News Archive

July 24, 2018 — The University of California San Diego has been awarded $11.3 million over four years from DARPA to lead a multi-institution project which aims to develop electronic design automation tools for 24-hour, no-human-in-the-loop hardware layout generation.

July 23, 2018 — Like small-scale Legos clicking into place, nature autonomously puts together microscopic building blocks. Living systems are biochemical machines that excel at building and moving their parts. Just as machines need energy in some form to operate, living systems are energized by consuming “fuel”—substances or food—reliably. The human body, for example, contracts muscles by the motion of tiny nanomotors—molecular devices that convert energy at the nanoscale scale to generate movement at the macroscale. The ability to mimic nature’s self-assembly would revolutionize science’s approach to synthesizing materials that could heal, contract or reconfigure.

July 23, 2018 — Using advanced fabrication techniques, engineers at the University of California San Diego have built a nanosized device out of silver crystals that can generate light by efficiently “tunneling” electrons through a tiny barrier. The work brings plasmonics research a step closer to realizing ultra-compact light sources for high-speed, optical data processing and other on-chip applications.

July 20, 2018 — The governing board of the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM) unanimously approved this week two grants worth more than $2.2 million to University of California San Diego School of Medicine researchers investigating stem cell-based therapies for a rare genetic disorder that affects the heart and a chronic, progressive affliction of the lungs.

July 18, 2018 — “It may not be easy to run an engineering school, but it’s impossible without your friends,” said Jacobs School of Engineering Dean Albert P. Pisano at the annual Charles Lee Powell Foundation graduate fellowship luncheon. “To the ladies and gentlemen of the Powell Board—I am grateful for that friendship which was paid forward through other deans and other times. I, too, am standing on the shoulders of all the previous investment, and I do really appreciate all of that.”

July 18, 2018 — By doping alumina crystals with neodymium ions, engineers at the University of California San Diego have developed a new laser material that is capable of emitting ultra-short, high-power pulses—a combination that could potentially yield smaller, more powerful lasers with superior thermal shock resistance, broad tunability and high-duty cycles.

July 17, 2018 — A new discovery in how heart muscles maintain their shape in fruit flies sheds light on the crucial relationship between cardiac function, metabolism, and longevity. Researchers from the University of California San Diego discovered that maintaining high levels of the protein vinculin—which sticks heart muscle cells to one another—confers health benefits to fruit flies. Their work shows that fruit flies bred to produce 50 percent more vinculin enjoyed better cardiovascular health and lived a third of their average life span longer.

July 16, 2018 — Researchers led by a University of California San Diego team have published work in the journal Nature Energy that explains what’s causing the performance-reducing “voltage fade” that currently plagues a promising class of cathode materials called Lithium-rich NMC (nickel magnesium cobalt) layered oxides.

July 16, 2018 — Currently, information-processing tools like computers and cell phones rely on electron charge to operate. A team of UC San Diego physicists, however, seek alternative systems of faster, more energy-efficient signal processing. They do this by using “excitons,” electrically neutral quasiparticles that exist in insulators, semiconductors and in some liquids. And their latest study of excitonic spin dynamics shows functional promise for our future devices.

July 16, 2018 — Fifty years ago, the film “2001: A Space Odyssey,” directed by Stanley Kubrick, who co-wrote it with futurist Arthur C. Clarke, changed the world. The groundbreaking cinematic revolution offered a visionary view of the future and of humankind’s place in the cosmos. The film inspired numerous changes in science, technology and art—demonstrating the lasting impact of its ingenuity and artistry.