science & tech

Director of new UCI research institute discusses its origins, assets and purpose

Based on fictional dinosaurs and squid, technology could protect soldiers and structures

As a child, Robert Liebeck loved tinkering with model airplanes. The UC Irvine adjunct professor of mechanical & aerospace engineering is still at it — but now he’s working on a much different kind of model, one that could revolutionize air travel. Called the blended wing body, the concept results in aircraft that look more like […]

Here’s the pitch: A brilliant neuroscientist who can identify psychopaths by studying their brain imaging scans and genetic data makes a startling discovery. After learning there are eight killers among his ancestors — including notorious ax murderer Lizzie Borden, a distant cousin — he finds that he shares their biological predisposition to murder. Mitigating environmental […]

Mizuko “Mimi” Ito spends a lot of time “geeking out” at her computer. She plays video games, trolls the Internet, chats, and visits social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter for hours on end. “My kids often say, ‘What’s it like to have a normal parent?’” she says with a laugh. Ito’s not going […]

Neuroscientist Ivan Soltesz is recognized as one of world’s leading epilepsy researchers, but when talking about the focus of his work, he sounds more like the young dreamer and poet he was growing up in Budapest. “The brain is the last great frontier,” says Soltesz, UC Irvine Chancellor’s Professor and chair of anatomy & neurobiology. […]

The concept that revolutionized laser surgery and earned UC Irvine more than $40 million came to Dr. J. Stuart Nelson in 1992 while he was watching a baseball game. In the early 1990s, surgeons like Nelson were trying to adapt laser technology for medical use, and the Beckman Laser Institute & Medical Clinic was an […]

Visiting the iMove center at UC Irvine’s Gross Hall is like being on the set of a sci-fi movie. Here, the merging of machines and humans — the premise of such futuristic films as “Alien” and “The Terminator” — has become a reality. Inside the lab, at Sue & Bill Gross Hall: A CIRM Institute, patients whose […]

They call it “the baby monitor,” but it’s nothing like the ones sold at Babies “R” Us that alert parents when junior’s crying in his crib. Developed by UC Irvine pediatrics professor Dr. Dan Cooper, the sophisticated wireless device can detect subtle movements in infants that signal increased risk of cerebral palsy, autism and other neurological […]

Most people have just one question regarding Roombas: How well do the robotic floor vacuums suck up pet hair and dust bunnies? A few might even wonder if their Roomba could go rogue and chase the family cat or attack them in their sleep. Rebecca Grinter, M.S. ’94, Ph.D. ’96, a graduate of UC Irvine’s […]