional EEGs Forever
by ZME Science

Ximin He, an associate professor of materials science and engineering, shares her insight into a long-lasting, personalized and non-invasive brain-computer interface created with flexible, conductive polymer-based ink.
The team envisions a future where even these short wires are unnecessary. “This tweak allowed the printed wires to conduct signals without picking up new signals along the way,” says Ximin He, a co-author from the University of California, Los Angeles. Their next step is to embed wireless transmitters directly into the tattoos.
* Similar stories carried in UPI, World Today News, The Engineer (UK).

— November 29, 2024 —

5 Big Questions About How Tech Will Look Under Trump
by CNN

Electrical and computer engineering professor John Villasenor, who co-directs the UCLA Institute for Technology, Law and Policy weighs in on new AI policy changes under the incoming Trump Administration.
*Also carried on Aol, Apply Valley News

— November 22, 2024 —

California School Districts Likely Underreporting Cyberattacks, Report Says
by San Bernardino Sun

UCLA adjunct professor emeritus of computer science and network security specialist Peter Reiher comments on recent reports of cyberattacks in the California school system.
*Also carried on Pasadena Star News, Riverside Press-Enterprise, and LA Daily News

— November 18, 2024 —

Robot ‘Better Than Messi’ Will be Playing World Cup Teams Soon, Say Scientists
by Daily Star

Engineers tell Messi to watch out, as they create a football-kicking robot which can replace humans in the beautiful game as it aims for World Cup glory in a few years
READ MORE

— November 12, 2024 —

Time Climate 100: Gaurav Sant. Equatic
by Time

Gaurav Sant is the founder of Equatic, a startup building North America’s first commercial-scale ocean-based carbon removal facility. Led by Sant, who is also the Director of UCLA’s Institute for Carbon Management, Equatic enhances the ocean’s natural ability to trap and store carbon by running an electrical current through captured seawater at its facility.
* Use campus story for newsletter, or school story if also posted.

— November 1, 2024 —

Can Legislation Combat the Surge of Non-Consensual Deepfake Porn?
by USA Today

John Villasenor, professor of electrical engineering, shares his insights on the technical limitations and legal guardrails around AI-generated deepfakes.
Unfortunately, there’s no way to put the AI-generated, deepfake genie back in the bottle. Is there any way to fight this tidal wave of illicit and in many places, illegal content?

— October 29, 2024 —

‘We were just trying to get it to work’: The Failure That Started the Internet
by BBC

The BBC interviews Charley Kline, a graduate of UCLA Distinguished Professor of Computer Science Leonard Kleinrock’s lab, about the development of the internet-precursor ARPANET at UCLA and the first message ever transmitted over it. Kline sat at his keyboard between the lime-green walls of UCLA’s Boelter Hall Room 3420, prepared to connect with Duvall, who was working a computer halfway across the state of California. But Kline didn’t even make it all the way through the word “L-O-G-I-N” before Duvall told him over the phone that his system crashed. Thanks to that error, the first “message” that Kline sent Duvall on that autumn day in 1969 was simply the letters “L-O”.

— October 28, 2024 —

Novel Liquid Acoustic Sensor Mimics Whale Melon to Recognize Voices in Noisy Environments
by Tech Xplore

Researchers at University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), recently developed an innovative liquid acoustic sensor that, combined with machine learning, can recognize voices with high accuracy even in noisy environments. This sensor, presented in a paper in Nature Electronics, draws inspiration from a fatty organ located in the forehead of many whale species, including dolphins and sperm whales…”Our work is inspired by the melon in whales, a fatty (i.e., adipose) tissue located in the whale’s forehead,” Jun Chen, corresponding author of the paper, told Tech Xplore. “The melon focuses and modulates vocalizations used in echolocation, matching the acoustic properties of its tissue to the surrounding water to allow sound to travel with minimal energy loss.”

*Also carried on Electronics For You, and Eureka (UK)*

— October 24, 2024 —

Can Researchers Use AI to Take Microscopy to the Next Level?
by Chemical & Engineering News

Aydogan Ozcan, UCLA’s Volgenau Chair for Engineering Innovation, explains how virtual staining powered by his deep learning program could allow pathologists to more efficiently test tissue biopsies for multiple diseases. In clinical settings, pathologists rely on stained tissues to make life-changing diagnoses for patients. In Aydogan Ozcan’s laboratory at the University of California, Los Angeles, researchers are taking a different approach. His team is working to replace the chemical specificity of molecular stains with the pattern recognition of AI. His ultimate goal: replace chemical staining with virtual staining, sending the former into obsolescence.

— October 9, 2024 —

California Hospitals Scramble on Earthquake Retrofits as State Limits Extensions
by LA Times

Jonathan Stewart, professor of civil and environmental engineering shared his insight on the need to further stabilize hospitals against earthquakes. “The importance of it is hard to argue with,” said Jonathan Stewart, a professor at UCLA’s Samueli School of Engineering, citing a 2023 earthquake in Turkey that damaged or destroyed multiple hospitals. “There were a number of hospitals that were intact but not usable. That’s better than a collapsed structure. But still not what you need at a time of emergency like that.”

*Also carried on Yahoo!News and Aol.com*

— October 8, 2024 —

These beaches are among LA’s favourites. But they’re fake
by BBC

“Sand dunes play an important role in coastal erosion because they serve as a barrier to wave run-up and overtopping,” says Timu Gallien, a civil and environmental engineering associate professor at the University of California, Los Angeles. “So, when you have large wave events that coincide with high tide, those waves in many cases would be able to overwash the beach.

— October 7, 2024 —

Immune-based Treatment Gets a Boost to its Cancer-Fighting Superpowers
by UCLA Health

Yu Huang, materials science and engineering professor and Traugott and Dorothea Frederking Endowed Chair, and her team at CNSI recently published research into boosting T cells to improve their ability to fight cancerous cells. “Our interface bridges the gap between the laboratory and actual conditions inside the body, allowing us to gain insights much more relevant to real-world biological processes,” said co-corresponding author Yu Huang, the Traugott and Dorothea Frederking Professor of Engineering at the UCLA Samueli School of Engineering and a member of the California NanoSystems Institute at UCLA (CNSI). “Beyond T cell therapies, we can apply this technology to a variety of fields including tissue engineering and regenerative medicine.”

*Also carried on Med India*

The AI Revolution: It’s Here. It’s Going to change Life as We Know it. Are You Ready? Are You Sure?
by UCLA Magazine

Distinguished professor of computer science Judea Pearl and Electrical and computer engineering professor John Villasenor, who directs the UCLA Institute for Technology, Law, and Policy, are among those featured in the magazine’s campus-encompassing feature story on where artificial intelligence is headed, and what that could mean.

AR/VR Can Help Extend Critical Infrastructure Lifespan
by Eureka Magazine

New research conducted by professors at the University of Waterloo in Canada, with UCLA civil and environmental engineering professor Sriram Narasimhan outlines new augmented reality/virtual reality (AR/VR) imaging techniques to advance infrastructure inspection. In a key experiment focused on a railway bridge in Kitchener, Ontario, the team created a three-dimensional model of the structure using 3-D scanners and a panorama camera. It allowed the accurate tracking of the location and head position of both the on-site and off-site inspectors within the 3-D map.

— October 6, 2024 —

Paper-Based Sensor Offers Rapid Cardiac Diagnostics in 15 Minutes
by Phys.org

Aydogan Ozcan, professor of electrical and computer engineering and the Volgenau Chair for Engineering Innovation, and his team have developed a cardiac monitoring tool that could help resource-limited areas with faster diagnostics of heart attacks and other time-sensitive medical issues using deep learning.

— October 4, 2024 —

Computer Scientists Combine Two ‘Beautiful’ Proof Methods
by Quanta Magazine

As Amit Sahai, a computer scientist at the University of California, Los Angeles, put it, “If the chance that something is not correct is less than one out of the number of particles in the universe, it seems reasonable for us to call that a proof.” In principle, removing interactivity is straightforward. “The prover lists out all the possible challenges he could ever get from the verifier, and then just writes out all of his answers ahead of time,” Sahai said.

— October 3, 2024 —

Brain-controlled Bionic Limbs are Inching Closer to Reality
by Science News

Tyler Clites, an assistant professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering and bioengineering, discussed emerging views in the bionics field, where the body itself is considered as a part of the machine, rather than one to be worked around.

— September 29, 2024 —

Instructions to Make the Sun: How the Race for Nuclear Fusion Has Accelerated
by El Pais

Jaime Marian, a professor of materials science and engineering discussed the current challenging workforce landscape in the fusion field across the globe.

— September 27, 2024 —

Podcast EP249: A Conversation with Dr. Jason Cong, the 2024 Phil Kaufman Award Winner
by SemiWiki and Semiconductor Insiders

The podcast features a detailed conversation with Computer Science Professor Jason Cong, UCLA’s Volgenau Chair for Engineering Excellence Professor, covering his pioneering contributions to the semiconductor field as well as his long teaching career at UCLA.

Video Friday: ICRA Turns 40
by IEEE Spectrum

A UCLA team led by mechanical and aerospace engineering professor Dennis Hong saw their ultra-versatile climbing robot featured in IEEE Spectrum’s weekly robot video feature.

— September 19, 2024 —

Forbes Sustainability Leaders
by Forbes

Gaurav Sant, joint professor of civil and environmental engineering and materials science and engineering, Pritzker Professor of Sustainability and Director of UCLA’s Institute for Carbon Management, is among 50 sustainability superstars highlighted by Forbes inaugural list of entrepreneurs, scientists, funders, policymakers and activists leading the fight against climate change.

The Breakthrough That Could Unlock Ocean Carbon Removal
by Heatmap

Equatic co-founders, UCLA civil and environmental engineering professor, Gaurav Sant, and former UCLA researcher Xin Chen, used an ARPA-E grant to fund the development of a seawater electrolysis system that isolates carbon dioxide from the air and processes it into solid blocks destined for the ocean while also producing hydrogen.

L.A. Courthouses Crumble With ‘Run to Failure’ Maintenance
by Bloomberg Law

UCLA adjunct professor of civil and environmental engineering Thomas Sabol shares his insight on the seismic ratings of some of California’s public buildings.

— September 18, 2024 —

A Shape-Shifting Metamaterial Inspired by Push Puppets
by Tech Briefs

UCLA Samueli professor of electrical and computer engineering and mechanical and aerospace engineering Ankur Mehta and post-doctoral scholar Wenzhong Yan were interviewed in an article in Tech Briefs, highlighting their development of a new type of metamaterial useful in soft robotics, reconfigurable architectures and space engineering.

— September 13, 2024 —

Dr. Jason Cong to be Honored With 2024 Phil Kaufman Award
by Semiconductor Digest

Jason Cong, Distinguished Professor and Volgenau Chair for Engineering Excellence at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), will be honored with the 2024 Phil Kaufman Award for distinguished contributions to Electronic System Design (ESD).
* Also carried in EE Times Asia.

— September 8, 2024 —

News Report (MuckRack Radio Clip)
by KCBS Radio

“We have to use first, an imaging system to take an image of those Razo spots, and then we use the machine learning AI tool to interpret that array of different patterns in the spots,” said Bioengineering Professor Dino Di Carlo during a short segment on the Lyme disease test that he, Electrical and Computer Engineering Professor Aydogan Ozcan and colleagues developed.

— September 2, 2024 —

Korea Should Resolve R&D Budget Issues to Regain Trust
by Pulse by Maeil Business News Korea

Dean Ah-Hyung “Alissa” Park, the Ronald and Valerie Sugar Dean of UCLA Samueli School of Engineering, discussed international cooperation in the field of research and development with deans from engineering schools representing Korea and the United States during the U.S.-Korea Conference 2024 conference, held last month in San Francisco.

— September 1, 2024 —

AI and Photonics: United by Necessity
by SPIE

Aydogan Ozcan, UCLA’s Volgenau Professor for Engineering Innovation, was interviewed on how data science and machine learning will revolutionize the optics and photonics fields.

— August 31, 2024 —

Lithium Startups Bet on High Demand in Battery-Powered Future
by Bloomberg

David Jassby, a professor of civil and environmental engineering and co-founder of a lithium extraction startup, that uses membranes to filter out the metal from industrial brines, was quoted on the challenges ahead and the company’s approach.

— August 27, 2024 —

The Cool Technologies that Could Protect Cities from Dangerous Heat
by Nature

The first supercool material was designed in 2014 when Aaswath Raman, a materials scientist now at the University of California, Los Angeles, was conducting research at Stanford University, also in California. He and his colleagues created a cooling surface that was highly reflective at the visible wavelengths where the Sun’s radiation peaks, and emissive in the mid-infrared.

— August 23, 2024 —

A Mechanism That Transfers Energy from Nitrogen to Argon Enables Bidirectional Cascaded Lasing in Atmospheric Air
by Phys.org

Researchers at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) and Max Born Institute recently unveiled a physical mechanism that leads to this phenomenon. This mechanism, outlined in a paper in Physical Review Letters, consists of the photon-mediated transfer of energy from nitrogen (N2) to argon (Ar). “We noticed that there appeared to be a previously unknown reduction in the ionization rate of Ar in the high field ionization regime (using a 261 nm pump laser) compared to that predicted by the PPT theory or time-dependent Schrödinger equation,” Chan Joshi, co-author of the paper, told Phys.org.

— August 12, 2024 —

Don’t Stand in the Door Frame: What to do in an Earthquake
by The Guardian

People have long believed they should rush to a door frame, but that advice is outdated and only applied before building codes were improved. “People worry about structural collapse but it’s really all the shelves and books and TVs and the non-structural components that pose a bigger hazard for human health,” Dr Scott Brandenberg, an earthquake engineer and professor at UCLA, said.

Cheaper Way to Passively Heat and Cool Homes on Horizon
by COSMOS Magazine

“If we look at historical cities like Santorini in Greece or Jodhpur in India, we find that cooling buildings by making roofs and walls reflect sunlight has been practiced for centuries,” says Aaswath Raman, associate professor of materials science and engineering at the University of California – Los Angeles in the US, who led the research.

— July 26, 2024 —

New Method for 3D Quantitative Phase Imaging Eliminates Need for Digital Phase Recovery Algorithms
by Science and Tech Post

A study from the University of California, Los Angeles, published in Advanced Photonics introduces a cutting-edge approach to 3D Quantitative Phase Imaging (QPI) using a wavelength-multiplexed diffractive optical processor… “We are excited about the potential of this new approach for biomedical imaging and sensing,” said Aydogan Ozcan, lead researcher and Chancellor’s Professor at UCLA.
*Also carried on Morning News, SPIE, Phys.org and on this paid announcement on PRLog

— July 23, 2024 —

Device May Help Disabled Vocal Cords Speak Again
by Voice of America

Associate professor of bioengineering Jun Chen explains how he and his team of researchers at UCLA developed a non-invasive wearable device to help the vocally-impaired speak.

— July 8, 2024 —

Impossible Aerogel That Reflects More Visible Light Than It Receives Prompts Skepticism
by Chemistry World

Aaswath Raman, associate professor of materials science and engineering, voiced his doubts on the optical properties of a new hydrogel reported in published results. Other researchers, however, have expressed concerns about the findings. (Aaswath) Raman, now at University of California, Los Angeles, says that ‘it is certainly an interesting material’, but he takes issue with the 104% reflectance figure.

— July 4, 2024 —

New Diffractive Camera Hides Images from View
by Physics World

UCLA researchers, led by electrical and computer engineering professor Aydogan Ozcan, have developed an alternative based on steganography, which aims to hide information by concealing it within ordinary-looking “dummy” patterns.

A Fresh Roadside Pit Revealed a Dramatic Shift in the Ganges. Scientists Say They’ve Traced the Cause
by CNN

Civil and environmental engineering professor Jonathan Stewart provides expert commentary on a study published in Nature Communications about earthquakes and shifting waterways.

“From an engineering point of view, this is something that we do worry a lot about, the stability of our waterways,” said Jonathan Stewart, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at UCLA who was not involved with the project. He said that the study was “useful from several perspectives,” providing more information about how frequently large earthquakes occur in Bangladesh and which areas might be affected if a major one happens again.
*Also carried on AOL

— June 23, 2024 —

Study Reveals Worrying Discovery About Microplastic Pollution: ‘More Likely to be … Spread by Wind Than Soil Particles’
by Yahoo.com

Sanjay Mohanty, an associate professor, led the research team that uncovered new evidence about the transmission of microplastics from wastewater. Using portable wind tunnels, they collected sediment samples from fields in Lind, Washington, and published their findings in the American Chemical Society’s Environmental Science & Technology Letters.

— June 18, 2024 —

Carbon Removal Startup Equatic to Build a $100 Million Plant to Cut 100,000 Tons of CO2
by Forbes

Equatic, a cleantech startup spun out of UCLA last year that says it can remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere affordably while simultaneously making green hydrogen, is moving to commercialize the system with a large-scale $100 million plant in Quebec. For the plant, the Los Angeles-based company, cofounded by Gaurav Sant, director of UCLA’s Institute for Carbon Management and a professor of environmental engineering, is partnering with Deep Sky, a Canadian company that’s developing multiple carbon removal projects. Located on the St. Lawrence Seaway, it’s to open as early as 2026 and be scaled to remove more than 100,000 metric tons of CO2 annually while also generating 3,600 metric tons of hydrogen the company can sell.

— June 8, 2024 —

Building Inclusive AI with ‘Break Through Tech AI’ Program
by Spectrum News 1

Break Through Tech AI, which is based at the UCLA Samueli School of Engineering and is open to any second and third year undergraduate students in Southern California, is featured in this Spectrum News LA piece.

— June 7, 2024 —

Plant-Based Nutrition
by PBS Environmental Connections

UCLA professor of civil and environmental engineering Dr. Jennifer Jay shares her expertise on inefficiency and pollution in animal-based products and factory farms.
*Timestamp is 15:14 – 16:24 and 21:53 – 22:30.

— June 6, 2024 —

THE VAULT GUY
by Science

From a small office at UCLA’s California NanoSystems Institute (CNSI), which he (Leonard Rome) helped design and, for a period, directed, he spends his days consulting on vault research with other UCLA labs, as well as the small Vault Pharma team. UCLA environmental engineer Shaily Mahendra years ago became a vault convert, loading the synthetic ones with enzymes designed to break down groundwater contaminants. She and Rome now have backing from foundations and federal agencies to see whether the encapsulation helps the enzymes work better and last longer when dispersed across land or in water.

— June 4, 2024 —

Accelerating AI: The Cutting-edge Chips Powering the Computing Revolution
by Nature

Jason (Jingsheng) Cong, a distinguished professor of computer science at UCLA, shares his expertise on graphics processing units and field-programmable gate arrays (FPGA). An FPGA that Cong designed to align genomic data faster than a CPU could potentially boost computational efficiency and contribute to smaller and faster hardware.

— June 1, 2024 —

Evaluating Tumor Heterogeneity with a High Throughput Pipeline
by The Scientist

A pair of researchers at the UCLA David Geffen School of Medicine, Alice Soragni and Michael Teitell, who has a faculty appointment in Bioengineering, saw their proof-of-concept study into new automated 3D screening models featured in the life sciences magazine.

— May 24, 2024 —

Introducing the Sixth Cohort of Bloomberg Data Science Ph.D. Fellows (2023-2024)
by Bloomberg

UCLA computer science graduate student Pan Lu has been named a Bloomberg Data Science Ph.D. Fellow. He works on expanding the capabilities of large language models.

— May 20, 2024 —

The UCLA Scientist Helping to Create the Next Big Climate Startups
by Bloomberg

Feature on CEE prof. Gaurav Sant and UCLA Institute for Carbon Management

— May 17, 2024 —

‘More Neanderthal Than Human‘: How Your Health May Depend on DNA From Our Long–Lost Ancestors
by Live Science

UCLA professor of computer science, human genetics and computational medicine Sriram Sankararaman discusses how Neanderthal DNA has interacted with and lingered in modern human DNA and its possible effects.
*Also carried by American Talk, News Net Daily.

