Egghead Content

Functional Flows and Native Fish

Andy Fell — February 25, 2025 - 3:44pm

There are many demands on California water, and one of them is how much water to leave in streams to protect native fish and ecosystems. A recent approach to this question is to look at "functional flows:" not so much the total amount of water, but when it is flowing and what it is doing.

NIH Renews Support for Lab Mouse Repository for Fifth Time

Andy Fell — February 13, 2025 - 3:59pm

The National Institutes of Health has renewed its grant to support the Mutant Mouse Resource and Research Center at the University of California, Davis. This is the 26th year of operation for the MMRRC and the fifth consecutive competitive renewal of the grant, now $7.2 million in total costs over the next five years.

Diving in Antarctica

Andy Fell — February 11, 2025 - 2:06pm

The McMurdo Dry Valleys don’t look like they belong in Antarctica. Largely devoid of snow, the landscape is mostly dirt and rock. When explorer Robert Falcon Scott trekked the area in 1903, he referred to it as “the valley of the dead.”

But that name is a misnomer. While life may not be evident to the naked eye, beneath the icy surface of Lake Fryxell, microscopic communities teem with life. Microbes, nematode worms and tardigrades thrive in this environment.

Tony Tyson: Sifting Through the Cosmic Noise

Andy Fell — February 07, 2025 - 9:51am

In a dark, light-tight room on the fifth floor of the UC Davis Physics Building, researchers recreate the night sky. But the simulated sky isn’t projected onto a wall or ceiling. Instead, a large, tube-like device, housed in a transparent cage, uses a reticle mask, also known as a photomask, to achieve the simulation. Wires crisscross the instrument — known as an optical simulator — and liquid nitrogen cools it when it’s in use.

Creating Nanoislands for Better Platinum Catalysts

Andy Fell — January 28, 2025 - 4:27pm

Noble metals such as platinum can make useful catalysts to accelerate chemical reactions, particularly hydrogenation (adding hydrogen atoms to a molecule). The research team led by Professor Bruce Gates at the UC Davis Department of Chemical Engineering is interested in making platinum catalysts that are highly efficient and stable during chemical reactions.

New Angle Etching Technique for Making Quantum Devices

Andy Fell — January 24, 2025 - 4:40pm

Researchers at the University of California, Davis, have demonstrated an angle etching method for fabricating quantum photonic devices at the wafer scale in silicon carbide.

Color centers are the essential hub for photons (particles of light) in quantum devices. They are the components that emit and maintain photons, functioning as a quantum memory bank. However, they are challenging to fabricate, particularly for the industrial development of quantum technology.

Developing Molecular Windows to Advance Health

Andy Fell — January 16, 2025 - 4:50pm

The image is like an abstract stained-glass window. Set against a black background, a nexus of fluorescent greens, yellows and blues mushrooms out into purples and deep reds. It’s striking — the beauty of cells when viewed through the lens of mass spectrometry.

Is This Universe Tuned to Support Life?

Andy Fell — January 10, 2025 - 3:17pm

For life to flourish, the universe had to meet a nesting doll of conditions. The quantum fluctuations that led to the Big Bang had to be just right to kickstart the cosmological chemistry necessary for star, galaxy and planetary formation. Eventually, conditions on one of these planets — Earth — were just right to support the rise of organic matter, leading to the evolution of life. Leading to us.

Was the universe tuned to support life? Or was it cosmological happenstance?

A Legacy of Jimmy Carter: Craft Beer

Andy Fell — January 06, 2025 - 3:24pm

With the passing of Jimmy Carter, it is perhaps worth mentioning one small legacy from his presidency: the legalization of homebrewing and the craft beer revolution.

Solving the Moving Sofa Problem

Andy Fell — December 13, 2024 - 4:14pm

Korean mathematician Jineon Baek may have come up with a proof for a long-standing problem: What is the largest object that can fit around a corner of a certain size?