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News Archive - Environment

Blocking Sunlight to Cool Earth Won’t Reduce Crop Damage from Global Warming

August 7, 2018

Injecting particles into the atmosphere to cool the planet and counter the warming effects of climate change would do nothing to offset the crop damage from rising global temperatures, according to a new analysis by the University of California, Berkeley, Stanford and Columbia Universities, as well as the University of California San Diego’s School of Global Policy and Strategy.

Still Time to Act: Impending Disasters Could Spur Progress Mitigating Climate Change

August 5, 2018

New research in climate science indicates that extreme events, such as heat waves, the collapse of major ice sheets, and mass extinctions are becoming dramatically more probable. Though cuts in rising emissions appear unlikely with the stalled 2015 Paris agreement, University of California San Diego scientists argue that new developments present an opportunity to shift the politics around climate change. For the first time, scientists can make a strong case that no one is exempt from the extreme and immediate risks posed by a warming world.

SDSC’s ‘Comet’ Supercomputer Extended into 2021

July 31, 2018

The National Science Foundation (NSF) has awarded the San Diego Supercomputer Center (SDSC) at UC San Diego a supplemental grant valued at almost $2.4 million to extend operations of its Comet supercomputer by an additional year, through March 2021. The extension brings the value of the total Comet program to more than $27 million.

UC San Diego Receives STARS Gold Rating for Sustainability Achievements

July 12, 2018

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 in all aspects of higher education.

U.S. Nuclear Power: The Vanishing Low-Carbon Wedge

July 2, 2018

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).

Supercomputers Help Design Mutant Enzyme that Eats Plastic Bottles

June 29, 2018

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 it's a step on a long road toward recycling PET and other plastics into commercially valuable materials at industrial scale.

UC San Diego Professor Named Blavatnik National Laureate in Chemistry

June 27, 2018

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 life’s molecular origins. Professor Neal Devaraj continues that UC San Diego legacy by using chemistry to solve questions in biology, while also developing new tools that uniquely perform tasks within living cells. For his inventive work, the Blavatnik Family Foundation and the New York Academy of Sciences have announced Devaraj as the 2018 Blavatnik National Laureate in Chemistry.

UC San Diego’s EV Charging Program Awarded for Modeling “Energy System of the Future”

June 20, 2018

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 EV charging stations on campus. In May alone, more than 700 different EVs were charged by UC San Diego’s world-renowned microgrid.

Scientists Go to Great Heights to Understand Changes in Earth’s Atmosphere

June 18, 2018

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 understand the impact of the human biogeochemical footprint on Earth, scientists at the University of California San Diego are literally climbing mountains to study the planet’s sulfur cycle—an agent in cardiovascular fitness and other human health benefits and resources.

Scripps Graduate Student Discovers World’s First Known Manta Ray Nursery

June 18, 2018

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 Banks National Marine Sanctuary, the juvenile manta ray habitat is the first of its kind to be described in a scientific study.
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