Last spring, UC Irvine launched a new institute that will bring together scientists to identify new research needed for an improved understanding of society’s response to a changing climate and for environmental science to better respond to societal needs. Topics to be tackled by the UC Irvine Environment Institute: Global Change, Energy and Sustainable Resources […]
When he was in his 50s, renowned molecular biologist Masayasu Nomura wrote a poem for a friend’s 65th birthday. “To the Wise Scientist” reads: “Someday I too hope to attain the age of sixty-five.Then I wish to live as you live:Giving sympathy and help to young people,Receiving friendship and respect in return.No more worries, no […]
The first person Donald Blake met when he walked into UC Irvine’s chemistry department in 1978 was F. Sherwood Rowland, clad in shorts and sandals, a towering 6 feet 5 inches tall. Rowland, department chair, was considering the UCLA senior for a graduate position. “We talked about lots of things, and in the end […]
In the 1990s, Frank B. Wilderson III lived the dying days of apartheid in South Africa, working as a university teacher, propagandist, and as one of two Americans elected to Nelson Mandela’s governing party, the African National Congress. In his recently released memoir, Incognegro, Wilderson, African American studies and drama professor, criticizes Mandela’s presidency for failing […]
Can the U.S. cure its addiction to oil? To help wean the country from its petroleum habit, UC Irvine researchers have been working to find viable sources of alternative energy – from deep in the earth to the sun. Here, researchers Scott Samuelsen, Reg Penner and Derek Dunn-Rankin discuss their work on transforming solar power, […]
The first time Fan-Gang Zeng invented a cochlear implant – a device he believed could help thousands regain lost hearing – things didn’t work out too well. The company that licensed his invention shelved the project. “Today, he says, “it benefits no one.” The hard lesson – that most inventions never reach the consumer – […]