— May 15, 2024 —

A.I. Program Aims to Break Barriers for Female Students
by New York Times

Break Through Tech, a new AI-focused program aimed at students attending public institutions like California State University campuses, is reducing barriers to tech careers for underrepresented college students, including lower-income, Latina and Black young women. It is led by UCLA, MIT and Cornell Tech.

— May 6, 2024 —

Earthquake Map Shows Biggest Global Tremors in 2024 So Far
by Newsweek

Civil and environmental engineering professor Jonathan Stewart comments on frequency and magnitude of 2024 earthquakes, explaining potential and current research topics.
*Also carried on Ex Bulletin.

— May 3, 2024 —

Getting Serious About Energy Storage
by ABC (Australia): The Science Show

Chemistry and biochemistry, and materials science and engineering professor Sarah Tolbert talks about the U.S. Department of Energy-funded project STORE (Center for Strain Optimization for Renewable Energy) headquartered at UCLA that focuses on optimizing battery capacity and cost.

— May 2, 2024 —

1 Year After Cyberattack, San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department has yet to Fully Recover
by San Bernardino County Sun

Adjunct computer science professor emeritus Peter Reiher talks about common methods used in cyber attacks on the one-year anniversary of a hack on the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department.
*The article is behind a paywall, also on Government Technology

Patagonia is Cracking the Code on Endlessly Recyclable Wetsuits
by Bloomberg

Civil and environmental engineering assistant professor Fabian Rosner discusses the significance of his paper on recycling carbon black, a key ingredient in wetsuits.
*Carried in Taipei Times as well

— April 26, 2024 —

Video Friday: RACER Heavy > Your Weekly Selection of Awesome Robot Videos
by IEEE Spectrum

Mechanical and aerospace engineering professor Dennis Hong and his research group RoMeLA share the progress of their humanoid robot Artemis in the publication’s weekly Robot Friday video compilation.

— April 25, 2024 —

Mega-Warehouses Heap More Pollution on Hard-Hit Illinois Neighborhoods
by The Guardian

Assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering at UCLA, Regan Patterson shares how the rollout of electric heavy-duty trucks should be prioritized to areas most affected by air pollution, such as low-income neighborhoods and communities of color.

— April 22, 2024 —

Science Leads in Addressing Climate Crisis
by US Black Engineer

Regan Patterson, an assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering, shares her expertise on several scientific issues related to climate change on a panel convened by Career Communications Group (CCG), the publisher of US Black Engineer.

— April 18, 2024 —

AI’s Keen Diagnostic Eye
by Nature

With AI-assisted virtual staining, Aydogan Ozcan, an optical engineer at the University of California, Los Angeles, says he can take an image using a mobile phone attached to a microscope and then, despite the image’s limited resolution and distortion, teach a neural network to make it look as if it was created by a laboratory-grade instrument.

Wearable Patch Offers Voice to the Voiceless
by ASME

Giving two-hour-long lectures twice a week can really wear on your voice—something that Jun Chen, an assistant professor of bioengineering at the UCLA Samueli School of Engineering and Wearable Bioelectronics Research Group lead, realized as his lecture schedule grew after coming to UCLA in 2019.

— April 13, 2024 —

The Happy Pod: The Centenarian Stargazer
by BBC Global News Podcast

Newsletter: In this episode, Jun Chen, an assistant professor of bioengineering, shares his progress on a non-invasive vocal patch, which could help to give a voice to people with damaged vocal cords. Starts at 13:03.

— April 11, 2024 —

What Would Happen if the ‘Big One’ Hit California? Video Shows How 7+ Magnitude Earthquake Would Rip Through Los Angeles in Seconds Causing up to $300bn in Damage and Killing Thousands
by Dailymail.com

There are concerns the state is poised to be struck by the ‘Big One’ within the next decade – researchers believe the San Andreas Fault Line ruptures roughly every 150 years. If the Big One did strike, ‘it would be a matter of a few tens of seconds before the shaking from a San Andreas event that ruptures the segments closest to Los Angeles reach our urban areas,’ Jonathan Stewart with the University of California, Los Angeles told DailyMail.com.

— April 9, 2024 —

LogOn: Next-Gen Sensors Taking Previously Impossible Measurements
by VOA

UCLA researcher, Sergio Carbajo, is focusing two ultra precise laser beams on a molecule, reading its quantum characteristics, or its unique signature fingerprint, as he calls it, with a time implication stamp. “You collect the hundred of thousands of them that you have and thats when you can begin to look for, not only the individual information you obtain, but the entire summation of that information when its entangled, so you can see correlated events.”

— April 7, 2024 —

Northeast Earthquake: Millions Feel Effects
by NewsNation Prime

NewsNation brought in Scott Brandenberg, professor of civil and environmental engineering to discuss the April 5, 2024 New Jersey quake.
“The region doesn’t get earthquakes very often. Are structures up to code? Can they handle shaking? It turns out that we do have building codes that contain seismic provisions everywhere in the United States. I know that people in this area are not used to feeling the shaking and so it’s scary. But you know rest assured we do have those provisions. Of course there are older structures that were built before modern codes, came in so you know some of those may be damaged. There will be damage if there’s larger earthquakes.”

— April 5, 2024 —

What the New Jersey Earthquake Tells Us About the Fault System Beneath the Northeast
by Yahoo! News

Scott Brandenberg, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at the UCLA Samueli School of Engineering, told Yahoo News that Friday’s earthquake is probably not indicative that longer-term earthquake activity is on the rise in the region. Also mentioned by, The Guardian.

Are Buildings in Major Northeast Cities Able to Withstand Earthquakes?
by abc News

UCLA Samueli School of Engineering professor of civil and environmental engineering John Wallace compares the readiness of West and East Coast cities.

— April 4, 2024 —

Could LA’s Buildings Collapse Like Those In Taiwan?
by LAist

Like Taiwan, we have retrofit programs in place, but more than 4,000 of these types of buildings still need to be fixed across L.A., according to the Department of Building and Safety. It could be decades before they are. “We’re racing against time for when this earthquake is going to happen,” said John Wallace, professor of civil and environmental engineering at the Samueli School of Engineering at UCLA. “We probably won’t get them all done before the next earthquake, but we want to get to as many of them as we can.”

Taiwan Earthquake Highlights Importance of Building Safety
by Spectrum News 1

Researchers and engineers around the world, like John Wallace, attempted to understand exactly what went wrong and work on revised construction guidelines. John is a structural earthquake engineering expert at UCLA studying how to equip buildings to better withstand earthquakes. “One of the big lessons we learned there, we also learned here in the 1989 Loma Prieta and 1994 Northridge earthquakes, is that we have a lot of vulnerabilities with older existing construction.

— April 3, 2024 —

UCLA Professor Weighs in on Extensive Structural Damage in Taiwan
by Fox 2 KTVU, Oakland

A 7.4 magnitude earthquake rocked the eastern coast of Taiwan early this morning causing extensive damage and knocking a number of buildings off of their foundations. KTVU’s Heather Holmes and Joey Horta speak with UCLA professor of Civil and Structural Engineering John Wallace about the immediate concerns surrounding the earthquake and what we know about the early warning system in place.
*Story also covered by NBC News and LAist.

— March 29, 2024 —

Radio Show 65: March 30, 2024
by Rich on Tech

Rich DeMuro talks about tech news, tips, and gadget reviews and conducts interviews in this weekly show… Omid Abari, assistant professor of Computer Science at UCLA will explain WiFi jamming and how to best protect your home security cameras.

Coming up on Environmental Connections: Friday, March 29, 2024
by WXXI News

Today on Environmental Connections — a monthly series hosted by Jasmin Singer that covers climate-related issues affecting you — we delve into the transformative power of the reuse movement, exploring how innovative community initiatives and individual actions can significantly reduce waste and foster a more sustainable living environment. Jenny Jay (joining remotely), UCLA Professor and creator of “Meals for the Planet,” which calculates the carbon costs of meals.

— March 26, 2024 —

How AI is Improving Climate Forecasts
by Nature

“The trajectory of machine learning for climate projections is looking really promising,” says computer scientist Aditya Grover at the University of California, Los Angeles. In a 2023 paper, Grover and researchers at the tech giant Microsoft built the first such foundation model, called ClimaX. ClimaX predicted the state of temperature-related variables better than did three climate emulators built by Watson-Parris’s team. However, it performed less well than the best of these three emulators in predicting rainfall, says Grover.

— March 25, 2024 —

Is My Kid’s LAUSD Campus Safe From Earthquakes?
by LAist

“The fact that the building is on this list doesn’t automatically make it a highly vulnerable building,” said Henry Burton, an associate professor in the Civil and Environmental Engineering Department at UCLA. “Because of the number of variables that are involved it’s very hard to say if there’s a building that’s in imminent danger.” “The only thing I would suggest is to try to get more information from the relevant school district about what they’re doing about the buildings, and if they have a sense of the timeline for evaluating and retrofitting these buildings,” Burton said.

— March 23, 2024 —

Elastic Patch Tech Helps Vocally Impaired Speak
by IEEE Spectrum News

The research team, led by Jun Chen, assistant professor of biomedical engineering at UCLA, has created a flexible and electromagnetically responsive wearable that measures subtle neck muscle movements. A downstream device—not the sensing patch—then decodes the muscle movements the patch has sensed into speech, using a machine learning algorithm trained to recognize a set dictionary of phrases.
*This news was also covered by Breaking Latest News, Technology For You, Mid-Day, Front Page Detectives.

— March 20, 2024 —

Study Shows There Was in Fact a Seismic ‘Swift Quake’ When Taylor Swift Brought the Eras Tour to L.A.
by People

Researchers at CalTech and UCLA confirmed that Swifties’ dancing and jumping at the fifth show of the pop superstar’s six-night run at SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles resulted in seismic activity.
*Story also covered by Deadline.

DARPA’s OPTIMA Program Seeks Ultra-Efficient AI Chips
by Breaking Defense

“22FDX is actually an older [model],” UCLA Prof. Sudhakar Pamarti told Breaking Defense. But unlike most transistors, it can change something called its threshold voltage. Over years of work, Pamarti’s team learned how to control those variations so precisely they can use them to encode data — over 50 times more compactly than alternative approaches, he said.

— March 18, 2024 —

AI-Assisted Throat Patch Can Help People with Voice Disorders Speak, Researchers Say
by FirstAlert4 (KMOV 4)

A small, wearable device powered by artificial intelligence may be able to help people with vocal cord conditions or voice disorders speak. The breakthrough, led by Jun Chen, an assistant professor of bioengineering at the UCLA Samueli School of Engineering, and his colleagues, was described this week in the journal Nature Communications.
* Story also highlighted on GlobalSpec, India Education, Ex Bulletin and Science Daily.

Taylor Swift’s L.A. Fans Made SoFi Concerts Shake, Shake, Shake, Caltech-UCLA Study Says
by LA Times

The Times features the joint study by Caltech and UCLA Samueli, which shows that the pop star caused “Swiftquakes” at SoFi Stadium last summer as her fans danced and jumped to some of her most popular songs. Civil and environmental engineering professor Yousef Bozorgnia contributed to the study.
* Story also highlighted on CBS News and ABC 7.

— March 17, 2024 —

New Wearable Neck Patch Invention Allows People to Speak with no Vocal Cords
by The Jerusalem post

However, there is hope for people who have lost their voice chronically or permanently – a new wearable, adhesive device using artificial intelligence developed by bioengineers at the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA).The bioelectric system, developed by Prof. Jun Chen at UCLA Samueli School of Engineering and his colleagues, is able to detect movement in a person’s larynx muscles and translate those signals into audible speech with the assistance of machine-learning technology with nearly 95% accuracy.
*Story also covered by BusinessMayor Health and Health Tech World

— March 13, 2024 —

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A Flexible Patch Could Help People with Voice Disorders Talk
by The Economist

In a study published in the journal Nature Communications this week, a group of bioengineering researchers from the University of California, Los Angeles, have put forward an attractive solution. They have designed and tested a soft patch that can be stuck onto a person’s neck, where it will pick up muscle movements and, with the help of machine-learning algorithms that process the signals, translate them into audible speech.

— March 12, 2024 —

New Self-Powered Throat Patch Could Help People Speak without Vocal Cord
by Live Science

Lead study author Jun Chen, an assistant professor of bioengineering at the University of California, Los Angeles, told Live Science that the idea for the patch arose after he’d spent several hours lecturing and felt his voice becoming tired. He began to imagine a way to solve this problem, to make it possible for a person to speak without using their vocal cords, also known as “vocal folds.”

— March 4, 2024 —

Current Climate: Zapping Seawater to Remove CO2
by Forbes

Equatic, a startup spun out of UCLA, thinks a lower-cost method is pulling it from the oceans, a massive CO2 sponge for the planet, instead of the air. It began operating small pilot systems in Los Angeles and Singapore last year to validate the approach, using electrolyzers to zap CO2 out of captured seawater, creating green hydrogen and calcium carbonate in the process. Also featured in Eco-Business.

— March 1, 2024 —

‘This is My Calling’: Building Point-of-Care Diagnostic Tools to Fight Tuberculosis
by Nature

Inside her small office, with a window overlooking the iconic Kerckhoff Hall student center at University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), chemical biologist Mireille Kamariza is pursuing her big dream. Since 2015, she has steadily worked to stop transmission of deadly tuberculosis (TB) superbugs, which in 2022 infected more than 10 million people and killed more than one million.

What Exactly Do Large Language Models Really Understand?
by Forbes

These definitions are useful in the sense that they align with definitions that people have used in mathematical logic, as well as mathematical model theory, as well as epistemology, dynamical systems, and linguistics and so on and so forth,” said Stefano Soatto, Amazon Web Services’ vice president and distinguished scientist, who coauthored a paper on the subject.

— February 29, 2024 —

Singapore to Build World’s Largest Facility to Boost Carbon-Removal Power of the Ocean
by Time

On Tuesday, Singapore’s national water agency PUB announced that it was furthering its collaboration with the University of California in Los Angeles and Equatic, a Los Angeles-based startup founded by UCLA scientists. Together, they plan to build a $20 million plant that removes 3,650 metric tons (4,000 tons) of carbon dioxide from the ocean every year through the Equatic Process, which uses electrolysis to convert carbon dioxide in seawater into stable solids. Also featured in Bloomberg, CNA, and The Straits Times.

— February 27, 2024 —

Equatic Unveils Plans For Largest Ocean-Based Carbon Removal Plant
by GasWorld

Equatic has unveiled plans for the world’s largest ocean-based carbon removal plant which potentially offers a twin benefit of immobilizing carbon dioxide (CO2) and producing hydrogen. The effort stems from an exclusive project with PUB (Singapore’s National Water Agency) and UCLA to remove 10 tonnes of carbon dioxide by electrolyzing seawater and create 300kg of carbon-negative hydrogen per day. Also featured in The Strait Times.

— February 22, 2024 —

How Two Outsiders Tackled the Mystery of Arithmetic Progressions
by ScienceNews

Progress on the question has been slow, even plodding. But last year, (Raghu) Meka and Zander Kelley, a Ph.D. computer science student at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, surprised mathematicians by making an exponential leap. The researchers are outsiders in combinatorics, which is concerned with counting configurations of numbers, points or other mathematical objects. And the duo didn’t set out to tackle the mystery of arithmetic progressions.

— February 8, 2024 —

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UCLA Rowat Lab Creating Alternative Proteins to Fight Emissions-Producing Food System
by Spectrum News 1 Los Angeles

At the Rowat Lab, graduate student researcher Stephanie Kawecki is working on improving food sustainability through alternative proteins. “The idea is to make delicious products,” Kawecki said. “We can make them more sustainable. We can avoid the ethical concerns with traditional farming or factory farming, I have to clarify. And we can also make it more nutritious, too, and more available to populations that are in need.”

— February 8, 2024 —

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Tougher AI Policies Could Protect Taylor Swift—And Everyone Else—From Deepfakes
by Scientific American

The neatest solution would be to adopt policies that would promote “social responsibility” on the part of companies that own generative AI products, says Michael Karanicolas, executive director of the University of California, Los Angeles, Institute for Technology, Law and Policy. But, he adds, “it’s relatively uncommon for companies to respond to anything other than coercive regulatory behavior.” Some platforms have taken steps to stanch the spread of AI-generated misinformation about electoral campaigns, so it’s not unprecedented for them to step in, Karanicolas says—but even technical safeguards are subject to end runs by sophisticated users.

— February 7, 2024 —

npr
EPA Tightens Rules on Some Air Pollution for the First Time in Over a Decade
by National Public Radio

The agency lowered the allowable limit for annual PM2.5 levels from 12 micrograms per cubic meter to 9. That’s a “significant reduction,” says Regan Patterson, an air pollution expert at the University of California, Los Angeles. If achieved, the standards would have major impacts on communities currently breathing in the dirtiest air—like Pinto-Cabrera’s San Joaquin Valley in California or industrial counties in central Pennsylvania. “What we see in study after study, people of color are consistently breathing in the dirtiest air,” says Patterson.
The new standards won’t erase those differences. But the EPA’s analysis suggests the new rules should make them smaller. “It’s important to step back and recognize that, by lowering the standards—when you improve air quality with these standards, you have reductions that improve air quality for everyone,” says Patterson. But cleaner air will have the biggest health impacts in communities that are now experiencing the worst pollution. “Those are the communities for whom the standard will contribute to the most,” says Patterson.

— February 2, 2024 —

“Zombie” COVID-19 Fragments Linger for Some, Causing Severe Disease Outcomes, New Research Reveals
by Salon

“There’s a kind of biomimicry going on here, that once the virus is broken down these pieces are actually active and they can assemble with double-stranded RNA that’s commonly found in viral infections,” Gerard Wong, corresponding author and a professor in microbiology, immunology and molecular genetics at the University of California-Los Angeles, told Salon in an interview. “And, that’s the zombie part — after you destroy this virus that should be dead, it’s not. It actually can reassemble into these complexes that can have very strong immune activation ability.”

— January 31, 2024 —

Developing Diagnostic Devices In Low-Resource Settings with Mireille Kamariza

Mireille Kamariza, an assistant professor of bioengineering and co-founder and CEO of OliLux Biosciences, a company dedicated to providing low- cost, portable, and reliable diagnostic devices in low-resource settings, discusses her expertise in building diagnostics tools against infectious organisms.

— January 30, 2024 —

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Microscopic Bowls Uncover The Secrets of Protein Secretions
by The Scientist

This approach does not allow researchers to subsequently isolate the cells and analyze them further, according to Dino Di Carlo, a bioengineer at the University of California, Los Angeles and author of the paper… Although microfluidics technologies were popular in cell studies, Di Carlo realized that they weren’t suited for the in-depth exploration of the biology of single cells. His nanovial cavities can be lined with antibodies specific to any protein of interest to measure secretions from individual cells, which are loaded into the nanovials.

— January 25, 2024 —

Tracking Down Tuberculosis
by Nature

Growing up in Burundi, a country of 13 million people in East Africa, Mireille Kamariza was familiar with the devastating effects of tuberculosis. “It’s a long and torturous disease,” she says. “You have relatives and loved ones that are sick, and you see them suffer through it. It’s not a quick death.” When she moved to the United States at 17, she was struck by how different the situation was there. “The question that I had when I arrived here was, how come this is not a problem here?” That question led Kamariza, now a chemical biologist at the University of California, Los Angeles, on a quest to find ways to eradicate the disease in areas where it is widespread.

— January 24, 2024 —

The Start-Ups Making Robots a Reality?
by GatesNotes

Building a robot that can navigate rocky and unstable terrain, and retain its balance without falling over, is no small task. But the Robotics and Mechanisms Lab, or RoMeLa, at UCLA is working on improving mobility for robots. They may have cracked the code with ARTEMIS, possibly the fastest “running” robot in the world that’s also difficult to destabilize. ARTEMIS actually competed at the RoboCup 2023, an international soccer competition held in France in July.

