-
Bending the Curve: Climate Change Solutions
Climate change is an urgent problem that affects everything from human health and food security to immigration patterns and water resources. With unchecked emissions of climate pollutants, there is a 50% probability for the planetary warming to cross the so-called dangerous threshold of 20C by 2050; and there is at least a 5% probability the […]
-
Our Impact on the Earth
“Mother Nature is not happy right now and she’s trying to tell us, in many ways,” says Kimberly Prather, Professor of Climate, Atmospheric Science, and Physical Oceanography at UC San Diego. New weather patterns and events are causing concern but how do we know these changes are caused by human activity? Climate scientists are looking […]
-
UCSD Pascal
Starting in 1974, Kenneth Bowles – who at the time directed UC San Diego’s Computing Center – began to adapt the computer language Pascal for use on so-called “microcomputers,” precursors of today’s PCs. His primary interest at the time was a programming language that would allow students to work individually on projects without waiting their […]
-
Searching for Autism in our Social Brain
All animals need to know and communicate with their own, so evolution has developed in every brain the ways we all recognize and socialize with each other. But while other brains are social – no other brain is as social, or can do what the human brain can – and as far as science knows […]
-
Editing the Code of Life
You may not know what clustered regularly interspersed short palindromic repeats means, but when you see or hear the word CRISPR it all takes on new meaning, thanks to the efforts of UC Berkeley’s Jennifer Doudna and her collaborator Emmanuelle Charpentier, who developed this revolutionary method of genomic editing. Her work has literally changed the […]
-
Bracing for Fire When the Wind Blows
As recent events have shown, strong winds can spell disaster, even without the presence of fire. But when a fire does occur, the ALERTWildfire camera network deployed across the region provides rapid confirmation of emergency wildfire 911 calls, situational awareness, and in the worst-case scenarios, real-time data to help sequence evacuations. ALERTWildfire is a consortium […]
-
Unlocking the Mysteries of the Brain Through Stem Cell Research
Inside a lab at the Sanford Consortium for Regenerative Medicine, researchers are doing something truly remarkable. They are growing tiny versions of developing human brains in order to study everything from Alzheimer’s disease to the Zika virus. Alysson Muotri is the co-director of the UC San Diego Stem Cell Program and leads the team researching […]
-
How a Year in Space Affects the Human Body
Science fiction has long promised an age of interplanetary human existence. Scenes of spaceships hopping from one galaxy to the next are so common, it seems almost inevitable that future generations will one day vacation on Mars. But, if we are ever going to achieve life on other planets, we first have to figure out […]