Feature Stories
Sep 13, 2019
MANAUS, Brazil — This year’s unusually severe fires in the Amazon have not only attracted widespread international attention, but also illuminated the effects of mounting deforestation in the region, from evaporating rains to rising carbon dioxide emissions. Yet one effect of forest loss in the Amazon has largely been ignored: how it influences the river system and the fish living in it.
Sep 9, 2019
The Association of Asia Pacific Physical Societies under the Division of Plasma Physics awarded Liu Chen, UCI Professor Physics & Astronomy, the 2019 S. Chandrasekhar Prize of Plasma Physics. This award is given to an outstanding scientist in the field of plasma physics as a basis for astrophysics or fusion research, and plasma applications.
Sep 3, 2019
The Feenberg Memorial Medal serves to preserve the memory of the unique and enduring contributions of Eugene Feenberg to physics, especially to the foundations of nuclear physics and the microscopic quantum many-body physics of nuclei and quantum fluids.
Aug 29, 2019
In the Davis Mountains of far west Texas, at the University of Texas McDonald Observatory, astronomers spend their nights peering at the stars through some of the world’s most powerful telescopes. Soon they’ll be adding a more down-to-Earth job. Within sight of the giant domes, NASA is installing a sprawling network of equipment to help researchers study planetary change.
Aug 26, 2019
RIO DE JANEIRO — Millions in aid are being pledged. Hundreds of soldiers are heading into the jungle. The Amazon is burning — and the world has taken notice.
Aug 15, 2019
I write with a heavy heart to share that Physics & Astronomy Ph.D. student José Flores Velázquez was shot and killed in a drive-by shooting last night near his family home in Los Angeles. This is a tremendous loss for his family, friends, community and all of us here at UC Irvine and beyond.
Jul 25, 2019
You may think the greatest, most perplexing mysteries of the universe exist way out there, at the edge of a black hole, or inside an exploding star.
No, great mysteries of the universe surround us, all the time. They even permeate us, sailing straight through our bodies. One such mystery is cosmic rays, made of tiny bits of atoms. These rays, which are passing through us at this very moment, are not harmful to us or any other life on the surface of Earth.
Apr 1, 2019
Gerard Mourou—one of the three winners of the 2018 Nobel Prize for Physics—claims that the lifespan of radioactive waste could potentially be cut to minutes from thousands of years.