— January 23, 2024 —

Los Angeles Startup Uses AI to Reduce the Carbon Footprint of Concrete
by Forbes

For the past decade, researchers at UCLA’s Carbon Management Institute have been working on how to use data to reduce environmental harm from concrete. Meanwhile, Matthew Bouchie (sp), a 38-year-old computational materials scientist who is an associate professor at UCLA, was working on the model that underpins Concrete.AI. “We have been trying for more than 10 years to understand how to use AI and machine learning to repurpose old traditional materials like concrete,” he said. “It’s just a data problem.”

— January 19, 2024 —

Sludge Compost is an Increasing Source of Microplastics, Researchers Say
by Los Angeles Times

A team of UCLA researchers has put a new spin on the 1970s rock classic “Dust in the Wind” — only this one is grimmer and grimier than the original hit by Kansas. They found that wind picks up microplastics from human-sewage-based fertilizers at higher concentrations than previously known, and may be an “underappreciated” source of airborne plastic bits, flakes, and threads. “If you blow wind on soil with microplastics, you’d expect a similar amount of soil and microplastic to be present in the dust,” said Sanjay Mohanty, a UCLA professor of civil and environmental engineering. “But here we found less soil in the dust and a lot more microplastics. That means every time the wind blows, the particles leave the soil preferentially.”

— January 18, 2024 —

Engineers Develop Terahertz Imagin System Capable of Capturing Real-Time, 3D Multi-Spectral Images
by Phys.org

A research team led by Mona Jarrahi, and Aydogan Ozcan, both electrical and computer engineering professors at the UCLA Samueli School of Engineering, has invented a new terahertz focal-plane array to solve this problem.

Ghost Story: How a UCLA Computer Scientist Discovered a Missing Link in the Long and Tangled Story of Human Evolution
by UCLA Magazine

If you’re looking for Sriram Sankararaman, chances are he’s absorbed in a screen, examining the genetic markers of a small group of hitherto unknown early humans who lived in West Africa some 600,000 years ago. “These,” he says, “could be some of humanity’s ghost ancestors.” He’s referring to a type of ancient hominin that, while a relative of homo sapiens, was a very different type of human from us. Genetic “chunks” light up Sankararaman’s computer screen at the UCLA Samueli School of Engineering. He calls these genetic elements “ghosts,” because until now, the archaic people with whom they originated have been invisible to scholars of human evolution.

— January 16, 2024 —

‘Like a Horror Movie’: The Deadly Earthquake That Changed California
by The Guardian

There have also been improvements in education and outreach that will help protect more people without the need for big structural changes. “People worry about structural collapse but it’s really all the shelves, and books, and TVs and the non-structural components that pose a bigger hazard for human health,” said Dr Scott Brandenberg, an earthquake engineer and professor at the University of California, Los Angeles.

Generative AI Models are Built to Hallucinate: The Question is How to Control Them
by insideBIGDATA

Hallucination, on the other hand, is the term used to describe synthetic data that is different from, or factually inconsistent with, actual data, yet realistic. In other words, hallucinations are the product of generative models. Hallucinations are plausible, but they do not know about “facts” or “truth” even if it was present in the training data.

— January 3, 2024 —

UCLA Will Transform Dead Westside Mall into Major Science Innovation Center
by Los Angeles Times

The sprawling three-story structure will be known as the UCLA Research Park and will house two multidisciplinary centers focusing on immunology and immunotherapy as well as quantum science and engineering.

Scientific American-01
Scientists Finally Invent Heat-Controlling Circuitry That Keeps Electronics Cool
by Scientific American

Heat is very challenging to manage,” says Yongjie Hu, a physicist and mechanical engineer at the University of California, Los Angeles. “Controlling heat flow has long been a dream for physicists and engineers, yet it’s remained elusive.” But Hu and his colleagues may have found a solution. As reported last November in Science, his team has developed a new type of transistor that can precisely control heat flow by taking advantage of the basic chemistry of atomic bonding at the single-molecule level.

‘Cooling Glass‘ Could Fight Climate Change by Reflecting Solar Radiation Back into Space
by Space.com

“In that sense, I think this is certainly an interesting, potentially effective strategy,” Aaswath Raman, a professor of materials science at the University of California, Los Angeles, who was not involved in the new study, told Space.com.

— December 20, 2023 —

2023 MRAM Forum Shows MRAM for Automotive and Other Applications
by Forbes

Kang Wang, Distinguished Professor and Raytheon Chair Professor in Physical Science and Electronics at UCLA has been working on voltage controlled magnetic MRAM devices for several years and in this talk he spoke about stochastic applications of this technology. In particular he spoke about using MRAM for neural memory technology for AI applications.

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— December 18, 2023 —

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AI is not a Cure-All: Professor Dennis Hong
by Pulse

Dennis Hong, professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) and director of Robotics & Mechanisms Laboratory (RoMeLa) is calling for a pivot in artificial intelligence (AI) to focus on what it cannot do to survive in the AI era… “In the age of AI, we need to focus on what only humans can do,” Hong said in a recent interview with Maeil Business Newspaper. Hong has created nearly 50 types of pioneering robots and was earlier named the “the Leonardo da Vinci of robots” by Washington Post.

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— December 13, 2023 —

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Stretchy Electrodes Shrink When Wet to Fit Snugly Around Organs
by New Scientist

A material that can shrink to fit around internal organs without crushing them could be used to monitor electrical activity in the body. It contracts to less than half of its initial length when wet, and can conform around the organs’ irregular shapes. The fact that WRAP shrinks so much and within a few seconds is a notable advancement over existing materials, says Ximin He at the University of California, Los Angeles. She says that not having to pre-shape devices made from WRAP is also an advantage because it could lead to more personalised devices.

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— November 28, 2023 —

Forbes 30 Under 30 – Science
by Forbes

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How Label-Free, Super-Resolution Imaging Will Push Microscopy’s Limits
by Advanced Science News

Research co-author and UCLA professor Aydogan Ozcan pointed out it is these developments which caused an explosive growth of LFSR imaging… “To some extent, this is similar to the revolution we experience in everyday life as a result of the explosive growth of more general AI ideas, which reached the point of consideration and concern,” Ozcan said. “In the case of LFSR imaging, it is not a concern, but rather a combination of explosive growth and lack of methodology and systematic approach to this field, which created an urgent need for developing a vision of the future of this field in general and for this roadmap in particular.”

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— November 24, 2023 —

Fabricating An Artificial Emergency Isn’t Intelligent
by The Hill

John Villasenor, co-director of the UCLA Institute for Technology, Law, and Policy, notes that the order ‘mandates the creation of what amounts to a target list for any geopolitical adversary that might want to engage in cyber espionage or launch a large-scale cyberattack on U.S. AI computing infrastructure.

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— November 22, 2023 —

Is the 10 Freeway Safe?
by LAist

John Wallace is a civil and environmental engineering professor at UCLA and an expert in reinforced concrete structures, primarily on the seismic design end of buildings and bridges says that load capacity is key. He said engineers will be looking at repairs through that load capacity for standard driving use and for earthquake safety.

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— November 15, 2023 —

ChatGPT Has Entered the Classroom: How LLMs Could Transform Education
by Nature

Wei Wang, a computer scientist at the University of California, Los Angeles, found that GPT-3.5 — which powers the free version of ChatGPT — and its successor, GPT-4, got a lot wrong when tested on questions in physics, chemistry, computer science and 5mathematics taken from university-level textbooks and exams2. Wang and her colleagues experimented with different ways to query the two GPT bots. They found that the best method used GPT-4, and that its bot could answer around one-third of the textbook questions correctly that way (see ‘AI’s textbook errors’), although it scored 80% in one exam.

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— November 14, 2023 —

Fire that Indefinitely Closed Vital los Angeles Freeway was Likely Arson, Governor Says
by AP News

Ertugrul Taciroglu, chair of the civil and environmental engineering department at the University of California, Los Angeles, said part of the challenge is how expensive real estate has become… “Every piece of land is being utilized, so I can see the pressure or the incentives for making use of these spaces under these highways,” he said

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Google DeepMind’s Weather AI Can Forecast Extreme Weather Faster and More Accurately
by MIT Technology Review

GraphCast is a “reckoning moment” for weather prediction because it shows that predictions can be made using historical data, says Aditya Grover, an assistant professor of computer science at UCLA, who developed ClimaX, a foundation model that allows researchers to do different tasks relating to modeling the Earth’s weather and climate… “With climate change on the rise, it’s very important that big organizations, which have had the luxury of so much compute, also think about giving back [to the scientific community],” he says.

*Also carried in: Science magazine, Nature, E+T magazine.

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— November 7, 2023 —

Paul Weiss: Nature is Often Underestimated as a Source of Inspiration for Nanotechnology
by Wired Czech Republic

The aim of Paul Weiss’ laboratory at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is to research the ultimate limits of miniaturization to develop a deeper chemical understanding of the physical and biological worlds.

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The Leonard Kleinrock Teaching Tree
by UCLA Magazine

“Over the years, thousands of young scientists and aspiring techies have clamored to study under the soft-spoken engineer. Many have gone on to illustrious academic careers, teaching thousands of others and spreading Kleinrock’s visionary gospel of possibility around the world.”

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— November 6, 2023 —

LA County Supervisors to Vote on a Plan to Stop Beach Erosion
by Los Angeles Daily News

“During energetic wave events, you have erosion,” said Timu Gallien, professor in civil and environmental engineering at UCLA whose expertise is in coastal engineering. Studies from UCLA predict the coastline in L.A. County will experience more intense storms, producing more waves and beach erosion.

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Hot Topic: Researchers Push to Reduce Fire Risk from Lithium-ion Batteries
by NBC News

A study published last week in the journal Nature proposed a novel safety mechanism to prevent the formation of lithium “dendrites,” branch-like structures created when lithium-ion batteries overheat because of overcharging or damage. Dendrites can short-circuit the battery cell and cause explosive fires. Yuzhang Li, an assistant professor of chemical engineering at UCLA Samueli School of Engineering, who was not involved in the study, said Wang’s development was an essential step to improving lithium-ion battery safety.

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— October 27, 2023 —

Reckoning 375: How New Orleans Prioritized People Over Pavement
by WDET 101.9

Henderson was joined by Regan Patterson, assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering at the University of California, Los Angeles, to discuss why community engagement during highway removal projects is so important. “We’re continuing to see a kind of community not getting everything, or even the majority of their needs and interests reflected in the final outcomes,” says Patterson. “And so we’re starting to see with programs now around capacity building… to be able to engage in a different way to hope that their visions are reflected more positively in the outcome.”

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— October 24, 2023 —

Best Inventions of 2023: Optimizing the Oceans, Equatic Process
by Time Magazine

The ocean and atmosphere are in carbon dioxide equilibrium. That means “if you remove CO2 from seawater, the oceans absorb more from the atmosphere,” explains Gaurav Sant, founder of carbon-removal startup Equatic.

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— October 19, 2023 —

Packard Foundation Announces 20 New Fellows For 2023
by Forbes

The David and Lucile Packard Foundation has selected the 2023 class of Packard Fellows for Science and Engineering. The group includes 20 early-career scientists and engineers, who will each receive $875,000 over five years to pursue their research. Yuzhang Li, Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, University of California, Los Angeles; Discipline: Engineering – Chemical or Biological; Materials Science; Nanotechnology

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— October 18, 2023 —

Fugees Rapper Says Lawyer’s Use of AI Helped Tank His Case, Pushes for New Trial
by AP News

Use of generative AI in the legal profession is in the early stages, but it could see much more widespread adoption as products improve, said John Villasenor, a professor of engineering and public policy at the University of California, Los Angeles. The American Bar Association does not yet have any guidelines on the use of AI in the legal profession, though there is a new task force studying the issue, a spokeswoman said.

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— October 16, 2023 —

‘First-of-its-kind’ Technology Turns Ocean Pollutant into Seashell Dust: ‘[It’s] the Most Promising Solution’
by The Cool Down

“‘We were thinking, “What would be one of the best ways for us to start trapping CO2?” Well, what about the formation of seashells? This is a reaction that happens naturally,’ Dante Simonetti, an associate professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering at the UCLA Samueli School of Engineering, told Adele Peters of Fast Company.”

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— October 11, 2023 —

High-Throughput Terahertz Imaging: Progress and Challenges
by Phys.org

In a new paper published in Light Science & Application, a team of scientists, led by Professor Mona Jarrahi and Professor Aydogan Ozcan from the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA), review the recent developments in high-throughput terahertz imaging systems from both hardware and computational imaging perspectives.

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— October 5, 2023 —

Lighting Up Tuberculosis with Point–of–Care Diagnostics
by Drug Discovery News

Before the COVID-19 pandemic, tuberculosis (TB) was the deadliest infectious disease in the world. Now, just three years later, TB is unfortunately back on top… University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) bioengineer Mireille Kamariza plans to change that.

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— October 2, 2023 —

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RF Industry Icon: Mau-Chung Frank Chang, Wintek Chair in Electrical Engineering & Distinguished Professor at UCLA
by Frequency Matters

The distinguished electrical and computer engineering professor at UCLA discussed in this podcast his lifelong work in electronics, including developments commonly used in cell phones.

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— September 26, 2023 —

YORI: A Hybrid Approach to Robotic Cooking Automation Combined with Robot Arms Can Cook Up Some Tasty Dishes
by IEEE Spectrum

The Robotics and Mechanisms Lab at UCLA led by mechanical and aerospace engineering professor Dennis Hong has been cooking up a new robot with tasteful results.

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— September 18, 2023 —

New Technique Controls Direction and Wavelength of Emitted Heat
by PIC Magazine

To solve this problem, a UCLA research team led by associate professor of materials science and engineering Aaswath Raman turned to a common technique used in semiconductor production.

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— September 13, 2023 —

Magic, Cooking and Droids Inspire This Roboticist
by Science News Explores

“Robots can do things that people don’t want to do,” says Dennis Hong, professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering the UCLA Samueli School of Engineering.

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— September 10, 2023 —

BBC World News with UCLA Prof. Jonathan Stewart
by BBC News

Earthquake engineering expert and UCLA civil and environmental engineering professor Jonathan Stewart spoke with BBC World News TV about the 6.8-magnitude earthquake that struck Morocco September 8, sharing insights on the location and impact of the tremor.

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— September 8, 2023 —

CNN Interview with Prof. Jonathan Stewart on Morocco Earthquake
by CNN

UCLA civil and environmental engineering professor Jonathan Stewart sat down with CNN anchor Michael Holmes late that evening to explain the impact and what’s to expect next.

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— September 1, 2023 —

Judea Pearl, AI, and Causality: What Role Do Statisticians Play?
by AMSTAT News

“Statisticians are brought up to believe all knowledge comes from data and, since they are experts on data processing, they must also be experts in the philosophy of knowledge (epistemology)… Once we open statistics to modern vocabulary, including causal and counterfactual relationships, we open the door for statisticians to participate in current issues faced by AI researchers as well as philosophers of science.”

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Developing More Durable Solar Cells
by Tech Briefs

“Renewable energy is critically important,” said corresponding author Yang Yang, the Carol and Lawrence E. Tannas, Jr. Professor of Engineering at the UCLA Samueli School of Engineering and a member of the California NanoSystems Institute at UCLA. “Perovskite will be a game changer because it can be mass produced in a way silicon cannot, and we’ve identified an additive that will make the material better.”

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— August 26, 2023 —

San Francisco Radio
by KCBS–AM

NSF supported engineers from UCLA have discovered the intrinsic morphology of metallic lithium to be that of a rhombic dodecahedron, a 12-sided figure similar to the dice used in role-playing games … “It’s a direct correlation between what the lithium looks like and battery performance,” said Professor Yuzhang Li.

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— August 22, 2023 —

Issam Najm Speaks About a Chemical Plant
by KQED-FM

Issam Najm is an environmental engineer at UCLA and a nearby resident. “The reality of it is this facility continues to emit toxic chemicals, tons of toxic chemicals every year as documented by the air quality management district. There is no answer other than closing it down,” said Issam Najm, an adjunct associate professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the UCLA Samueli School of Engineering.

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— August 21, 2023 —

Navigating Back to School 3 Years After the Pandemic
by Spectrum News 1

Bedford sought out several learning opportunities to supplement what Zachary wasn’t getting at school. In addition to tutoring offered by LAUSD, he participated in two UCLA programs: a mathematics achievement program, known as MAP, and another program called VIP Kings to re-acclimate him to in-person learning.

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— August 11, 2023 —

Lithium Rolls the Dice on Batteries
by Materials Today

“There are thousands of papers on lithium metal, and most descriptions of the structure is qualitative, such as ‘chunky’ or ‘column-like’,” said Yuzhang Li, an assistant professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering at the UCLA Samueli School of Engineering, a member of CNSI and corresponding author of the paper.

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— August 2, 2023 —

Ultrafast Deposition of Faceted Lithium Polyhedra by Outpacing SEI Formation
by Nature

Electrodeposition of lithium (Li) metal is critical for high-energy batteries. However, the simultaneous formation of a surface corrosion film termed the solid electrolyte interphase (SEI) complicates the deposition process, which underpins our poor understanding of Li metal electrodeposition.

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UPI
Researchers Maker Discovery That Could Reduce Explosions of Lithium-metal Batteries
by UPI

“There are thousands of papers on lithium metal, and most descriptions of the structure is qualitative, such as ‘chunky’ or ‘column-like,’’ said Yuzhang Li, the study’s corresponding author, in a news release.

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— July 22, 2023 —

Who Invented the Internet? Key People, Explained
by BBC Science Focus Magazine

Leonard Kleinrock poses next to the first Interface Message Processor (IMP) at the University of California, Los Angeles laboratory, where the first Internet message was sent. Kleinrock, an American computer scientist, published an article on his packet switching theory in July 1961 and a book on the subject in 1964. His theory was that an online network could be created in which computers communicated via “packets of information” rather than circuits.

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— July 18, 2023 —

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Amid Rising Temperatures, LA City Council Weighs Making AC Mandatory
by KCRW

Rajit Gadh, professor at the UCLA Samueli School of Engineering, expects that the local measure would increase energy consumption in Los Angeles by about 5%. But some of that could be offset by storing energy during the day in the batteries of electric cars and school buses and other electric vehicles, then pumping that energy back into the grid after the sun goes down.

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— July 17, 2023 —

As the Salton Sea Shrinks, Agriculture’s Legacy Turns to Dust
by Civil Eats

TMDLs are needed to stabilize the sea’s water quality, says Michael Stenstrom, a professor of environmental engineering at University of California, Los Angeles. ‘It’s going to be so expensive, and there’s so much resistance to the kinds of things that are needed to fix it, I wonder if they’re ever going to happen,’ he says.

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— July 10, 2023 —

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Recent SoCal Landslides Spark Insurance Concerns for Homeowners
by KCAL NEWS – CBS NEWS Los Angeles

With several major landslides affecting Southern California in recent months, thousands of homeowners are placed on edge as most insurance plans don’t actually cover land movement.

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— July 7, 2023 —

The Lawlessness of Large Numbers
by Quanta Magazine

“In one project, he took on the finite version of the first of this year’s breakthroughs — a February paper by Zander Kelley, a graduate student at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, and Raghu Meka of the University of California, Los Angeles. Kelley and Meka found a new upper bound on how many integers between 1 and N you can put into a set while avoiding three-term progressions, or patterns of evenly spaced numbers.

— July 5, 2023 —

matter
Looking Backward, Moving Forward: Four Invited Works Celebrating Four Years of Matter
by Matter

To celebrate our fourth anniversary, as we head into our fifth year, the Matter team looked through our archives at some of the papers that contributed to our own success and invited the corresponding authors to contribute to this issue with new manuscripts… First, we have Prof. Jun Chen, a rising star in the Department of Bioengineering at UCLA… His work in this issue, “A textile magnetoelastic patch for self-powered personalized muscle physiotherapy,” adds to the field of smart fabrics using a magnetic-driven patch as the go-between to convert muscle biomechanical activities into electrical signals, effectively using novel functional materials to translate “living” output to “digital” input for parallel real-time analysis (in this case, tracking rehabilitation process) without a need for an external power supply.)

