Each stroke of white makeup transforms a face. Rather than conceal, it reveals. The arch of a painted eyebrow, the exaggerated smile or frown, say more than a monologue. And the metamorphosis isn’t limited to the actor; it’s in the audience’s mind as well. Enter Eli Simon’s world, where clowning is an art. “Clowning is […]
Ask UC Irvine neuroscientist Leslie M. Thompson to describe how Huntington’s disease affects patients, and she replies by turning to her computer. “I can show you,” she says. She clicks on a video of patients she visited in Venezuela. On-screen, a middle-aged man stands on a street corner, swaying as if intoxicated. A woman, no […]
As our expanding population outgrows an aging infrastructure, transportation is becoming an increasingly important topic in Orange County and statewide. It also has significant implications for the U.S. economy, considering that transportation-related goods and services account for about 20 percent of the nation’s gross national product. “The safe and efficient movement of people and goods […]
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 – […]