News Archive

May 23, 2017 — The Institute for the Global Entrepreneur (IGE) at UC San Diego has announced team selections for its new technology accelerator. Five UC San Diego research teams, with innovations ranging from advanced healthcare diagnostics and medical device technologies to next generation LIDAR for autonomous-vehicle navigation, have been selected to join the new campus program.

May 22, 2017 — An international team of researchers has uncovered the mechanism that allowed Volkswagen to circumvent U.S. and European emission tests over at least six years before the Environmental Protection Agency put the company on notice in 2015 for violating the Clean Air Act. During a year-long investigation, researchers found code that allowed a car’s onboard computer to determine that the vehicle was undergoing an emissions test. The computer then activated the car’s emission-curbing systems, reducing the amount of pollutants emitted. Once the computer determined that the test was over, these systems were deactivated.

May 17, 2017 — Engineers at the University of California San Diego have developed the first soft robot that is capable of walking on rough surfaces, such as sand and pebbles. The 3D-printed, four-legged robot can climb over obstacles and walk on different terrains. Researchers led by Michael Tolley, a mechanical engineering professor at the University of California San Diego, will present the robot at the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation from May 29 to June 3 in Singapore. The robot could be used to capture sensor readings in dangerous environments or for search and rescue.

May 17, 2017 — The field researchers also collected paleo-environmental data concerning climate and environmental change during the Late Bronze Age.

May 15, 2017 — A new study suggests that an aggressive reef competitor—the Threespot Damselfish—may have impeded the recovery of Caribbean long-spined sea urchin populations after a mysterious disease outbreak caused a massive die-off of these animals over three decades ago.

May 11, 2017 — Chemists have discovered that tiny particulate matter called aerosols lofted into the atmosphere by sea spray and the bursting of bubbles at the ocean’s surface are chemically altered by the presence of biological activity.

May 11, 2017 — A Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California San Diego-led research team discovered for the first time that a common marine sponge hosts bacteria that specialize in the production of toxic compounds nearly identical to man-made fire retardants.

May 10, 2017 — Researchers at the University of California San Diego School of Medicine, with colleagues in Ecuador and Minnesota, have found altered short-term neurological behaviors in children associated with a peak pesticide spraying season linked to the Mother’s Day flower harvest. This study examined children who did not work in agriculture but who lived in agricultural communities in Ecuador.

May 4, 2017 — Scientists have successfully completed the first outdoor field trial sanctioned by the EPA for genetically engineered algae. Algae tested under real-world conditions in outdoor ponds demonstrated that genetically engineered strains can be successfully cultivated outdoors without adversely impacting native algae populations.

May 1, 2017 — A team of researchers at the University of California San Diego and Stanford University has received a $7.5 million, five-year grant to try to answer two fundamental questions: what is the memory capacity of a brain; and how does the brain process information with maximum energy efficiency. The grant was awarded by the Air Force Office of Scientific Research through a Multidisciplinary University Research Initiative (MURI).