— July 4, 2023 —

Lab-grown Meat: the Science of Turning Cells into Steaks and Nuggets
by Nature

Meanwhile, the logistics of the process hold plenty of opportunities for improvement. For example, food scientist Amy Rowat at the University of California, Los Angeles, received a GFI grant to develop edible beads as scaffolds for muscle cells to adhere to and flex against, to improve fiber texture.

— July 1, 2023 —

A New Model for Human Origins in Africa Upends Commonly Held Beliefs About Our Evolution
by Salon

In an interview with Salon, Sriram Sankararaman, an associate professor in UCLA’s Departments of Computer Science, Human Genetics and Computational Medicine, praised the research team’s thorough exploration of possible models and use of rich, diverse data sets. But he doubts this is the end of the story.

The resulting complexity of the model means that it’s difficult to say exactly how closely it reflects reality,” Sankararaman, who was not involved with the Nature study, said. “Given these models are so complicated, it’s probably a reasonable thing to assume that the true models are going to be even more complicated than anything they say so far.”

— June 30, 2023 —

How Leonard Kleinrock Transformed Into Superman Of The Internet
by Investor’s Business Daily

It’s a good thing Leonard Kleinrock loved Superman and comic books. If not, you might not be surfing the internet or posting on Facebook or Instagram.Today, Kleinrock, 89, is a distinguished professor of computer science at the University of California at Los Angeles. Most people know him as one of the founding fathers of the internet.

— June 28, 2023 —

The Ocean is the Next Frontier for the Carbon Removal Industry
by Time Magazine

Equatic, another California-based company, signed an agreement to remove 62,000 tons of carbon on behalf of aerospace giant Boeing earlier this summer. Originally spun out of experiments at University of California, Los Angeles, its technology combines principles from direct air carbon capture, like the Climeworks Orca plant, with the approach of increasing the ocean’s alkalinity (the ocean becomes more acidic as it absorbs CO2, while adding alkalinity, in theory, allows the ocean to absorb more carbon).

— June 21, 2023 —

PBS logo
We’re Designing Robots to Look Like Us. What Could Go Wrong?
by PBS

Humanoid robots are no longer a thing of science fiction. Engineers have built machines that can mimic human movements and speech with remarkable precision. Why are scientists so determined to make robots look like us? Are they going to take our jobs? In this episode of Far Out, we unveil the secrets and moral complexities of humanoid robots.

— June 16, 2023 —

Neanderthal DNA Could Be to Blame for Your Poor Immune System
by Newsweek

“The overall effect of Neanderthal alleles on metabolism/immune system is complex,” Sriram Sankararaman, a co-author on the study and Professor of Computer Science, Genetics and Computational Medicine at the University of California, Los Angeles, told Newsweek.
* Also mentioned in todayuknews.

— June 6, 2023 —

dot.LA
LA Tech Week: Local Climate Investors Assess and Vet Green Startups
by dot.LA

David Jassby, associate director of UCLA Institute for Carbon Management, said he has been writing educational grants to fund graduate students’ research since Obama’s presidency. “In terms of the university, the research topics and the research dollars have not really changed, which is, to me, really encouraging,” Jassby said, noting that federal workers are eager to issue grants for cutting-edge climate research, regardless of political affiliation.

— June 2, 2023 —

Pioneering Advanced Math from Behind Bars
by Scientific American

For incarcerated people, days of tackling 21st-century problems with a pen and paper, however, may be coming to an end. (Christopher) Havens co-founded a national nonprofit, the Prison Mathematics Project (PMP), to help other people in prison overcome the challenges of studying mathematics there. Advised by Amit Sahai, a computer scientist at the University of California, Los Angeles, the project has already paired 171 incarcerated people in 27 states with a mentor to work on topics from combinatorics to abstract algebra.

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— June 1, 2023 —

Boeing Signs Alternative Fuel Deal with Los Angeles Startup to Cut Carbon Footprint
by Associated Press

Equatic said Boeing has agreed to pre-purchase the hydrogen, which will be produced when it employs the carbon-removal system — developed by University of California Los Angeles engineering faculty — at facilities at the port of Los Angeles and Singapore. It is slated to be up and running in 2025. Researchers have been testing the system at demonstration sites in both locations.

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— May 31, 2023 —

Boeing Bets on Startup Equatic With Massive CO2 Removal, Hydrogen Deal
by Forbes

Equatic recently spun out of UCLA’s Institute for Carbon Management and is part of a new wave of companies with a mission to slow the buildup of climate-warming CO2 by pulling it out of the atmosphere. Founder Gaurav Sant, director of the UCLA initiative, believes its approach amplifies natural processes and is the cheapest, most energy-efficient way to achieve gigaton-level CO2 removal and produce hydrogen from nonpolluting sources.

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— May 18, 2023 —

CNN
Scientists Have a Way of Removing Carbon Dioxide from Our Oceans
by CNN Bold Pursuits

Dante Simonetti, Associate Professor, Institute for Carbon Management, UCLA: So the ocean stores approximately 150 times more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. So our process removes carbon dioxide from the atmosphere by leveraging the power of the ocean to naturally absorb carbon dioxide from air. (at 8:10)

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— May 16, 2023 —

A UCLA Startup Hopes to Make a Dent in Climate Change by Removing Carbon from the Ocean
by LAist AirTalk

Now UCLA has gotten into the business, debuting project SeaChange, which will remove more than 40 tons of carbon from the air every year. How does the technology work? Is it possible to scale it? And how does it fit into carbon capture efforts more broadly? Joining us to discuss is Dante Simonetti, associate professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering at the UCLA Samueli School of Engineering and associate director of the Institute for Carbon Management at UCLA.

— May 15, 2023 —

WNYM
A Climate Change with Matt Matern
by KABC 790AM Los Angeles, WCPT 820AM Chicago and WNYM 970AM New York

Listen in to learn about the breakthrough carbon removal technologies of the trailblazing Professor Gaurav Sant, UCLA Professor and Founder of CarbonBuilt & Equatic.

KABC 7
How UCLA Researchers Are Attempting a Climate Solution by Removing Carbon Dioxide from the Ocean
by abc7

Carbon dioxide levels are 150 times more concentrated in seawater than in the air. Project Sea Change, led by researchers at the UCLA Samueli School of Engineering, can now learn if extracting that carbon from the ocean is an effective way to reverse the effects of climate change.

— May 12, 2023 —

How Shocking the Ocean Could Turn It Into a Carbon Removal Powerhouse
by Bloomberg

A startup has begun a unique experiment in the Port of Los Angeles to electrochemically treat seawater and safely store carbon.

— May 11, 2023 —

U.S. Focuses on Invigorating ‘Chiplets’ to Stay Cutting-Edge in Tech
by The New York Times

Chiplets, a way to design chips for higher performance, has become a key prong of U.S. industrial policy. But pushing for more of this activity domestically is challenging.

Paper-based Test Scans for Multiple Biomarkers
by Photonics.com

Researchers led by UCLA professor Aydogan Ozcan developed a deep learning-enabled biosensor for multiplexed, point-of-care (POC) testing of disease biomarkers.

— May 10, 2023 —

Opinion: Another Reason Hollywood Will Love AI
by The Wall Street Journal

UCLA professor John Villasenor and student Jeremy Baum write in a piece published by the Brookings Institution about their testing of the popular ChatGPT program. They report that “for certain combinations of issues and prompts, in our experiments ChatGPT provided consistent—and often left-leaning—answers on political/social issues.”
There are caveats. The chatbot often yields conflicting and inconsistent answers. But the UCLA researchers write that “inconsistencies aside, there is a clear left-leaning political bias to many of the ChatGPT responses.” One source of the bias may simply be that the software is trained with large volumes of material from the Internet and much published media is biased.

Robot to Compete in Summer Competition
by Spectrum News 1

Robots come in all shapes and sizes and this one can walk run and even kick a ball. Meet Artemis, a full-size electric powered humanoid robot built by researchers at the UCLA Samueli School of Engineering. It’s developed with first of its kind technology according to Dennis Hong, who leads the school’s robotics and mechanisms lab.

— May 9, 2023 —

Translucent Organic Solar Cells Can be Designed to Absorb Narrow Light Band
by MerCom

Earlier, a team of material scientists at the UCLA Samueli School of Engineering in California designed a solar roof with semi-transparent solar cells for a miniature greenhouse prototype, producing sufficient energy from sunlight to grow plants or crops.

— May 8, 2023 —

Everyone Was Wrong About Reverse Osmosis—Until Now
by Wired

A new paper showing how water actually travels through a plastic membrane could make desalination more efficient. That’s good news for a thirsty world.

“They’ve nailed it,” agrees Eric Hoek, an environmental engineer at UCLA who trained under Elimelech 20 years ago but was not involved in the study. “Finally, somebody has put the nail in the coffin.”..
Still, Hoek says, “20 years ago it was anathema to suggest that it was incorrect.” Hoek didn’t even dare to use the word “pores” when talking about reverse osmosis membranes, since the dominant model didn’t acknowledge them. “For many, many years,” he says wryly, “I’ve been calling them ‘interconnected free volume elements.’”
Over the past 20 years, images taken using advanced microscopes have reinforced Hoek and Elimelech’s doubts. Researchers discovered that the plastic polymers used in desalination membranes aren’t so dense and poreless after all. They actually contain interconnected tunnels—although they are absolutely minuscule, peaking at around 5 angstroms in diameter, or half a nanometer. Still, one water molecule is about 1.5 angstroms long, so that’s enough room for small clusters of water molecules to squeeze through these cavities, instead of having to go one at a time.

— May 4, 2023 —

Carbon Removal Features Filters, Fans — and Ivory Towers
by Climate Wire

Climeworks is also involved in a project intended for Kern County, Calif., that includes researchers from UCLA; California State University, Bakersfield; and the University of Michigan as well as a few national labs. The oil company California Resources Corp. is leading the effort and seeking $12.5 million in matching funds to advance the project. UCLA sees the project as a way to test some its carbon removal technologies outside of the lab.

“You don’t want knowledge that you developed to be orphaned. And if you don’t want knowledge to be orphaned, you need a way for some of the knowledge to go out into the real world,” said Gaurav Sant, the director of UCLA’s Institute for Carbon Management. “That’s what these hubs and other things like them allow.”

— May 3, 2023 —

UCLA’s Robotic Footballer is Going to the RoboCup
by Wired Middle East

Engineers at the UCLA Samueli School of Engineering have created a state-of-the-art humanoid robot called ARTEMIS (Advanced Robotic Technology for Enhanced Mobility and Improved Stability) which is set to compete in the soccer category of the 2023 RoboCup, the annual international robotics competition, in France.

Dennis Hong, one of the lead developers of ARTEMIS at UCLA, claimed that creating footballer robots could help with developing machines for more serious uses like firefighting or disaster relief. “If your robot cannot even play a game of soccer, how would you be able to use these robots for more important things, such as saving people’s lives?” Hong asked.

— May 1, 2023 —

Researchers Develop Method to Remove Carbon from Ocean
by VOA News – Learning English

Gaurav Sant is the director of UCLA’s Institute for Carbon Management and helped lead the development project. He told the AP that the technology, called SeaChange, is meant to use the ocean’s natural abilities to reduce carbon levels in the sea.

— April 25, 2023 —

How Was the Internet Created?
by Scripps News

“That high speed line was the first piece of the internet backbone, and it was running at the blazing speed of 50,000 bits per second,” said Leonard Kleinrock, a computer scientist and professor at UCLA. “Now we — you and I — wouldn’t pay a nickel for 50,000 bits per second access line right now, but in those days, it was high speed.”

— April 21, 2023 —

California Researchers Attempt Ocean Climate Solution
by AP News

The technology, dubbed SeaChange, developed by the University of California Los Angeles engineering faculty, is meant to seize on the ocean’s natural abilities, said Gaurav Sant, director of UCLA’s Institute of Carbon Management.

— April 20, 2023 —

California Researchers Attempt Ocean Climate Solution
by Spectrum News

— April 19, 2023 —

This Robot Can Walk Upright, Play Soccer and Potentially Save Lives in Disaster Zones
by Independent Tribune

“In robot news, mechanical engineers at RoMeLA – the Robotics and Mechanisms Laboratory of the University of California in Los Angeles have developed a humanoid-sized robot.”

— April 18, 2023 —

Power of Water: Bringing Clean Water to the Most Remote Water-Starved Areas
by ABC News

Yoram Cohen, the director of the water technology research center at UCLA, told ABC News that those costs may not be sustainable. Cohen noted that the average person needs about 2 liters of water a day, but the hydro panels currently produce 3 to 5 liters for one household. “If you are in an area where you have no water whatsoever… the question is why? Why would you want to actually develop residential [properties]?” he asked.

— April 16, 2023 —

‘Big sponge’: New CO2 Tech Taps Oceans to Tackle Global Warming
by Yahoo!

Scientists from University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) have been working for two years on SeaChange—an ambitious project that could one day boost the amount of CO2, a major greenhouse gas, that can be absorbed by our seas. Their goal is “to use the ocean as a big sponge,” according to Gaurav Sant, director of the university’s Institute for Carbon Management (ICM).

— April 13, 2023 —

Could Removing Carbon from the Ocean be a Climate Change Solution?
by Los Angeles Times

(First-person account by Rosanna Xia) So with all that in mind, I took a tour Wednesday of what has been billed as a game-changing, first-of-its-kind technology in removing carbon dioxide from the ocean. The pilot system, dubbed SeaChange, essentially pumps in seawater, extracts the carbon dioxide, and then, through a surprisingly simple process, converts the CO2 into a solid mineral that can be stored safely away. This in turn frees up the ocean to absorb more carbon emissions from the atmosphere. It’s a multimillion-dollar idea that researchers from the UCLA Samueli School of Engineering have been putting to the test.

UCLA Team Launches Ocean Carbon Capture Project at Port of Los Angeles
by Los Angeles Daily News

Prof. Dante Simonetti stood on a 100-foot barge Wednesday morning, tethered close to shore just outside one of AltaSea’s massive warehouses at the Port of Los Angeles. In one hand, Simonetti, who helps head up UCLA’s Institute for Carbon Management, held a copper block called an electrochemical reactor. When a jolt of electricity is applied to the device and ocean water passes through it, he explained, a chemical reaction turns any dissolved minerals from that seawater into powder-fine solids.

— April 12, 2023 —

UCLA Engineers Develop Solution to Reduce Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide
by CBS News LA

Researchers from the UCLA Samueli School of Engineering have developed a groundbreaking electrochemical process in an effort to mitigate climate change, which removes carbon dioxide from the atmosphere by leveraging the world’s oceans.

An L.A. Startup Aims to Turn the Oceans Into A CO2 Sponge and ‘Green’ Hydrogen Machine
by Forbes

Created by scientists at UCLA’s ambitious Institute for Carbon Management, Equatic has developed a way to remove an environmentally harmful greenhouse gas from our atmosphere — and simultaneously generate usable green fuel.

— April 7, 2023 —

Chip-Free Origami-Inspired Robots for Use in Space and Surgery
by AZO Robotics

A team at UCLA has built origami-inspired robots that overcome a crucial design challenge that has previously prevented the flexible autonomous machines from reaching their full potential – the folding robots are now chip-free.

— April 6, 2023 —

The Robots Are Already Here
by Tech Crunch

The second research project is from UCLA’s Samueli School of Engineering, which recently published findings from its work around origami robots. The Origami MechanoBots, or “OrigaMechs,” rely on sensors embedded into their thin polyester building blocks. Principal investigator Ankur Mehta has some fairly far out plans for the tech.

— April 4, 2023 —

Foldable Robots with Intricate Transistors Can Squeeze into Extreme Situations
by Popular Science

A team of UCLA researchers has designed a new way to integrate traditionally inflexible semiconductor and sensory components into their devices’ structural materials. Enter a new dimension to origami-based robotics. “These types of dangerous or unpredictable scenarios, such as during a natural or manmade disaster, could be where origami robots proved to be especially useful,” said Ankur Mehta, the study’s principal investigator and director of UCLA’s Laboratory for Embedded Machines and Ubiquitous Robots.

— April 3, 2023 —

Regulating AI: 3 Experts Explain Why It’s Difficult to Do and Important to Get Right
by The Conversation

John Villasenor, Professor of Electrical Engineering, Law, Public Policy, and Management, University of California, Los Angeles.

— March 30, 2023 —

Sustainable Infrastructure Can’t Rely on Concrete
by City Monitor

“The market for cement replacements is, for all practical purposes, nonexistent,” says Gaurav Sant, founder of the cleantech start-up CO2Concrete and a professor of civil engineering at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). “I would wager that the number of companies that have started in the space and shut down, rather than succeeded, is actually bigger than the number of companies that actually exist today.”

Without encouragement from governments, risk-averse engineering firms are unlikely to choose a novel concrete. “What we need are strong signals to the markets that public entities and legislators are serious about this,” Sant says. Subsidy schemes or carbon taxes could have a role to play, as could regulations that ask developers to measure and report on the CO2 embedded in their buildings.

— March 28, 2023 —

Lebanon’s IT Folks Face Double Trouble as Leaders Delayed Daylight Savings Time
by The Register

UCLA computer science professor Paul Eggert, editor and coordinator of the Time Zone Database, said in a mailing list message, “Unfortunately, many GNU/Linux and other downstream suppliers take some time (a week or more) to test changes before they release data to their users. So unless you’re using one of the smaller, faster-moving distros like Alpine Linux you’ll likely be out of luck.”

— March 24, 2023 —

The Danger of Those Trump ‘Deepfake’ Images
by The Independent

“As we have all seen, it is so much easier to make fake videos and fake images and make them look really realistic,” Vwani Roychowdhury, a professor at UCLA Samueli School of Engineering, told HuffPost. “Whether it’s the correct information or socially acceptable information or misinformation, in my opinion, they’re all embedded as part of a narrative.”

— March 22, 2023 —

Trump Didn’t Get Arrested (Not Yet, At Least). That Was Just AI.
by HuffPost

An Arizona Plant Will Pull CO2 from the Air and Trap it in Concrete
by Yahoo News

After forming in UCLA’s engineering school in 2014 and then spinning out in 2019, CarbonBuilt has demonstrated its technology at coal- and gas-fired power plants in northern Wyoming and central Alabama, using the plants’ CO2-rich flue gases to cure concrete. In 2021, it won $7.5 million from the NRG Cosia Carbon Xprize for its technology.

— March 21, 2023 —

Surprise Computer Science Proof Stuns Mathematicians
by Quanta Magazine

On Sunday, February 5, Olof Sisask and Thomas Bloom received an email containing a stunning breakthrough on the biggest unsolved problem in their field. Zander Kelley, a graduate student at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, had sent Sisask and Bloom a paper he’d written with Raghu Meka of the University of California, Los Angeles. Both Kelley and Meka were computer scientists, an intellectual world apart from the additive combinatorics that Sisask and Bloom study.

— March 16, 2023 —

Robot Helpers Could be Coming Sooner Than You Think
by CBS News Sacramento

A pioneering lab at UCLA has been developing humanoid companions meant to work, and maybe even play alongside us. Professor Dennis Hong is a mechanical and aerospace engineer with a love of Star Wars and its charismatic robots. Now he and his graduate students at the Robotics and Mechanisms Laboratory (ROMELA) are developing next-generation humanoids.

Kick Off: Robot That Can Run and Jump to Comet in Football Tournament – and Creators Say it Could be ‘Better’ Than Messi
by The Sun (U.S.)

The robot, known as ARTEMIS, has been created by the robotics lab at UCLA Samueli School of Engineering. The team of researchers are already a five-time RoboCup champions, “We’re very excited to take ARTEMIS out for field testing here at UCLA and we see this as an opportunity to promote science, technology, engineering and mathematics to a much wider audience,” Dennis Hong added.

— March 15, 2023 —

Strange Material Breaks a Classic Rule of Physics
by Scientific American

“Now that we’ve made this first discovery, we think this can’t be the only material with abnormal behavior,” says study senior author Yongjie Hu, a chemist and mechanical engineer at the University of California, Los Angeles. If other substances show this property, “the established understanding of thermal conductivity might not be correct.”

