Science & Environment

Research

The Latest

Giving Students a Place to Prep for Tomorrow’s Virtual (Reality) Economy

The laboratory looks like a cross between a classroom and a tech pavilion at the annual Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. There are virtual-reality headsets everywhere, and large flat screen 3D displays. College students work at computers, while teammates wearing goggles look from side to side, occasionally ducking or recoiling, as they react and engage with the virtual environments visible in their head-mounted displays.

SDSC’s Comet Helps Replicate Brain Circuitry to Direct a Realistic Prosthetic Arm

By applying a novel computer algorithm to mimic how the brain learns, a team of researchers – with the aid of the Comet supercomputer based at the San Diego Supercomputer Center (SDSC) at UC San Diego – has identified and replicated neural circuitry that resembles the way an unimpaired brain controls limb movement.

Dread of Roses: Neurobehavioral Effects Found in Children Exposed to Flower Pesticides

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.

New Study Looks to the Future of Drug Discovery in the Natural World

Scientists at the Center for Marine Biotechnology and Biomedicine at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California San Diego have contributed to a new study, published May 1 in in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, that asks the question: are there any valuable products left in nature that we haven’t already discovered?

Nearby Brown Dwarf Appears to be a Free-Floating ‘Planet’

An international team of astronomers that included astrophysicists at UC San Diego has discovered that one of the closest brown dwarfs to our Sun has the same mass as a giant planet. However, because the object isn’t orbiting a star, the discovery challenges the very definition of a planet.

Engineered Bone Marrow Could Make Transplants Safer

Engineers at the University of California San Diego have developed biomimetic bone tissues that could one day provide new bone marrow for patients needing transplants.