Physical Sciences

UCI chemist helps create tool that anticipates molecular actions

An international team of scientists including Kieron Burke, UCI professor of chemistry, has created a machine-learning algorithm that predicts molecular behavior. The breakthrough may aid in the development of pharmaceuticals and materials to enhance the performance of batteries, solar cells and digital displays. In a study published in Nature Communications, the researchers describe how their […]

Little green flashes unlock secrets of catalytic reactions

UCI researchers have devised a new fluorescence microscopy technique for observing individual molecules during catalytic reactions. Their work, published recently in the prestigious German journal Angewandte Chemie, is aimed at helping scientists and engineers better understand the fundamental workings of catalysis, the basis of multibillion-dollar industries in polymer plastics and pharmaceuticals. “Most studies of catalytic […]

UCI, JPL investigators find direct evidence of sea level ‘fingerprints’

Indicators of global climate change are detected in tropical oceans

On the cutting edge of chemistry

Grad student’s year away from UCI results in plutonium science breakthrough

UCI celestial census indicates that black holes pervade the universe

Researchers expect more gravitational-wave evidence of collisions in the near future

UCI team helps find evidence for theorized particle

A research team including Jing Xia, UCI associate professor of physics & astronomy, has reported finding firm evidence for Majorana fermions, part of a class of subatomic particles which includes the proton, neutron, electron, neutrino and quark. Publishing their findings this week in Science, the team describes their experiment where researchers from UCI and UCLA […]

UCI study sheds light on regulation of hair growth across the entire body

Findings point to new ways of addressing human baldness, unwanted hair

UCI astronomer is appointed to chair users committee for James Webb Space Telescope

UCI astronomer James Bullock has been appointed chair of the James Webb Space Telescope users committee. The group, which includes 10 to 14 American, European and Canadian scientists, was established to ensure that the observatory is operated in such a way as to maximize its scientific performance. The JWST, successor to the Hubble Space Telescope, […]

UCI: Earth is losing its fire power

Industrial farming disrupts burn-regrowth cycle in grasslands, study finds

Climate warming shifts lightning-caused forest fires farther north

Extreme lightning storms are the main driver of recent massive fire years in Alaska and Canada, and these storms are likely to move farther north with climate warming, potentially altering landscapes, according to findings in Nature Climate Change by researchers from UCI, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam and elsewhere. Analyzing satellite images and data from ground-based networks, […]