How a Beam of Pellets Could Blast a Probe Into Deep Space
by Wired

“There’s rich physics in there,” says (Artur) Davoyan, a mechanical and aerospace engineer at UCLA. To create propulsion, he continues, “you either throw the fuel out of the rocket or you throw the fuel at the rocket.” From a physics perspective, they work the same: Both impart momentum to a moving object.

— March 14, 2023 —

UCLA Prof. Dennis Hong on KFI News
by KFI News

Professor Dennis Hong of mechanical and aerospace engineering speaks to Kris Adler of KFI News about ARTEMIS, a new full-sized humanoid robot developed by Hong and his team at Robotics and Mechanisms Laboratory (RoMeLa) at UCLA. The team has previously won five RoboCup championships and will attempt to get its sixth at RoboCup 2023 this July in Bordeaux, France.

Deep learning: A Powerful Tool for Biophotonics in Labs and Clinics
by SPIE

The increasing importance of deep learning (DL), artificial intelligence (AI) and related computational methods to biophotonics and clinical practice was highlighted during a BIOS plenary event at SPIE Photonics West in January. Aydogan Ozcan of UCLA chaired the session and is also received the Dennis Gabor Award in Diffractive Optics in recognition of his accomplishments in diffractive wavefront technologies, a field of central importance to the breakthroughs under discussion.

Morning News at 4:30
by KTLA 5

A humanoid robot created by UCLA engineers has earned a spot at this year’s Robocup Soccer Competition. The robot is now undergoing intense training in Westwood to prepare for his big match.

— March 9, 2023 —

What the Snowfall in California Will Mean for the State’s Drought Conditions
by CBS News

Some parts of California have been hit with up to 12 feet of snowfall. Alvar Escriva-Bou, an assistant professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, joins CBS News to discuss the impact of the recent severe weather on the state’s drought conditions.

— March 8, 2023 —

How We Stay Cool | Getting Warmer Episode 6
by Bloomberg

“Cooling, whether that’s air conditioning or refrigerators, is probably one of the 4biggest challenges we face with respect to climate change,” – Aaswath Raman, assistant professor of materials science and engineering.

— March 6, 2023 —

UCLA Unveils New ARTEMIS Robot for Soccer Tournament
by Teslarati

UCLA has posted a new video showing off its latest iteration of the ARTEMIS robot project, which will compete in the RoboCup soccer league.

Popular Science logo
Scientists Think This Tiny Greenhouse Could be a Game Changer for Agrivoltaics
by Popular Science

The field of agrivoltaics, in which land is used for both farming and solar power generation, has some basic logistical issues. Namely, it has been difficult to build structures that can both efficiently generate solar power while not blocking the sunlight needed for crops to actually grow. A team of researchers at UCLA recently discovered a novel solution to the issue that relies on organic materials.

— March 2, 2023 —

Years of Warnings and Inaction in Turkish City Destroyed by Earthquakes
by Washington Post

Widespread diagonal cracking in the exterior of buildings was evidence of shear, or the horizontal force created by the earthquake, said Jonathan Stewart, professor of civil and environmental engineering at the University of California at Los Angeles. Though some may remain habitable, the buildings must be inspected for additional cracking in key structural areas, he said. “If that is present, it is possible that these structures are on the verge of collapse.”

— March 1, 2023 —

NOW Tonight March 1
by NBC News NOW

“Retrofit is really non-uniform across the region. It really depends on the local ordinances that are in place.” – Jonathan Stewart, professor of civil and environmental engineering

Los Angeles News and Talk Station
by KNX-AM

Jonathan Stewart is an engineering expert at UCLA, he tells us what a project like this would entail, and why it matters. “We’re talking about concrete buildings that were constructed prior to a major code change in the late 1970s, and the structures from that area were not detailed in a very good way, by modern standards.”

— February 23, 2023 —

The World’s Largest 3D-Printed Neighborhood Is Here
by Bloomberg

Gaurav Sant, director of the Institute for Carbon Management at the University of California at Los Angeles, says it’s too early to tell if 3D printing will upend construction, though he says the industry is ripe for disruption thanks to its substantial carbon footprint. “But the fact that major companies are setting foot in the space and saying, ‘Let’s pressure-test this and really understand the value proposition and environmental impact’ is clearly a step in that direction,” says Sant, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at UCLA’s Samueli School of Engineering.

— February 22, 2023 —

How to Engineer Buildings That Withstand Earthquakes
by Scientific American

During a quake, the ground beneath a building moves quickly back and forth. But because the building has mass, it has inertia. “The earthquake is shaking the ground, and the building is trying to stay put,” says Ertugrul Taciroglu, a structural engineer at the University of California, Los Angeles.

— February 19, 2023 —

Startups Turning to the Ocean to Capture More Carbon Off Southern California’s Coast
by The Orange County Register

“We can be more efficient with fossil fuel usage. We cannot completely stop using it,” said Dante Simonetti, a chemical and biomolecular engineering professor at UCLA who is helping to spearhead ocean carbon capture pilot programs along the Los Angeles and Singapore coasts.

— February 18, 2023 —

Research Group Studying Massive Earthquake in Turkey for Similarities to California
by CBS News Los Angeles

“Essentially, we’re trying to design for a condition in California that we haven’t seen,” said Jonathan Stewart, a civil engineer and Professor at the UCLA Samueli School of Engineering. “So, the ability to go see what that looks like and learn from it is really once in a lifetime.” Stewart has been in regular contact with a team of four experts on the ground in Turkey, who rushed to witness the devastation and study the aftereffects due to the similarities the region’s tectonic system shares with the West Coast of the United States.

— February 14, 2023 —

NOW Tonight – NOW Tonight: Jonathan Stewart on the Earthquake in Turkey and Syria
by NBC News NOW

In an interview on NBC News Digital platform, Civil and environmental engineering professor Jonathan Stewart discussed similarities between earthquake faults in Turkey and California, the factors that led to the earthquake in Turkey (including the movement of the tectonic plates), and the importance of reevaluating old buildings and how to prioritize which building codes need to be implemented.

— February 11, 2023 —

How ChatGPT Can Improve Education, Not Threaten it
by Scientific American

A professor explains why he is allowing students to incorporate ChatGPT into their writing process instead of banning the new technology

— February 10, 2023 —

Fact check: False Claim That Turkey Earthquakes Were a Man-made Attack on Kurdish People
by USA TODAY

“The Arabian plate is moving north towards the Eurasian plate, which is squeezing a block of crust wedged between these to the west,” Jonathan Stewart, a civil and environmental engineering professor at the University of California Los Angeles, told USA TODAY. “The southern boundary of that block is the East Anatolian fault where the magnitude 7.8 (earthquake) occurred.”

Los Angeles Fire Department Trains in Urban Search and Rescue
by Spectrum News

Ertugrul Taciroglu is a professor of civil and environmental engineering at UCLA. He says there are still buildings that are not earthquake safe here. “In Los Angeles we have about 1500 of them identified so today we have reinforced concrete buildings in Los Angeles that could collapse just like those that collapsed in Turkey. Hopefully something like this big won’t happen until you completely replace them here in L.A.”

— February 9, 2023 —

The Twitch Seinfeld Show Proves AI Shouldn’t Write Comedy
by Wired

Nanyun Peng, an assistant professor of computer science at UCLA, studies AI’s ability to be creative and cowrote the papers “A Unified Framework for Pun Generation with Humor Principles” and “Pun Generation with Surprise.” She says AI’s unfunniness stems from the fact that it uses a probabilistic model to determine the most expected idea, and humor is based on unexpected responses.

VOA
Turkey Earthquake
by Voice of America TV

“We really need to learn from earthquakes like this to better prepare ourselves and help others prepare better for future effects,” said Jonathan Stewart, a civil and environmental engineering professor at the University of California Los Angeles. The broadcast was done in Russian with the original interview in English.

— February 8, 2023 —

How Seawater Might Soak Up More Carbon
by Nautilus

Early this year, Gaurav Sant will flip a switch on a machine aboard a battered barge tied up at a dock on the Los Angeles waterfront. Sant, an engineer at the University of California, Los Angeles, is thinking much, much bigger. He estimates that nearly 1,800 full-size factories on coastlines around the world could coax the ocean into removing 10 gigatons—10 billion metric tons—of extra CO2 per year. That’s one-quarter of humanity’s annual carbon emissions. “These are exciting times,” says Gaurav Sant.

Engineer Explains Earthquake Damage To Buildings In Turkey, Syria
by The Weather Channel

“This is a much bigger earthquake than any of us have a memory of here in California,” said UCLA professor Jonathan Stewart. “You really have to go back to 1906 to see an earthquake comparable in size.”

INSIGHT – Lawsuits Pile up as U.S. Parents Take on Social Media Giants
by Reuters

John Villasenor, the co-director of the UCLA Institute for Technology, Law, and Policy, said it could be hard to distinguish between a well-designed algorithm and one that might under some circumstances promote addictive behaviors.
Also mentioned by the following outlets: National Post, Saskatoon StarPhoenix, and OCanada.

— February 7, 2023 —

Turkish Americans Grieve in the Wake of Deadly Earthquake
by Spectrum News 1

Ertugrul Taciroglu is a professor of civil and environmental engineering at UCLA. He’s also from Turkey and says buildings like the one Fuat’s family lived in have been most impacted … “The particularly vulnerable building inventory in Turkey are those buildings that were built primarily before the 1980s when they had a design code change. I believe we will see in the end, when the damage and losses are kind of archived, that most of the buildings that collapsed could be from that older stock.”

KFBK NBC
The Earthquake: One of Strongest to Hit the Region in More Than 100 Years on the East Anatolian Fault.
by KFBK and NBC NEWS RADIO

UCLA civil engineering professor Jonathan Stewart perceives the long-term effects this earthquake will have on residence and Turkey’s infrastructure.

LEARN MORE

Could LA Buildings Collapse Like Those In Turkey When The Big One Hits?
by LAist

“The buildings that collapsed (in Turkey) are most likely those that were built prior to 1980s, and some that weren’t built to code requirements,” said Ertugrul Taciroglu, chair of civil and environmental engineering at UCLA.

In Turkey and Syria, Outdated Building Methods All But Assured Disaster from a Quake
by npr

Scenes of thousands of buildings reduced to rubble in southern Turkey and northern Syria following Monday’s deadly magnitude 7.8 earthquake — and its many aftershocks — come as no surprise to civil engineer Jonathan Stewart.

— February 4, 2023 —

Needs to Prioritize Weaknesses in Infrastructure
by Spectrum News SF Valley

“Attention needs also to be given to where the greatest vulnerabilities are, just in terms of ground movements during earthquakes and things like that. I think that’s a challenge for the city and any other entity that worries about this things, transportation, and so on,” said Jonathan Stewart.

— February 3, 2023 —

Chinese Spy Balloon Has Unexpected Maneuverability
by Scientific American

“This maneuverability is beyond the capabilities of most high-altitude balloons,” says John Villasenor, director of the Institute for Technology, Law and Policy and a professor of electrical engineering, law, public policy and management at the University of California, Los Angeles.

Scientists Propose Method That Shoots Lasers At Spacecraft To Increase Speed Of Space Travel
by California18

Artur Davoyan, an assistant professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at UCLA, says there are two problems to solve: the first is that it cannot be applied to vehicles with very heavy loads and that the fact that it works with solar rays, it limits the fact that its greatest momentum will be lost when it gets too far away from the massive star.

— February 2, 2023 —

Can a Robot Ever Become Your Friend?
by Science News Explores

“That’s totally what my aim is,” says Alexis E. Block. And, she adds, “I think we’re on the right track. But there’s a lot more work to do.” Block is a roboticist who built a machine that gives hugs. She is affiliated with the University of California, Los Angeles and the Max Planck Institute in Stuttgart, Germany.

Meet the Scientists Who Want to Make Medical Devices Work for Everyone, Finally
by Inverse

The indifference speaks to a wider, persisting crisis of bias within medicine, health care, and pharmaceutical or medical device development, Achuta Kadambi, an engineering professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, tells Inverse. “There’s essentially three types of bias: The bias of the physical layer, which is what we’re talking about often with pulse oximeters,” he says. “Then there’s bias at the [artificial intelligence], or computational, layer, and a third layer is interpretation bias, which means that even if the rest of the system is equitable, you might have a human factor adjust the output accordingly.”

The Many Facets of Flow Cytometry
by Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology News

Dino Di Carlo, PhD, the Armond and Elena Hairapetian Chair in Engineering and Medicine and Professor of Bioengineering at UCLA, says that his laboratory’s lab-on-a-particle technology could be very helpful to the flow cytometry community. Di Carlo and colleagues recently manufactured nanovials, which are hydrogel-based chemically functionalized microcontainers that act as a solid support, and to which adherent or suspension cell types can be attached.

— February 1, 2023 —

STEAM: Meet Dr. Rajit Gadh, a Green Energy Futurist
by CBS News Los Angeles

Inside UCLA Samueli School of Engineering is the “green energy futurist” Rajit Gadh, a professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering, whose research focuses on innovative power solutions from V2G to AI-powered systems.

— January 31, 2023 —

A Quick Remedy Proves Elusive for Life-Saving Pulse Oximeter’s Problems with Darker Skin
by Forbes

“Race-based corrections lead to a lot of confusion later on that exacerbates bias,” said Achuta Kadambi, an assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering at the University of California at Los Angeles, who’s working on more equitable remote heart monitoring. “It’s a slippery slope. You want the physics of the device to be sensing things in a manner that’s robust.”

— January 24, 2023 —

See the 2023 U.S. News Ranking for Best Online Programs
by US News

After ranking at No. 2 the prior year, the University of California—Los Angeles’ Henry Samueli School of Engineering claimed the top spot in the rankings of online master’s in engineering programs.

— January 18, 2023 —

Optical AI Could Feed Voracious Data Need
by IEEE Spectrum

A brain-imitating neural network that employs photons instead of electrons could rapidly analyze vast amounts of data by running many computations simultaneously using thousands of wavelengths of light. All this computing “does not consume power, except for the illumination light,” says study senior author Aydogan Ozcan, an optical engineer at the University of California, Los Angeles.

— January 17, 2023 —

Race to Zero: Can California’s Power Grid Handle a 15-fold Increase in Electric Cars?
by CalMatters

Rajit Gadh, director of UCLA’s Smart Grid Energy Research Center, said challenges exist. As with many of the problems related to energy and electric vehicles, “it’s a matter of time, education, awareness and incentives,” Gadh said.

— January 14, 2023 —

VOA
Fight Over Big Tech Looms in Supreme
by VOA News

“It has pretty profound implications, because with tech regulation and tech law, things can have unintended consequences,” John Villasenor, a professor of engineering and law and director of the UCLA Institute for Technology, Law and Policy, told VOA.

— January 10, 2023 —

Planes on Titan and Pipelines on the Moon: NASA Considering Some Wild Future Tech
by Yahoo

NASA wants Artur Davoyan from the University of California, Los Angeles, to further develop his pellet-beam propulsion system concept, which the mechanical and aerospace engineer envisions as means for transporting heavy spacecraft to targets across the solar system and even into interstellar space.

Deep Learning-designed Diffractice Processor Computes Hundreds of Transformations in Parallel
by Phys.org

The same UCLA research group that first introduced the diffractive optical networks has recently addressed this question. In a recent study published in Advanced Photonics, they employed a wavelength multiplexing scheme in a diffractive optical network and showed the feasibility of using a broadband diffractive processor to perform massively parallel linear transformation operations. UCLA Chancellor’s Professor Aydogan Ozcan, the leader of the research group at the Samueli School of Engineering, briefly describes the architecture and principles of this optical processor.

— January 9, 2023 —

Why Hospitals Are Struggling to Meet Earthquake Safety Deadline
by CalMatters

“If you have a hospital that serves a population that may not have a lot of mobility, say a disadvantaged population, and that hospital can’t work after an earthquake when you might have a lot of injuries, that is a big problem,” said Jonathan Stewart, professor of civil and environmental engineering at UCLA.

— January 7, 2023 —

How the Internet Was Created by Government — Not Private — Innovation
by Salon

“One way to think about this is to recognize that early on there were at least three independent threads that were responsible for the creation of the Internet,” computer scientist and UCLA professor Dr. Leonard Kleinrock told Salon by email.

— January 5, 2023 —

Solar-sailing Probes May Soon Get Their Moment in the Sun
by Space

Then there’s the “extreme solar sailing” development work being conducted by Artur Davoyan of the University of California, Los Angeles and sponsored by NASA’s Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC) program. “We envisage a new generation of breakthrough science missions that were not possible before, from probing fundamental laws of nature at the outskirts of our solar system to peering into distant worlds,” Davoyan explained in a NIAC briefing about his work.

— December 28, 2022 —

‘Bomb Cyclone’ Underscores Vulnerabilities of Nation’s Electric Grid
by The Hill

The “bomb cyclone” that hit large swaths of the country left hundreds of thousands of Americans without power at one point or another over Christmas weekend, exposing vulnerabilities in the country’s electrical system.

— December 27, 2022 —

Who Celebrates the New Year First and Last? It’s Complicated.
by National Geographic

The article quotes Paul Eggert, a senior lecturer of computer science at UCLA Samueli who maintains the authoritative global Time Zone Database, on the potential for confusion with 38 local time times in use around the globe, some of which are offset from Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) by 30- or 45-minute increments.

— December 19, 2022 —

Epigenetic Variation Predicts Behavior in Dogs
by Earth.com

“Here we show that the behavior of dogs is associated with their epigenome, in particular DNA methylation. Our results open the door to using epigenetics to screen and select for desired behavioral traits in companion or service dogs,” said study senior author Matteo Pellegrini, an expert in Epigenomics and Computational Biology at UCLA.

— December 16, 2022 —

Vint Cerf Helped Create the Internet on the Back of an Envelope
by The Wall Street Journal

While at UCLA, Dr. Cerf got swept up in what would become a precursor to the internet. The Advanced Research Projects Agency, another post-Sputnik federal effort to drive technological innovation (later renamed the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA), sought a way to reduce costs and speed progress in computer science and artificial intelligence by linking various university computers together.

IEEE Honors Iconic Engineers
by IEEE Spectrum

Meet the recipients of the 2023 IEEE Medals and Recognitions. The awards are presented on behalf of the IEEE Board of Directors.

— December 14, 2022 —

This Semiconductor Breaks the Rules of Physics Under Pressure
by Chemical & Engineering News

For this reason, experimental measurements of myriad materials—such as diamond, ice, and quartz—have all supported the conclusion that thermal conductivity increases with pressure up until the material breaks down or changes phase, says Yongjie Hu, a chemist and mechanical engineer at the University of California, Los Angeles. Computational simulations predicted that BAs might buck the trend, so Hu decided to investigate how the semiconductor performs under pressure.

— December 13, 2022 —

The Ezra Klein Show: Time Is Way Weirder Than You Think
by The New York Times Opinion

“You are the best time machine that has ever been built,” Dean Buonomano writes in his book “Your Brain Is a Time Machine: The Neuroscience and Physics of Time.” Buonomano is a professor of neurobiology and psychology at U.C.L.A. who studies the relationship between time and the human brain.

ASCE Launches Its First Multidisciplinary, Open-access Journal
by ASCE Civil Engineering Source

ASCE OPEN’s first editor-in-chief, Ertugrul Taciroglu, Ph.D., F.EMI, of the UCLA Samueli School of Engineering, recently spoke with Civil Engineering Source about the new project and what kinds of articles readers and researchers should expect to read in the journal.

Approved L.A. City Ordinance Will Require Newly-Built Properties To Be All-Electric, We Discuss Potential Logistics & Implications
by KPCC AirTalk

Rajit Gadh was interviewed on KPCC AirTalk to discuss the energy implications and logistics of building all-electric properties, per L.A city council’s newest ordinance.

