The University of California San Diego has earned a STARS Gold rating in recognition of its sustainability achievements from the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education (AASHE). STARS, the Sustainability Tracking, Assessment and Rating System, measures and encourages sustainability…
Could nuclear power make a significant contribution to decarbonizing the U.S. energy system over the next three or four decades? The answer: probably not and that’s cause for major concern, according to a recently published paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science (PNAS).
PET plastic, short for polyethylene terephthalate, is the fourth most-produced plastic, used to make things such as beverage bottles and carpets, most of which are not being recycled. Some scientists are hoping to change that, using supercomputers to engineer an enzyme that breaks down PET. They say…
Scientists have long pondered how non-living materials coalesced into the earliest life forms on Earth. Nearly 60 years ago Stanley Miller and Harold Urey, founding professors of the physical sciences at the University of California San Diego, established a tradition of working to answer questions about…
The University of California San Diego has been honored with the 2018 Grid Edge Innovation Award for serving as an epicenter for research, development and commercialization on smart electric vehicle (EV) charging. UC San Diego has collaborations with over 18 companies and organizations in providing 135…
Human activities—from growing rice and burning coal or wood, to driving cars and testing nuclear missiles—have impacted the Earth’s atmosphere over time. Cleansing the Earth’s environment is of growing interest in the new era of humanity, unofficially called the Anthropocene epoch. To better…
A graduate student at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California San Diego and colleagues from NOAA’s Office of National Marine Sanctuaries have discovered the world’s first known manta ray nursery. Located in the Gulf of Mexico off the coast of Texas at NOAA’s Flower Garden…
A team led by researchers at UC San Diego’s Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry and SDSC has used machine learning techniques to develop models for simulations of water with “unprecedented accuracy.” Published online in The Journal of Chemical Physics, the research demonstrates how popular…
Renkun Chen, a professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at the University of California San Diego, has received a $1.18 million dollar award from the U.S. Department of Energy Solar Energy Technologies Office to develop technology that can advance next-generation concentrating solar power (CSP)…
Undergraduate students from UC San Diego designed and built an extremely affordable solar-powered lantern to provide not only light, but a source of income to a partner village in the Philippines. Their engineering and business savvy earned them the top spot in the Energy and Resources category at the…