Upside-down Undwerwater Slime-Supported Transport

Upside-down Undwerwater Slime-Supported Transport...the newest ride at the biggest amusement park less than a day's drive from your house? Nope. More like, a series of academic papers from Jacobs School mechanical engineering professor Eric Lauga.

The latest paper, called “Crawling Beneath the Free Surface: Water Snail Locomotion” appears in the journal Physics of Fluid.

Check out the press release and video here.

Root Beer Floats Your Boat

Jacobs School undergrads are dishing out rootbeer floats today and publicizing the first general meeting of the Triton Engineering Student Council (TESC) at the same time.

The meeting is Weds Oct 1 at 7:30 PM in Room 1202 of the computer science building. Ice cream served at 7:00 PM.

After the meeting, you'll have a chance to meet folks from all the different engineering student organizations.

Ultrafast & Nanoscale Optics Group in New Scientist Tech

In a New Scientist column covering exciting new patents, Justin Mullins highlighted work from the electrical engineers in Shaya Fainmfan's group here at the Jacobs School. (Fainman is in the photo).

The patent is for a "universal detector" that will use plasmonics to test for contimation on any type of surface.

Read the New Scientist column here.

Read the full patent application here.

Fainman directs the Ultrafast & Nanoscale Optics Group at the Jacobs School. Read about his work in a recent issue of the Jacobs School alumni magazine, Pulse.

The researchers listed as inventors on the patent application are:
Kevin TETZ
Lin PANG
Shaya FAINMAN

Computer science students talk "Android"

San Diego Channel 6 came to campus on Tuesday afternoon to find out what our tech-savvy student body thought about the new Google phones unveiled in New York. Channel 6's Jenny Hamel picked a good day to come to campus:

New computer science students, including Jeanne Wang, were streaming out of an orientation with plates full of free food and Calit2's Summer Scholars had just finished presenting the fruits of their summer research.

One scholar, Benjamin Lotan, and some friends were still hanging out in front of the big flat screen TV that Benjamin used to show off his exploration into digital video.

Check out the students and their thoughts on the new Google phone here.

This is up on the Calit2Life blog too...which a cool photo

UC San Diego Startup Genomatica turns sugar into industrial chemicals

Genomatica, a UC San Diego startup founded by a UC San Diego Jacobs School bioengineering PhD student Christopher Schilling and his professor Bernhard Palsson made big news recently when it announced a process to use sugar, rather than petroleum, to produce a common industrial chemical.

CNET has a good story here.

The Forbes story "Making Plastic from Sugar" is a good read as well.

UC San Diego Entrepreneur Challenge

UC San Diego's entrepreneurial spirit continues to grow. On Oct 1, 2008, you can experience the startup vibe at the fall kickoff event which features a keynote from Dr. Irwin Jacobs, Co-Founder and Chairman, QUALCOMM, Inc.

RSVP at: http://challenge.ucsd.edu

UC San Diego Honored by Buildings Magazine

According to Buildings Magazine, UC San Diego Ranked #3 in the nation within the "building market" for it's efforts to become the greenest university.

UC San Diego students in the photo above are part of a project to collect weather and climate information across the UC San Diego campus in order to find ways to save energy. On example: identify the sunniest rooftops on which to expand the solar-electric system and determine just how much sun we can expect on our coastal campus.

A snippet of the story in Buildings magazine is pasted below.

Although UC San Diego is fortunate to have the support and expertise of its forward-thinking administration, continuous-improvement practices are only possible when students and faculty are asked—and empowered—to think outside the box while learning the "art" of collaboration. Imagine how these future leaders will influence corporate and political America in the next decade.