— December 9, 2022 —

Is ChatGPT a Marvel or a Force? We Interviewed the Chatbot to Find Out
by Los Angeles Times

“The fact that this chatbot generates long and coherent responses without inconsistency (within a single response) is an amazing achievement.” Violet Peng, assistant professor of computer science at the UCLA Samueli School of Engineering, told Los Angeles Times.

— December 7, 2022 —

North Carolina Attack Underscores Vulnerability of Power Grid
by The Hill

“A single cyberattack can shut down hundreds if not thousands of substations at once,” said Rajit Gadh, director of UCLA’s Smart Grid Energy Research Center.

— December 6, 2022 —

Handheld Diagnostic Platform Could Help Combat Epidemics
by Physics World

Researchers led by Dino Di Carlo and Sam Emaminejad from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) have now developed a handheld viral diagnostic test based on a swarm of millimetre-sized magnets (termed “ferrobots”).

— December 5, 2022 —

A Handheld Kit Provides Accessible Diagnoses for Future Pandemics
by Springwise

A research team at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) has developed a technology that could significantly increase the speed and volume of disease testing, while reducing the costs and usage of scarce supplies.

AI-designed Structured Material Creates Super-resolution Images Using a Low-resolution Display
by TechXplore

In their paper titled “Super-resolution image display using diffractive decoders,” UCLA researchers, led by Professor Aydogan Ozcan, used deep learning to spatially-engineer transmissive diffractive layers at the wavelength scale, and created a material-based physical image decoder that achieves super-resolution image projection as the light is transmitted through its layers.

— November 30, 2022 —

As Crypto Chaos Continues, the Next Generation of Hires is Having Doubts
by Marketplace Radio

John Villasenor has noticed a particular correlation among his University of California, Los Angeles, computer science students. “I’ve found in the last seven or eight years that interest in the crypto space, generally speaking, tends to track the price of bitcoin,” he said.

— November 29, 2022 —

Intelligent Materials: Science Fiction to Science Fact
by Physics

Materials that learn to change their shape in response to an external stimulus are a step closer to reality, thanks to a prototype system produced by engineers at UCLA.

— November 21, 2022 —

AI Material That Adapts to Its Surroundings
by Tech Briefs

“This research introduces and demonstrates an artificial intelligent material that can learn to exhibit the desired behaviors and properties upon increased exposure to ambient conditions,” said Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Professor Jonathan Hopkins, UCLA Samueli School of Engineering. The same foundational principles that are used in machine learning are used to give this material its smart and adaptive properties.

— November 14, 2022 —

UCLA Team Develops Test Kit to Hasten Disease Diagnosis
by The Engineer

UCLA researchers have developed a technology that could significantly increase the speed and volume of disease testing, while reducing the costs and usage of supplies. UCLA Samueli School of Engineering Professor Dino di Carlo (bioengineering) and Associate Professor Sam Emaminejad (electrical and computer engineering) co-authored a study, which has been published in Nature.

— November 9, 2022 —

Visionary Behind Hubble Space Telescope Control System and Passenger Safety Technology Awarded Prince Philip Medal
by Royal Academy of Engineering

Her Royal Highness The Princess Royal, Royal Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering, presented the Academy’s most prestigious individual award, the Prince Philip Medal, to space technology pioneer Dr Asad Madni FREng in London on 8 November. The award recognises Dr Madni’s decades’ long career developing and commercialising intelligent sensors and systems across the aerospace, manufacturing and transportation industries.

— November 8, 2022 —

Cars, Tugs—and Elevators? Big Changes Coming for Transportation in the Future
by Wall Street Journal

Dedicated lanes aren’t the best long-term solution, says Dennis Hong, a professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering and founding director of the Robotics & Mechanisms Laboratory at University of California, Los Angeles.

— November 7, 2022 —

They Used to Call California Ocean Desalination a Disaster. But Water Crisis Brings New Look
by Los Angeles Times

Yoram Cohen, a desalination expert and professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering at UCLA, is running a pilot program of small-scale, remotely run desalination units in the Salinas Valley, where groundwater is often contaminated with salt and other chemicals.

Power Up! How We Avoided Critical Blackouts During the Last Heat Wave and Why it Matters
by LAist

UCLA engineering professor Rajit Gadh said the million electric vehicles in California today alone could be their own massive battery in conjunction with large-scale renewable energy run by utilities.

— October 31, 2022 —

Concrete.ai Releases Beta Version of Tool Reducing Cost and Carbon Intensity of Concrete Construction
by Architect’s Newspaper

The core technology employed by Concrete.ai was developed at the University of California, Los Angeles’s Institute for Carbon Management (ICM) by Gaurav N. Sant and Mathieu Bauchy, both of whom are faculty members in UCLA’s Samueli School of Engineering in the Departments of Civil and Environmental Engineering

— October 24, 2022 —

Engineers Design Dynamic Materials Using Artificial Intelligence
by MachineDesign

“This research introduces and demonstrates an artificial intelligent material that can learn to exhibit the desired behaviors and properties upon increased exposure to ambient conditions,” said mechanical and aerospace engineering professor Jonathan Hopkins of the UCLA Samueli School of Engineering who led the research.

— October 21, 2022 —

dot.LA
UCLA’s Latest ‘MNN’ Project Proves AI Is More Advanced Than You Thought
by dot.LA

A team of UCLA mechanical engineers has recently created a new material that can adapt to changing circumstances through artificial intelligence.

This appears to be a summary of our newsroom story; Jonathan Hopkins is quoted. There are reprints of this story on Innovation Report, Geeky News and Incentive Mind.

— October 6, 2022 —

Pharmacy Times Logo
Researchers Are Developing Bispecific CAR Proteins to “Wake Up” the Immune Systems of Cancer Patients
by Pharmacy Times

In an interview with Pharmacy Times at the Sixth International Cancer immunotherapy Conference (CICON) 2022, Yvonne Chen, PhD and Associate Professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, also breaks down the latest research from her laboratory, where she is engineering CAR proteins that can “wake up” the immune system.

— September 30, 2022 —

Can We Trick the Ocean into Swallowing More CO2?
by Deutsche Welle

Marine environments are effective at capturing carbon and storing it for thousands of years. But what if we could engineer them to capture even more? Can they take on this burden?

— September 27, 2022 —

UCLA’s ‘Ultra Secure’ AI Camera Only Records What It’s Programmed for
by KCBS Radio

Aydogan Ozcan, a professor of electrical and computer engineering as well as bioengineering, was interviewed live on this Bay Area radio station about his privacy protecting camera.

— September 26, 2022 —

Carbon Sucks!
by The Week on Earth podcast

Or, how to suck carbon. In this episode, Donnie and Chris try really hard to understand CO2, our most prolific greenhouse gas. Featuring UCLA scientist and X-Prize winner Dr. Gaurav Sant from the Institute of Carbon Management, and Mike McGee, the creator of CO2.earth. Plus the latest climate news.

— September 21, 2022 —

Sarcos is Developing a ‘Human-Like’ Robotic Hand to Help the US Navy in Safely Defusing Mines
by Tech Times

Dr. Veronica Santos at UCLA and professor Jonathan Posner at the University of Washington are researching some basic science, while Sarcos is applying it to real-world robotics.

— September 20, 2022 —

This Pittsburgh Company Is Building A Robotic Hand For The US Navy To Safely Defuse Mines
by Forbes

Dr. Veronica Santos at UCLA and University of Washington professor Jonathan Posner are developing some of the basic science, and Sarcos is implementing it in real-world robotics.

Five Ways Deep Learning Has Transformed Image Analysis
by Nature

An electrical and computer engineer at the University of California, Los Angeles, [Aydogan] Ozcan trained a custom deep-learning model to stain a tissue section computationally by presenting it with tens of thousands of examples of both unstained and stained versions of the same section, and letting the model work out how they differed.

— September 19, 2022 —

Star Track: A laser-powered mini-rocket could find humans a new home
by UCLA Newsroom

UCLA materials engineer Aaswath Raman is part of a global team that’s designing the first interstellar sailing ship — a tiny but mighty probe designed to photograph faraway stars up close.

— September 14, 2022 —

As the Colorado River Shrinks, Water Managers See Promise in Recycling Sewage
by Wyoming Public Radio

David Jassby is an associate professor of civil environmental engineering at UCLA. He explained that treated wastewater already flows through streams and rivers across the country, and pointed to major utilities’ track record of very few water-borne disease outbreaks as a treatment to the capacity of treatment technology.

NPR for Colorado logo
As the Colorado River Shrinks, water managers See Promise in Recycling Sewage
by NPR Colorado

— September 13, 2022 —

Experts Discuss Innovation-entrepreneurship Role in Developing Desalination
by Saudi Gazette

On the other side, Prof. Yoram Cohen, Distinguished Professor at the University of California, mentioned that past experiences are the key factor in making future plans and creating new solutions for desalination.

— September 9, 2022 —

dot.LA
Businesses in Los Angeles Are Working to Lessen Burden on Strained Power Grid
by dot.LA

“I was actually delighted to see that people are willing to have a little bit of inconvenience. Rolling blackouts are bad for everyone, and everybody pitched in,” said Rajit Gadh, professor of mechanical engineering and director of UCLA’s Smart Grid Energy Research Center. But Gadh noted that long term, a more sustainable solution is needed, including making the city smarter and pipelines for electric vehicles to give back to the grid.

— September 8, 2022 —

UCLA Expert on the Relationship Between Electric Vehicles and California’s Energy Grid
by Spectrum News1

Some energy scholars say California would have more than enough capacity if it harnessed its resources better. But outdated energy market rules make it tough for power providers to tap into all the potential resources.
“For more than a decade, Rajit Gadh, professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at the UCLA Samueli School of Engineering, has studied how electric vehicles affect the supply and demand of the electric grid.

— September 7, 2022 —

California Scrambles to Avoid blackouts as it Pursues a Green Energy Future
by Washington Post

Some energy scholars say California would have more than enough capacity if it harnessed its resources better. But outdated energy market rules make it tough for power providers to tap into all the potential resources.
“There is more power out there than we need to stabilize the grid on these few days a year it is under stress,” said Rajit Gadh, director of the Smart Grid Energy Research Center at UCLA. “We just need to get the control systems and the infrastructure in place, and give people incentives.”

— September 2, 2022 —

From the Lab to the Battery Start-up
by Chemical & Engineering News

Entrepreneurial researchers tell their stories about how they developed a lab discovery and turned it into a commercial battery

“The story of UCLA-based start-up Nanotech Energy unfolded somewhat differently than those of Xerion and SES. The company did not evolve from a single puff of magic, per se, but the idea underpinning its main technology sort of did.

— August 28, 2022 —

Chemical-free Re-staining of Tissue Using Deep Learning
by Phys.org

This research was led by Dr. Aydogan Ozcan, Chancellor’s Professor and Volgenau Chair for Engineering Innovation at UCLA Electrical & Computer Engineering and Bioengineering.

— August 23, 2022 —

AI-created Lenses Let Camera Ignore Some Objects When Taking Pictures
by New Scientist

Aydogan Ozcan at the University of California, Los Angeles, and his colleagues trained a deep-learning AI model to recognise images of numbers from a huge online repository of handwritten digits

NASA Engineer’s Quantum Dot Instrument Enables Spacecraft-as-Sensor Concept
by Space Ref

The sail concept is being developed by co-investigator Artur Davoyan, a professor at UCLA.

A Self-Powered HMI That’s Also Waterproof
by IEEE Spectrum

The researchers, lead by Jun Chen of UCLA’s Wearable Bioelectronics Research Group, used what is known as the magnetoelastic effect (also known as inverse magnetorestriction), discovered in the 1860s, describing the variation in magnetization of a material under mechanical stress. In fact, the current study expands upon the group’s earlier work demonstrating the magnetoelastic effect in a soft polymer system.

— August 22, 2022 —

Innovation Could Change Lives of People Taking Mental Health Meds
by MSN

Principal investigator Dr. Sam Emaminejad, of the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), said: “Through a single touch, our new device can obtain clinically useful molecular-level information about what is circulating in the body.

— August 21, 2022 —

Sensor Could Help Patients Stay on Top of Their Meds
by American Chemical Society

“Through a single touch, our new device can obtain clinically useful molecular-level information about what is circulating in the body,” says Sam Emaminejad, Ph.D., the project’s principal investigator, who is at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). “We already interact with a lot of touch-based electronics, such as smart phones and keyboards, so this sensor could integrate seamlessly into daily life.”

— August 17, 2022 —

Bats, Bugs and Bionic Super 3D Cameras
by WIRED Middle East

“While the idea itself has been tried, seeing across a range of distances and around occlusions has been a major hurdle,” said study leader Liang Gao, an associate professor of bioengineering at the UCLA Samueli School of Engineering. “To address that, we developed a novel computational imaging framework, which for the first time enables the acquisition of a wide and deep panoramic view with simple optics and a small array of sensors.”

— August 16, 2022 —

City of the Future: Can London Adapt to Survive the Soaring Temperatures?
by Evening Standard

Meanwhile in Los Angeles, Professor Aaswath Raman has engineered a type of film, made from glass and hafnium dioxide, which cools down when the sun is shining on it. His and his colleague’s company SkyCool recently used panels coated in the film to pump water into a supermarket’s air conditioners, minimising the amount of electricity they used by around 20 per cent.

Super Phase Recovery and Hologram Reconstruction Using a Deep Neural Network
by Tech Xplore

This research was led by Dr. Aydogan Ozcan, Chancellor’s Professor and Volgenau Chair for Engineering Innovation at UCLA and HHMI Professor with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. The other authors of this work include Hanlong Chen, Luzhe Huang, and Tairan Liu, all from the Electrical and Computer Engineering department at UCLA. Prof. Ozcan also has UCLA faculty appointments in the bioengineering and surgery departments and is an associate director of the California NanoSystems Institute

— August 15, 2022 —

This High-Tech Camera May Help Protect Our Identities -– Here is How it Works
by Inverse

To protect our data in the nick of time, UCLA bioengineer Aydogan Ozcan and his team envisioned a smart camera that can focus on what matters, as they report in a new study. For example, the camera could spot someone walking through a security line and at the same time obscure uninvolved onlookers’ faces.

— August 5, 2022 —

Los Angeles Times logo
Saltwater Toilets, Desperate Wildlife: Water-starved Catalina Island Battles Against Drought
by Los Angeles Times

Yoram Cohen, a desalination expert and professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering at UCLA who is not affiliated with the Avalon plant, said size can be a factor when it comes to the impact of the brine.

— August 2, 2022 —

UCLA’s High-Tech NanoLab Is Open to All
by Semiconductor Digest

UCLA’s Nanofabrication Laboratory, known as the UCLA NanoLab for short, combines resources from the UCLA Samueli School of Engineering and the California NanoSystems Institute (CNSI).

— August 1, 2022 —

dot.LA

A New Design Out of UCLA Aims to Revolutionize Batteries
by dot.LA

The battery design was first conceived at UCLA by a team of researchers including Bruce Dunn and Sarah Tolbert.

Los Angeles Times logo

Little Robots Show a Big Leap in Design; At UCLA, Engineers Create a One-step 3-D Process for Units That Move, Sense Environs.
by LA Times

“Traditional robots you see today rely on multiple different components,” said Rayne Zheng, a mechanical engineer and leader of the project. The robot’s body, its moving parts and its electronics have to be built separately and then assembled together. “With 3-D-printed materials that can be robotized, we don’t need any of that.”

— July 29, 2022 —

UCLA-led Study Develops Method for Predictive design of Pt Catalysts for Fuel Cells
By Green Car Congress

Co-corresponding author Yu Huang, a professor of materials science and engineering at the UCLA Samueli School of Engineering, said that the method could be applied to potential catalysts mixing platinum with a subset of metals beyond nickel and cobalt.

— July 28, 2022 —

The World Needs to Start Planning for the Fire Age
By The Atlantic

““There is momentum,” Ali Mosleh, the director of the B. John Garrick Institute for the Risk Sciences at UCLA, told me. “But wildfire is far behind other natural disasters, unfortunately, in terms of fundamental understanding and best practices.” Mosleh proposes that standards could be broken out by type of community—having, say, 10 different models depending on the characteristics of a city. Community A might need four hours, while Community B might need six. They might need different numbers of evacuation routes, and different sorts of community-warning systems. Existing tools and simulations, like the one run on Camp Fire data, can help guide policy makers.”

— July 27, 2022 —

No quick fix: How OpenAI’s DALL·E 2 Illustrated the Challenges of Bias in AI
By NBC News

“This is not just a technical problem. This is a problem that involves the social sciences,” said Kai-Wei Chang, an associate professor at the UCLA Samueli School of Engineering who studies artificial intelligence. There will be a future in which systems better guard against certain biased notions, but as long as society has biases, AI will reflect that, Chang said.

No quick fix: How OpenAI’s DALL·E 2 Illustrated the Challenges of Bias in AI
By Yahoo! News

— July 26, 2022 —

Department Of Defense Names Nine University Faculty To Receive Vannevar Bush Fellowships
By Forbes

Kunihiko Taira, Professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, University of California, Los Angeles

— July 22, 2022 —

Introducing ARTEMIS: The Next-generation Humanoid Robot Platform to Serve us for the Next 10 years
By IEEE Spectrum

Possible Step Toward Cheaper Hydrogen-based Energy: Predicting Performance of Catalysts in Fuel Cells
By Tech Xplore

“For the sustainability of our planet, we can’t keep living the way we do, and reinventing energy is one major way to change our path,” said corresponding author Yu Huang, a professor of materials science and engineering at the UCLA Samueli School of Engineering and a member of the California NanoSystems Institute at UCLA. “We have fuel cell cars, but we need to make them cheaper. In this study, we came up with an approach to allow researchers to identify the right catalysts much faster.”

— July 19, 2022 —

Giving Back the Sense of Touch to Amputees
by Think

“In a robotics laboratory at UCLA is a robotics scientist who became a great pal in all of this stuff named Veronica Santos [professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering and bioengineering]. This was part of a series of experiments that Case Western and UCLA were running to see whether they could make a business meeting gain a component of physical touch. The idea was: Can we get people to do a virtual handshake?”

— July 18, 2022 —

Artificial Muscles are Stronger and More Flexible than Real Muscle
by Medgadget

“Creating an artificial muscle to enable work and detect force and touch has been one of the grand challenges of science and engineering,” said Qibing Pei, a researcher involved in the study.

— July 15, 2022 —

New Material Could Lead to Big Leap in Artificial Muscles
by Materials Today

“Creating an artificial muscle to enable work and detect force and touch has been one of the grand challenges of science and engineering,” said Qibing Pei, a professor of materials science and engineering at the UCLA Samueli School of Engineering and corresponding author of a paper on this work in Science.

— July 14, 2022 —

Scientists Create New Artificial Muscle That’s Stronger Than Human Muscle
by WebMD

“We’re really excited about this new material,” says Qibing Pei, PhD, an author of the study and a UCLA professor of materials science and engineering. “At its maximum performance, this artificial muscle is way more powerful than a human muscle.”

Paul Revere Williams’ UCLA Building Gets a Refresh and Retrofit from CO Architects
by The Architects Newspaper

UCLA’s Engineering Department conducted earthquake simulations on a model of the hall and designed custom viscous dampers with project engineers KPFF and fabricator Taylor Devices.

— July 14, 2022 —

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The Changing Story of Human Revolution
by The Economist

“I recently had the chance to speak about this with Sriram Sankararam, who is a computational biologist at UCLA. He’s working on understanding human evolution using both genetic data and really complicated statistical models to try and untangle these subtle signals in the human genome.”

— July 13, 2022 —

IEEE Top 2022 Medal of Honor Awardee, Dr. Madni Shares Deep Lessons
by Forbes

The IEEE Medal of Honor, established in 1917, is the highest IEEE award. Dr. Asad M. Madni is the 2022 recipient for Dr. Madni’s decades of global outstanding contributions and innovations.

