Research News
Does Blowing On Soup Help Cool It?
How does this work? Ralph Aldredge, professor of mechanical and aeronautical engineering, explains to an inquisitive CBS News reporter why blowing on soup really does cool it off faster.
Pollution in China Could Impact Our Air
Steve Cliff, research engineer in the Department of Applied Science, is tracking how air pollution in China could impact climate change in California. Contaminants from China's pollution are being detected at his Bay Area collection unit, which shows how the Earth's atmosphere knows no borders.
Research funding hits $544M
UC Davis received a record $543,983,761 in research funds in the recently
completed 2005-06 fiscal year. That figure represents a more than $38
million increase over the previous year's figure, which was itself a record
$505 million, in 2004-05.
Grants for Advanced Computing Awarded
The U.S. Department of Energy has awarded two grants, worth $1.6 million and $1.2 million per year for five years, to projects in advanced computing led by researchers at UC Davis.
Biotech Training Grant funds Innovative Graduate Student Research
To advance biotechnology and nurture young researchers, UC awards training grants to graduate students and faculty mentors.
New Vulnerabilities in Cellular Communications
Computer Science Professor Hao Chen and grad students Denys Ma and Radmilo Racic have discovered new, serious vulnerabilities in cellular data services. Hackers could disrupt communications by disabling battery power.
Egghead is a new blog that brings together news, context and commentary about research at UC Davis.
The Little Picture
Machines that can image mice are ushering in a new era for research that depends on animal models of cancer
Small-animal models of human diseases — particularly genetically engineered mice — are increasingly recognized as powerful discovery tools in cancer research. But their potential has yet to be fully realized.
One major limitation: Because imaging equipment designed for humans isn't sensitive enough for creatures as small as mice, researchers have been unable to observe the growth of a cancer, or the activity of an anti-cancer drug, in the living body of a laboratory mouse.
Enter Simon Cherry. Cherry, a professor of biomedical engineering and director of the UC Davis Center for Molecular and Genomic Imaging, has scaled state-of-the-art medical imaging machines down to mouse size. He invented the first mouse PET machine while at UCLA more than a decade ago. Two years ago, he introduced the MicroPET II, now the smallest commercially available PET scanner on the market, with eight times the resolution of his first machine. Cherry has also helped to create a micro CT and micro PET-CT, and is working to develop a lowercost micro PET that would be affordable to more research laboratories around the country. - Synthesis, Volume 8, Number 2, Fall/Winter.
Read the story: http://www.ucdmc.ucdavis.edu/synthesis/Archives/fall_winter_06/features/campus_connection.html
Posted: 3/20/06
Grant For Ultrafast Optical Communications
Ben Yoo, professor of electrical and computer engineering and director of the UC Davis Center for Information Technology Research in the Interests of Society, is co-principal investigator for a study funded by a $9.5 million grant from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). More: http://www.news.ucdavis.edu/search/news_detail.lasso?id=7597
Posted: 1/20/06