Feature Stories
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.