Los Angeles Times logo
First Image from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope Reveals Thousands of Galaxies in Stunning Detail
by LA Times

For Jonathan Arenberg, Webb’s lead engineer at Northrop Grumman from 2012 to 2017, the experience of seeing the first image was one of “overwhelming emotion,” he said.
Reprinted in Yahoo News, MSN, and Atlanta Business Journal among others.

— July 12, 2022 —

KNX NEWS logo
UCLA Scientists Have Created a New Kind of Artificial Muscle for Machines That’s Even Stronger and More Flexible Than the Real Thing
by KNX-AM (Los Angeles) – Radio

“UCLA scientists have created a new kind of artificial muscle for machines that’s even stronger and more flexible than the real thing. Researchers used dielectric elastomers, lightweight acrylic-based materials with high elasticity. They’re flexible but tough enough to keep their shape.”

An Artificial Muscle for Machines, Even Stronger and More Flexible than the Real Thing, UCLA Scientists Using a Lightweight Acrylic Based Materials with High Elasticity, Tough Enough to Keep its Shape
by KBOI (Boise, ID) – News at 10

“UCLA scientists, using lightweight, acrylic-based materials with high elasticity tough enough to keep its shape. The technology could be used to create robots with better mobility and more endurance than us.”

KOVR logo
UCLA Scientists Have Created a New Kind of Artificial Muscle for Machines That’s Even Stronger and More Flexible Than the Real Thing
by KOVR-TV (Sacramento, CA) – CBS 13 News at 5:30pm

“UCLA scientists have created a new kind of artificial muscle for machines. It’s even stronger and more flexible than the real thing. Researchers used lightweight and flexible, acrylic-based materials that are tough enough to keep their shape.”

UCLA Scientists Have Created a New Kind of Artificial Muscle
by Action News at 6am

“UCLA scientists have created a new kind of artificial muscle for machines that even stronger and more flexible than the real thing. Researchers used lightweight, acrylic-based materials with high elasticity. They are flexible but tough enough to keep their shape.”

New material for Artificial Muscles Called Stronger, More Flexible Than What’s in Body
by United Press International

Qibing Pei, a professor of materials science and engineering at UCLA’s Henry Samueli School of Engineering and the study’s corresponding author, told UPI in a phone interview that he envisions numerous potential medical applications for the new material, as well as its use in small robotics.

Also carried in Space Daily

— July 08, 2022 —

It Works Like a Dish Sponge’: a New Way to Capture Carbon from the Oceans
by Eco-Business

Gaurav Sant, a professor at the University of California, has another idea for capturing carbon — sucking it out of the ocean.

— July 06, 2022 —

Deep Learning Accelerates the Detection of Live Bacteria Using Thin-film Transistor Arrays
by News8 Plus

In an article not too long ago revealed in ACS Photonics, a journal of the American Chemical Society (ACS), a group of scientists, led by Professor Aydogan Ozcan from the Electrical and Pc Engineering Division on the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), and colleagues have developed an AI-powered sensible bacterial colony detection system utilizing a thin-film transistor (TFT) array, which is a extensively used know-how in cell phones and different shows.

RE2 Achieves Technical Milestone with Robotic Gripper for US Navy
by Naval Technology

University of California (UCLA) Biomechatronics Laboratory director Dr Veronica Santos, who is supporting the development of STARFISH, said: “When visual feedback is limited, complementary senses such as touch play a critical role in completing dexterous tasks.

Flawed Oxygen Readings May be Behind Covid-19’s Toll on People of Color
by POLITICO

Experts say the flawed readings are the result of how light is absorbed on different skin shades. Pulse oximeters work by shooting light onto a person’s skin and observing how much bounces back, said Achuta Kadambi, an engineering professor at the University of California, Los Angeles.

— June 29, 2022 —

Climate-friendly Cement? California Takes on a High-carbon Industry
by CalMatters

Meeting those climate targets will require heavy investments, according to Gaurav Sant, director of UCLA’s Institute for Carbon Management. The industry will need to switch to more environmentally-friendly fuels, increase energy-efficiency, invest in new carbon capture technologies and produce low-carbon cement blends, he said.

— June 27, 2022 —

Modern Diplomacy logo

Artificial Intelligence and Moral Issues: AI Between War and Self-consciousness
by Modern Diplomacy

Los Angeles, May 2018: at the University of California, Professor Veronica Santos was working on the development of a project to create increasingly human-like robots capable of sensing physical contact and reacting to it. She was also testing different ways of robot tactile sensitivity.

Emergent Properties as By-products of Prebiotic Evolution of Aminoacylation Ribozymes
by Nature Communications

Systems of catalytic RNAs presumably gave rise to important evolutionary innovations, such as the genetic code. Such systems may exhibit particular tolerance to errors (error minimization) as well as coding specificity.

Scientists Have Created a Method To Prevent Deadly Infections Without Antibiotics
by SciTech Daily

“The modified surfaces exhibited robust resistance against microorganisms and proteins, which is precisely what we sought to achieve,” said Richard Kaner, UCLA’s Dr. Myung Ki Hong Professor of Materials Innovation and senior author of the research.

— June 24, 2022 —

OUT OF GAS: A Shortage of Tritium Fuel May Leave Fusion Energy with an Empty Tank
by Science Daily

In a recent simulation, nuclear engineer Mohamed Abdou of the University of California, Los Angeles, and his colleagues found that in a best-case scenario, a power-producing reactor could only produce slightly more tritium than it needs to fuel itself. Tritium leakages or prolonged maintenance shutdowns will eat away at that narrow margin.

— June 22, 2022 —

Advance Shows Promise For ‘Meta-Bots’ Designed To Deliver Drugs Or Aid Rescue Missions
by Science Daily

“We envision that this design and printing methodology of smart robotic materials will help realize a class of autonomous materials that could replace the current complex assembly process for making a robot,” said the study’s principal investigator Xiaoyu (Rayne) Zheng, an associate professor of civil and environmental engineering, and of mechanical and aerospace engineering at the UCLA Samueli School of Engineering. “With complex motions, multiple modes of sensing and programmable decision-making abilities all tightly integrated, it’s similar to a biological system with the nerves, bones and tendons working in tandem to execute controlled motions.”

— June 17, 2022 —

New 3D Printing Tech Spits Out Whole Robots All at Once
by Daily Beast

— June 17, 2022 —

Researchers at UCLA Are Able to Use 3D Printing to Create Tiny Robots
by KATU-TV

Portland, OR news station KATU-TV highlighted the research of Xiaoyu (Rayne) Zheng, an associate professor of civil and environmental engineering, and of mechanical and aerospace engineering, that demonstrates how tiny robots the size of a fingernail can be entirely 3D-printed.

— June 8, 2022 —

Driving Toward Justice: Transportation and Equity, with Regan Patterson
by Resources Magazine

In this week’s episode, host Daniel Raimi talks with Regan Patterson, an incoming assistant professor at UCLA who recently completed a fellowship as a Transportation Equity Research Fellow at the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation.

Tesla Monitored its Employees on Facebook with Help of PR Firm During 2017 Union Push.
by CNBC

There are justifiable reasons why companies keep an eye on what their employees post publicly online, according to John Villasenor, a professor at UCLA and fellow at Brookings Institute whose research focuses on the impact of technology on society, law and public policy.

— June 1, 2022 —

The Audacious Science Pushing the Boundaries of Human Touch

by National Geographic

It’s the first sensation we feel, our most primal connection to others. Can implants and electrical signaling replicate the experience of touch? Research teams are exploring the possibilities—with startling results. (subscription required)

India Times News

Smartphone-Sized Spaceships Could Hold Key To Space Exploration, Study Finds
by India Times

The new study published in Nano Letters claims that a ground-based laser array (1-10 metres wide) with powers of 100 kilowatts to 10 megawatts could outpace rocket engines. “Such lasers can be built already today with a relatively small investment… We do not need to wait till a 100-gigawatt laser becomes available,” study’s senior author Artur Davoyan from University of California, Los Angeles, told Space.com.

cleantechnica

UCI Researchers: Autonomous Vehicles Can Be Tricked Into Dangerous Driving Behavior
By Clean Technica

Joining Chen and Wan on this project, which was funded by the National Science Foundation, were Junjie Shen, UCI Ph.D. student in computer science; Jalen Chuang, UCI undergraduate student in computer science; Xin Xia, UCLA postdoctoral scholar in civil and environmental engineering; Joshua Garcia, UCI assistant professor of informatics; and Jiaqi Ma, UCLA associate professor of civil and environmental engineering.
Also carried in Green Car Congress

— May 28, 2022 —

Carbon-Removal Tech Grabs Elon Musk’s Check
by IEEE Spectrum

That immense scale, as well as what happens to the CO2, will decide whether an approach can make a dent in the world’s nearly 36 billion tonnes of annual carbon emissions, says Gaurav Sant, director of UCLA’s Institute for Carbon Management, who has two entries in the competition (SeaChange and BeyonDAC), neither of which was among the 15 milestone awardees. Any meaningful approach needs to convert the gas into something stable and not just bury it in the ground from where it could leak.

— May 26, 2022 —

Teaching robots to touch
by Marcus Woo

Fork in hand, a robot arm skewers a strawberry from above and delivers it to Tyler Schrenk’s mouth. Sitting in his wheelchair, Schrenk nudges his neck forward to take a bite. Next, the arm goes for a slice of banana, then a carrot. Each motion it performs by itself, on Schrenk’s spoken command.

All-optical computation of a group of transformations using a polarization-encoded diffractive network
by UCLA Engineering Institute for Technology Advancement

Implementing large-scale linear transformations or matrix computations plays a pivotal role in modern information processing systems. Digital computer systems need to complete up to billions of matrix operations per second to perform complex computational tasks, such as training and inference for deep neural networks. As a result, the throughput of linear transform computations can directly influence the performance and capacity of the underlying computing systems. These linear transformations are computed using digital processors in computers, which can face bottlenecks as the size of the data to be processed gets larger and larger. This is where all-optical computing methods can potentially provide a remedy through their parallelism and speed.

— May 19, 2022 —

UCLA: Scientists Devise Method to Prevent Deadly Hospital Infections
by City News Service

A new surface treatment developed by a UCLA-led team of scientists could help improve the safety of medical devices like catheters, stents, heart valves and pacemakers — whose surfaces often become covered with harmful bacterial films that can cause deadly hospital “superbug” infections, according to findings published Thursday.

— May 12, 2022 —

Focused ultrasound: a potential treatment for type 2 diabetes?
by Cynthia E Keen

Ultrasound neuromodulation can prevent the onset of hyperglycaemia or reverse type 2 diabetes in laboratory mice, rats and pigs, according to new research published in Nature Biomedical Engineering.

— May 11, 2022 —

rfi logo

The 1997 chess game that thrust AI into spotlight
by Paris (AFP)

With his hand pushed firmly into his cheek and his eyes fixed on the table, Garry Kasparov shot a final dark glance at the chessboard before storming out of the room: the king of chess had just been beaten by a computer.

— May 2, 2022 —

Can Nano Robots Help Treat Hard-to-Reach Cancers?
by Howard Fine

Los Angeles County has produced a series of revolutionary delivery devices for drugs – from the first asthma inhaler in the 1960s to the insulin pump and nicotine patch in the 1980s to inhaled insulin in the last decade.

— April 29, 2022 —

Researchers look at how biofilters can protect waterways
by Chace Beech UCLA

Onja Davidson Raoelison, a doctoral candidate in environmental engineering at UCLA, has been working to keep waterways safe.

Her research and studies focus on green infrastructure and how wildfires impact water systems.

“I think we all hear about air quality all the time,” she said. “Even at UCLA, we receive a lot [of news] about the air quality being bad when you’re not supposed to go outside. I never knew that the impact of wildfires on water quality would be an issue and how it impacts aquatic ecosystems and human health.”

— April 27, 2022 —

Big Macs! Barbies! Rocket Ships! Porn Stars! 60 Ways L.A. Changed the World
by Los Angeles magazine

For everything, there is a season—a time for Grammys, a time for Emmys, and especially a time for Oscars. But precisely when awards season begins and ends is hard to say, since every year, the cycle seems to start sooner and finish later. Suffice to say, it’s somewhere between New Year’s and Christmas. And even though the rest of the world may be over awards shows—with ratings sinking to record lows—they remain vital to the L.A. economy, pumping millions of dollars into the city.

— April 20, 2022 —

Fight climate change through how and what you eat
by Jada Montemarano

“Studies show that if the population ate one less meat meal a week, we could reduce the carbon footprint by one-third. Local chef Jason Francisco and UCLA engineering professor Jennifer Jay explain how we can fight climate change by altering how we shop for food and what we eat.

TO WATCH

— April 6, 2022 —

Amped Up: How smart technology is changing the face of the country’s infrastructure system
by Amy Meadows

Whether you’re turning on a lamp in your house or plugging your electric vehicle into a designated charging outlet, you are interacting with one of the most significant developments of the 19th century: the power grid.

— March 23, 2022 —

KABC 7
Concerns over Russian cyberattacks against U.S.
by KABC-TV

“After the defenses, you still have to have resilience. Let’s say we have two power plants and one goes down — can the other one take the load of this one, and what does it need to do?” said UCLA’s Rajit Gadh (approx. 0:30 mark).

TO WATCH

— March 15, 2022 —

Simulations shed light on interactions that help spiders fly
by Michael Allen

Simulations using a computer graphics algorithm have given fresh insight into the interactions between the silk threads of a spider and the atmosphere. This novel numerical model, focusing on multiple silk threads, helps explain how spiders can exploit the positive electric potential of Earth’s atmosphere to fly and disperse.

— March 11, 2022 —

EE Times
Conversation with IEEE Medal of Honor Recipient Asad Madn
by Brian Santo

The greatest recognition for engineers is the IEEE Medal of Honor. This year, it was bestowed upon Asad Madni, who developed a MEMS device for positional stability that became a critical component in motor vehicles, aircraft, and even the Hubble Telescope. Madni is our guest this week; we talk about sensor technology, and the marvelous things that might be possible combining sensors with artificial intelligence.

TO LISTEN

— March 6, 2022 —

Tiny laser-propelled spaceships could travel to the far reaches of the solar system and beyond
by Charles Q. Choi

Miniature spaceships the size of cellphones could fly across the solar system using sails propelled by lasers, which would allow the tiny spacecraft to reach much faster speeds — and, potentially, much more distant destinations — than conventionally powered rockets, a new study finds.

— February 25, 2022 —

KABC 7
UCLA research project proposes removal of carbon dioxide from the ocean to help fight climate change
by Phillip Palmer

No matter how effective we become in reducing carbon emissions, there remains the need to remove carbon from the atmosphere in order to reverse the effects of climate change.

“When you think about the scale of what we’re talking about, it’s essentially the largest industry that’s never been created,” Gaurav Sant, Director of the UCLA Institute for Carbon Management said.

TO WATCH

— February 24, 2022 —

Highly stretchable van der Waals thin films for adaptable and breathable electronic membranes
by MSL

Rigid materials become more flexible when cast as thin sheets, but they will still bump and buckle when subjected to in-plane rotation or twisting motions and thus cannot conformally cover a curved and mobile surface. Yan et al. formed roughly 10-nanometer-thick freestanding sheets by spin coating films containing flakes of semiconducting materials. The flakes attract each other through bond-free van der Waals interfaces to enable mechanical stretchability and malleability as well as permeability and breathability. These properties make them suitable for bioelectronic membranes that can monitor and amplify a range of electrophysiological signals, including demonstrations of electrocardiography and electroencephalography.

KRIS 6 News Corpus Christi
UCLA fellowship preparing flight surgeons for Mars and beyond
by Amanda Brandeis

More than a half-century since man stepped on the moon, a new era of space exploration is here. The advancements are paving the way for a new frontier in medicine.

“We’ve never been in a situation where we’ve sent someone to a different planet. We’ve never been in a situation where the human body is going to undergo years of significant changes,” said Haig Aintablian, MD, a fourth-year emergency medicine resident at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA.

The U.S. Sun
SAIL ORDER ‘Interstellar sails’ that propel spacecraft to speed of light using LASERS could take us to distant planets, experts say
by Charlotte Edwards

SPACECRAFT with sails could be propelled by lasers to the closest habitable planet to Earth.

That’s according to new calculations from researchers who think small spacecraft could be our best chance of exploring another habitable planet without it taking thousands of years to reach.

— February 23, 2022 —

Tiny probes could sail to outer planets with the help of low-power lasers
Source: American Chemical Society

Space travel can be agonizingly slow: For example, the New Horizons probe took almost 10 years to reach Pluto. Traveling to Proxima Centauri b, the closest habitable planet to Earth, would require thousands of years with even the biggest rockets. Now, researchers calculate in ACS’ Nano Letters that low-power lasers on Earth could launch and maneuver small probes equipped with silicon or boron nitride sails, propelling them to much faster speeds than rocket engines.

Tech uses sweat to show stress levels
by LJ Rich

A device which measures how stressed the wearer is by monitoring the cortisol levels in their sweat is developed by the California NanoSystems Institute at UCLA.

TO VIEW (starts at 00:48)

— February 18, 2022 —

‘Climatarians’ support the planet through food choices
by Chace Beech

When Cindy Villaseñor shops for groceries, she thinks about future meals, what she wants to cook for dinner, lunch and breakfast in the coming days, but she also thinks further ahead–to the future of the planet.

— February 14, 2022 —

How to Weaponize Our Dying Oceans Against Climate Change
by Thor Benson

The ocean covers more than 70 percent of the planet. And unfortunately it’s acidifying fast thanks to noxious carbon dioxide emissions spewed from industrial smoke stacks, tail pipes from gasoline-guzzling vehicles, and other modern technologies—and then absorbed by seawater. Roughly 22 million tons of carbon dioxide find their way into the ocean every day. The resulting acidification threatens countless marine species that are part of an ecosystem that humans rely on.

Hyperion Sewage Spill Caused By Systems Failure, Human Error, Official Report Says
by Lisa Jacobs

“It would have been better for (Hyperion) if that had happened,” said Michael K. Stenstrom, the main author of the report, “because that would be more defensible.”… Stenstrom — a UCLA civil and environmental engineering professor who has worked primarily on wastewater treatment plants since 1977 — said he also initially assumed the cause of the spill was outside debris.

— February 7, 2022 —

UCLA Carbon Removal Technology on Podcast
by Adam McKay

Writer-Director Adam McKay (“Don’t Look Up”) mentions UCLA carbon removal technology on podcast (13:57)

TO LISTEN

— January 25, 2022 —

U.S. News Ranks Its Best Online College Programs For 2022
by Michael T. Nietzel

U.S. News published its 2022 rankings of online college programs today. This year’s rankings include more than 1,700 online bachelor’s and master’s degree programs, an increase from the approximately 1600 rated last year.

— January 20, 2022 —

Novel microscopic picoshell particles developed
by UCLA

Production of high-energy fats by microalgae may provide a sustainable, renewable energy source that can help tackle climate change. However, microalgae engineered to produce lipids rapidly usually grow slowly themselves, making it difficult to increase overall yields.

— January 18, 2022 —

Computer Scientist Explains One Concept in 5 Levels of Difficulty
by Wired

Computer scientist Amit Sahai, PhD, is asked to explain the concept of zero-knowledge proofs to 5 different people; a child, a teen, a college student, a grad student, and an expert. Using a variety of techniques, Amit breaks down what zero-knowledge proofs are and why it’s so exciting in the world of cryptography.

— November 30, 2021 —

Common Household Materials Can Cool Outdoor Temperatures
By Photonics.com

Using “Scotch tape” and aluminum foil, engineers at UCLA built a passive radiative cooler that lowers outdoor temperatures without electricity or refrigerants. The team’s cooler design exhibits solar reflectance, long wavelength infrared (LWIR) emittance, and optical selectivity that is comparable to leading radiative coolers, the engineers said.

— November 23, 2021 —

Helmets on before surf’s up: Concussions an increasing concern in a growing sport
By Mark Mester

Derek Dunfee, a former professional big wave surfer and photographer, said he used to ride 50-foot waves. However, the San Diego surfer’s career ended after more than 20 concussions and with him being almost blind in one eye. “There’s a lot of stuff I did that I prepared for these wipeouts, but when you get hit by a 50-foot wave, especially in terms of head trauma and concussions, there’s not much you can do to prepare for that,” Dunfee said.

— November 21, 2021 —

From oximeters to AI, where bias in medical devices may lurk
By Nicola Davis

Dr Achuta Kadambi, an electrical engineer and computer scientist at the University of California, Los Angeles said Black or Asian people are assumed to have lower lung capacity than white people – a belief he noted may be based on inaccuracies in earlier studies. As a result, “correction” factors are applied to the interpretation of spirometer data – a situation that can affect the order in which patients are treated.

— November 18, 2021 —

New imaging technology may reduce need for skin biopsies
By Science Daily

A new ‘virtual histology’ technology shows promise by analyzing images of suspicious-looking lesions and quickly producing a detailed, microscopic image of the skin, bypassing several standard steps typically used for diagnosis — including skin biopsy, tissue fixation, processing, sectioning and histochemical staining.

— November 17, 2021 —

DIY radiative cooler developed to serve as a research standard
By SPIE

The term “greenhouse effect” became part of public lexicon decades ago, thanks to the ongoing discourse on climate change. A natural phenomenon, the greenhouse effect describes how heat from the sun, in the form of radiation, is trapped by gases in the Earth’s atmosphere. But a large amount of radiation is still lost to outer space, because these wavelengths are poorly absorbed by atmospheric gases. These wavelengths constitute long wavelength infrared (LWIR) radiation.

— October 29, 2021 —

UCLA, Amazon Team Up For Science Research Center
By CBSLA Staff

The University of California, Los Angeles has partnered up with Amazon to institute what they will call the “Science Hub for Humanity and Artificial Intelligence.”

— October 13, 2021 —

How Cytovale Is Set To Transform The Fight Against Sepsis
By David Prosser

Sepsis is the leading cause of death worldwide according to the World Health Organization, killing 11 million people each year, many of them children, and disabling many more. But while speedy diagnosis and treatment is crucial in combating sepsis, the medical profession has no reliable and speedy test for the condition.

Magnetoelastic material sustainably powers health monitors using body movement
By Dan O’Brien

The future of bioelectronics – including wearables, implantable devices and smart technologies – hinges on the ability to sustainably power devices. A number of approaches for converting biomechanical energy into electricity have been introduced, including piezoelectrics and triboelectrics, which function by deriving charge from compressing or contacting materials. Unfortunately, these techniques’ suboptimal electronic properties and vulnerability to ambient humidity limit their effectiveness.

— October 8, 2021 —

The Hot And Cold Past Of The Air Conditioner
By NPR Podcast

In the Northeast, the leaves have started changing colors, heralding the season of pumpkins, sweaters, and the smell of woodsmoke. But in some parts of the country, the heat hasn’t let up. In cities like Dallas, Phoenix, and Miami, temperatures were up in the high 80s and low 90s this week—and with climate change, the U.S. is only getting hotter.
(Timestamp: 15:31:04 – 15:434:49)

Coast Guard: Pipeline damage that caused California oil spill likely happened months ago
By Associated Press

A Southern California underwater oil pipeline was likely struck by an anchor several months to a year before a leak spilled tens of thousands of gallons of crude, the U.S. Coast Guard announced Friday. A large vessel of some kind may have struck the massive pipeline, shattering the concrete casing but not necessarily causing the slender crack from which oil spewed last weekend, said Capt. Jason Neubauer, chief of the Coast Guard’s office of investigation and analysis.

Associated Press logo
California pipeline likely damaged up to a year before spill
By Michael R. Blood, Matthew Brown and Amy Taxin

An underwater oil pipeline off the Southern California coast was likely damaged by a ship’s anchor several months to a year before it ruptured and sent oil spewing into the ocean and then onto some of the area’s best-known beaches, investigators said Friday.

— October 7, 2021 —

Small crack in pipeline may have delayed oil spill detection
By Matthew Brown, Brian Melley and Stefanie Dazio

Video of the ruptured pipeline that spilled tens of thousands of gallons of crude oil off Southern California shows a thin crack along the top of the pipe that could indicate a slow leak that initially was difficult to detect, experts said Thursday.

El vertido de crudo revitaliza la lucha contra combustibles fósiles en EE.UU.
By Agencia EFE

Los más de 570.000 litros de petróleo vertidos en la costa sur de California han dado nuevos argumentos a la lucha en EE.UU. de numerosas organizaciones, activistas y políticos contra la perforación en alta mar y la dependencia energética de los combustibles fósiles.

— September 30, 2021 —

Bioengineers develop new class of human-powered bioelectronics
By Science Daily

A team of bioengineers has invented a novel soft and flexible self-powered bioelectronic device. The technology converts human body motions — from bending an elbow to subtle movements such as a pulse on one’s wrist — into electricity that could be used to power wearable and implantable diagnostic sensors.

— September 24, 2021 —

Discover
Statisticians Reveal the Number of Serial Killers That Were Never Caught During The 20th Century
By The Physics arXiv Blog

The most prolific modern serial killer, according to Wikipedia, is probably Harold Shipman, a British doctor who probably killed as many as 250 people.

Shipman’s crimes went unnoticed because his victims were mostly elderly and whose deaths were unlikely to raise suspicions. However, researchers have since pointed out that Shipman’s murderous tendencies stick out like a sore thumb if they are viewed through the lens of statistics. Too many of his patients died unexpectedly and this statistical signature could have raised the alarm earlier.

— September 24, 2021 —

Light computes any linear transformation without a digital processor
By katewinslet

Various forms of linear transforms, such as the Fourier transform, are widely used for information processing in different applications. These transformations are typically implemented in the digital domain using an electronic processor, and the computational speed is limited by the capacity of the electronic chip used, which becomes a bottleneck for large data and image sizes. The solution to this problem is to replace the digital processor with a compatible optical processor and use light to process the information.

— September 20, 2021 —

SoCal company faces e-waste problem head-on
By Chace Beech

For many years, Jeanette Felix was focused on putting the pieces of her life back together. “I was in a gang, I was an addict, I went to prison and I repeated that quite often,” said Felix, now 43. But things began to turn around for the Los Angeles native when she got involved with Homeboy Industries, an organization that supports former gang members and formerly incarcerated people by helping them find jobs and adjust to life outside of the carceral system.

— September 13, 2021 —

AZO Nano
Silver Nanoparticles Enhance Efficiency of Microbial-Based Fuel Cells
Reviewed by Megan Craig

A team of engineers and chemists from UCLA has achieved significant progress in the development of microbial fuel cells. This is a technology that employs natural bacteria to extract electrons from organic matter in wastewater to produce electrical currents.

— September 13, 2021 —

LA Companies Give Renters More Ways to Charge EVs
by Elijah Chiland

Electric vehicles are touted as the future, especially in Los Angeles where the city’s climate goals call for 80% of vehicles sold to be electric by 2028 — seven years ahead of the state’s 2035 cutoff for gasoline-powered auto sales.

— August 24, 2021 —

Behind The Florida Condo Collapse: Rampant Corner-Cutting
by Konrad Putzier, Scott Calvert and Rachael Levy

A startling discovery awaited an engineer who drilled into the ground-level concrete slab at Champlain Towers South last year. He could find no waterproofing in two separate sections, the engineer wrote in a letter to the condominium board.

— August 11, 2021 —

Stretchy hydrogel mimics motion of living organisms
by Cordelia Sealy

A new heat- and light-responsive polymeric material could prove useful for soft robots that mimic the function and movement of living organisms, according to researchers at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA), Arizona State University, and University of Arizona College of Medicine-Phoenix [Lo et al., Materials Today (2021), https://doi.org/10.1016/j.mattod.2021.05.008].

— August 9, 2021 —

This company uses technology and nature to cut your air conditioning bill
by Rishi Iyengar

Heat waves are becoming more common in parts of the United States — and that means more people running their air conditioners for longer. But those air conditioners can make the problem worse, emitting greenhouse gases as they work that contribute heavily to climate change.

— August 5, 2021 —

This New Technology Could Help Cool People Down—Without Electricity
by Tim Folger

When Rebecca Sunenshine moved to Phoenix, Arizona, her first electric bill shocked her. “I called the utility and said, ‘You must have made a mistake.’ Because I think it was a $400 or $500 bill,” says Sunenshine, who is the medical director for Disease Control with the Maricopa County Health Department. “And they said, ‘Did you just move here?’”

— July 30, 2021 —

Engineers bend light to enhance wavelength conversion
by University of California, Los Angeles

Electrical engineers from the UCLA Samueli School of Engineering have developed a more efficient way of converting light from one wavelength to another, opening the door for improvements in the performance of imaging, sensing and communication systems. Mona Jarrahi, professor of electrical and computer engineering at UCLA Samueli, led the Nature Communications-published research.

— July 29, 2021 —

Deep learning improves image reconstruction in optical coherence tomography using less data
by UCLA Engineering Institute for Technology Advancement

Optical coherence tomography (OCT) is a non-invasive imaging method that can provide 3D information of biological samples. The first generation of OCT systems were based on time-domain imaging, using a mechanical scanning set-up. However, the relatively slow data acquisition speed of these earlier time-domain OCT systems partially limited their use for imaging live specimen.

— July 27, 2021 —

This California company wants to make modern AC obsolete
by Andrew Zaleski

They look like mirrors: 32 rectangles neatly arranged in eight rows on the rooftop of a supermarket called Grocery Outlet in Stockton, California. Shimmering beneath a bright sky, at first glance they could be solar panels, but the job of this rig is quite different. It keeps the store from overheating.

— July 24, 2021 —

Universe Today
Forget About Interstellar Flights. Tiny Light Sails Could be Used to Explore the Solar System Today
by Andy Tomaswick

Solar sails have been receiving a lot of attention lately. In part that is due to a series of high profile missions that have successfully proven the concept. It’s also in part due to the high profile Breakthrough Starshot project, which is designing a solar sail powered mission to reach Alpha Centauri. But this versatile third propulsion system isn’t only useful for far flung adventures – it has advantages closer to home as well. A new paper by engineers at UCLA defines what those advantages are, and how we might be able to best utilize them.

— July 22, 2021 —

Aljazeera News
Prof. Richard Wirz interviewed by Al Jazeera regarding Jeff Bezos’ Sub-Orbital Flight
by Al Jazeera News

Prof. Richard Wirz of UCLA MAE was recently interviewed by Al Jazeera regarding Jeff Bezos’ sub-orbital flight. Prof. Wirz discussed the difference between orbital and sub-orbital launches as well as the importance of rigorous launch vehicle testing over high-profile launches.

TO WATCH

— July 14, 2021 —

KCBS Radio News
Scientists are hoping to fight climate change by turning carbon-dioxide into rock
by Liz Saint John

In an effort to combat climate change, scientists have figured out how to take carbon dioxide out of the ocean and possibly turn it into rock. For more on this, KCBS news anchor Liz Saint John spoke with Camly Tran, executive director of UCLA’s Institute for Carbon Management.

TO LISTEN

— July 1, 2021 —

Concrete makers face heavy lift on climate pledges
by Cassandra Garrison

Cemex, North America’s biggest concrete producer, has vowed to slash carbon dioxide emissions by 40% before 2030 and to eliminate them by 2050, ambitious goals reflecting growing pressure on the industry from regulators and investors.

— June 29, 2021 —

Miami-Area Condo Failure: Years of Warnings, but Mixed Signals
by Jon Kamp, Scott Calvert and Deborah Acosta

When warning signs flashed about structural and maintenance problems at Champlain Towers South, the information was muted and confusing, signaling that the condo owners didn’t need to remedy the situation urgently, according to a preliminary review by The Wall Street Journal of historical documents, eyewitness accounts and expert assessments.

— June 27, 2021 —

Building collapse in Miami: Multiple factors could have contributed, experts say
by Kyle Bagenstose, Elizabeth Weise, Erin Mansfield, Aleszu Bajak USA TODAY

“It’s almost always a series of things that build up,” said John Wallace, a professor of structural engineering at the University of California, Los Angeles who has participated in multiple forensic analyses of building failures. “Each item adds additional demands upon the building. These things cascade and then it reaches a tipping point where there is this type of collapse.”

— June 26, 2021 —

Inspection reports for collapsed Miami-area condo detail ‘major structural damage’ over garage
by Elizabeth Weise, Kyle Bagenstose USA TODAY

What caused the cracking isn’t known, said John Wallace, a professor of structural engineering at the University of California, Los Angeles. “It could be slow degradation over time, maybe the concrete wasn’t placed properly, it could be that the ground had moved somewhat causing it,” he said. ”It could be multiple different things.”

— June 24, 2021 —

The desperate search for survivors of Florida’s deadly condo collapse nearly a 100 people are missing experts trying to figure out how it happened.
by KTLA-TV

The search is on tonight for survivors and answers after a 12 story condominium complex collapses without warning nearly 100 people still unaccounted for somewhere beneath the mounds of concrete and debris. search teams aren’t giving up hope looking for any signs of life tonight.

WATCH

Could It Happen Here? Expert Weighs In On California Building Codes In Wake Of Condo Collapse In Florida
by CBSLA Staff

With the deadly collapse Thursday of a 12-story high-rise condo building in Surfside, a Miami-Dade County, in which 55 of the 136 units crumbled, some residents of the southland wonder whether a similar catastrophe could happen here.

WATCH

The Hill
Summer heat brings new challenge to electric grid
by Rachel Frazin

After this year’s winter storm in Texas resulted in power outages that ultimately killed dozens, grid issues there and elsewhere are flaring up again in the summer heat.

Experts told The Hill that more needs to be done to prepare the grid in both the summer and the winter as climate change will continue to exacerbate extreme weather conditions and lead to more issues.

— June 23, 2021 —

Cloud spraying and hurricane slaying: how ocean geoengineering became the frontier of the climate crisis
by Amy Fleming

Tom Green has a plan to tackle climate change. The British biologist and director of the charity Project Vesta wants to turn a trillion tonnes of CO2 into rock, and sink it to the bottom of the sea.

Green admits the idea is “audacious”. It would involve locking away atmospheric carbon by dropping pea-coloured sand into the ocean. The sand is made of ground olivine – an abundant volcanic rock, known to jewellers as peridot – and, if Green’s calculations are correct, depositing it offshore on 2% of the world’s coastlines would capture 100% of total global annual carbon emissions.

— June 3, 2021 —

This Carbon-Capture Tech Removes CO2 From the Ocean By Making Seashells
by Adele Peters

Even as renewable energy and zero-emissions transportation scale up and the rest of the global economy slowly decarbonizes, it’s likely that the world will still need to suck an enormous amount of carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere to tackle climate change—10 billion metric tons per year by the middle of the century, by one estimate. Some startups are turning to machines that suck CO2 directly from the air. Others are betting on trees. But a team of scientists from the University of California, Los Angeles, is turning to the ocean instead.

Giving Robots a Sense of Touch
by Mission Unstoppable

Some people said robots don’t have feelings. But, our next guest is figuring out how to give them feelings.

TO WATCH

— June 1, 2021 —

Soft Focus: A Flexible Future for Robots
by UCLA Newsroom

Picture a robot. In your mind’s eye, do you see a shiny protocol droid from a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away? Perhaps a large, moving steel arm from our industrial present? Or even an ambassador from the future, such as the mighty THOR (tactical hazardous operations robot), UCLA’s own walking, talking, soccer-kicking bot from the lab of engineering professor Dennis Hong?

— May 21, 2021 —

Is This Concrete’s Breakthrough Moment?
by Paola Rosa-Aquino

The blue planet is becoming grayer by the day, as Earth is paved over with concrete. The world churns out about 4 billion tons of cement, the glue that holds concrete together, every year, and the appetite for concrete is expected to balloon as humanity continues to move from rural areas into cities.

— May 20, 2021 —

The Rise of the Climatarian
by Danielle Braff

Torben Lonne, a 34-year-old scuba diver in Copenhagen, never eats without considering the carbon footprint and the emission level of the food he’s about to consume. For that reason, his diet revolves around locally sourced fruits and vegetables, and pizza. He avoids avocados, however.

— April 22, 2021 —

UCLA Engineering Team Wins $7.5M Prize For Developing Eco-Friendly Concrete That Absorbs Carbon Dioxide
by CBSLA Staff

A group of UCLA engineers were awarded the $7.5 million NRG COSIA Carbon XPrize for creating a near carbon dioxide-neutral version of concrete.

— April 19, 2021 —

Inside the $20 Million Prize That’s Saving the World
by WIRED

In 2015, Carbon XPRIZE sponsors NRG and COSIA put up 20 rocks to jumpstart the carbontech economy and tackle global warming. The results are in, and they are thrilling.

A Big Step Towards Decarbonization – The Carbon XPRIZE
by James Conca

Extracting CO₂ from the air is one of the best ways to reverse climate change without resorting to expensive technologies, convoluted tax schemes or preventing billions of people from getting the energy they need to have a good life.

Team Led by UCLA Professor Wins $7.5M Engineering Prize
by KFI AM 640

A group of UCLA engineers has become the first university team to win the $7.5 million grand prize in the NRG COSIA Carbon XPRIZE global competition, it was announced today. The UCLA CarbonBuilt team, led by Gaurav Sant, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at the UCLA Samueli School of Engineering, won the prize in the competition’s track for technologies related to coal-fired power generation.

— April 12, 2021 —

Startup Creates Concrete That Reduces Carbon Emissions
by Howard Fine

Westwood-based startup CarbonBuilt Inc. has a concrete plan for reducing carbon emissions. The company, which was spun off in late 2019 from a UCLA research team led by civil engineer professor Gaurav Sant, has developed a process for injecting concrete with carbon dioxide emissions from power plants or other industrial facilities.

— April 10, 2021 —

Guggenheim Fellows For 2021 Announced. Here Are The Universities With The Most Winners.
by Michael T. Nietzel

The Guggenheim Fellows for 2021 were announced this week. This year’s winners include 184 scholars, artists, scientists and writers selected via a rigorous peer review process from more than 3,000 initial candidates. The full list of winners can be found here.

— April 9, 2021 —

NASA Teases A Mars Base Made Of Mushrooms, A Swarm Of Spacecraft To Venus And A Giant Dish On The Moon
by Jamie Carter

CubeSat solar sails for exploring deep space

Space missions take decades of development, years of flight and cost billions. So why not explore the solar system and interstellar space using CubeSat solar sails? Proposed by Artur Davoyan, an assistant professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, this research project will study ultra-lightweight metamaterials that could withstand extreme environments.

It’s thought that super-light CubeSat solar sails could travel 60 times the Earth-Sun distance in a year, which is 20 times the velocity of Voyager 1—currently the farthest spacecraft of all—and could reach Jupiter in five months. That journey currently takes five years.

— April 5, 2021 —

UCLA prof says racial bias in medical devices is based in physics
by Nancy Crotti

The laws of physics may be making medical devices biased against people of color, according to a UCLA engineering professor.

Achuta Kadambi, an assistant professor at the UCLA Samueli School of Engineering, published a column in the journal Science about how dataset representation is not the only factor leading to bias in medtech.

— March 22, 2021 —

BBC Radio 4
Conspiracies: The Secret Knowledge
by BBC Radio

Electrical Computer Engineering Prof. Vwani Roy Chowdhury’s latest interview re conspiracy theories on BBC Radio 4. 11:54-18:45 mark.

Phil Tinline explores what conspiracy theory – and conspiracy fiction – claim to tell us about how power really works, and how that compares with reality.

TO LISTEN

— March 14, 2021 —

Breakthrough in electronic display fabrics could help pave the way for smart clothing
by Charles Q. Choi | INSIDE SCIENCE

A wearable interactive display made of a flexible, breathable electronic fabric can display simple maps and text messages, potentially for use in future smart clothing, a research group reports in its latest paper.

— March 12, 2021 —

Wyoming Public Media
New Technology Captures Carbon To Create Cement
by Ashley Piccone

Cement production makes up eight percent of man-made carbon emissions. But a new technology developed by the University of California, Los Angeles might change that.