Research Highlights

Dusty Old Star Offers Window to Our Future, Astronomers Report: Astronomers have glimpsed dusty debris around an essentially dead star where gravity and radiation should have long ago removed any sign of dust — a discovery that may provide insights into our own solar system’s eventual demise several billion years from now.

UCLA Mathematician Awarded Major DOE Grant to Apply Sophisticated Mathematics to Plasma Physics: UCLA mathematics professor Russel Caflisch has been awarded $630,000 by the U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Science to apply sophisticated mathematics to complex problems in plasma physics.

UCLA Biochemists Provide First Structural Details of Mysterious Bacterial Microcompartments: Discovery Blurs Distinction between Human Cells and those of Bacteria

Dust-Enshrouded Star Looks Similar to our Sun, May Have Witnessed 'Cosmic Catastrophe,' Astronomers at UCLA, Gemini and Carnegie Report: Astronomers report tremendous quantities of warm dusty debris surrounding a star with luminosity and mass similar to the sun's, but located 300 light-years from Earth.

UCLA Chemists Create Nano Value to Trap and Release Molecules: UCLA chemists have created the first valve that can be opened and closed at will to trap and release molecules -- a finding that shows that molecules can be controlled at the nano scale

Astronomers Confirm the First Image of a Planet Outside of Our Solar System: An international team of astronomers from UCLA and France has confirmed the discovery of a giant planet, approximately five times the mass of Jupiter, outside of our solar system.

UCLA Team Observes Nuclear Fusion Driven by a Crystal: In the April 28 edition of the journal Nature, UCLA graduate student Brian Naranjo and colleagues report a new kind of 'bench-top' nuclear fusion, based on measurements that seem considerably more convincing than these previous claims.

UCLA Biochemists Discover Structure of Enzyme That Plays a Key Role in Cancer: UCLA biochemists have determined the three-dimensional structure of a major domain of telomerase, an enzyme that plays a key role in most cancers.

Nano Mechanism May Lead to New Protein Engineering: UCLA scientists have created a mechanism at the nanoscale to externally control the function and action of a protein.

Quantum Dot Imaging: New Broad Potential for Science and Medical Applications: The evolution the crystals known as quantum dots has seen the growth of this revolutionary new tool from electronic materials science to far-reaching biological applications that will allow researchers to study cell processes at the level of a single molecule and may result in new and better ways to diagnose and treat cancers.

Molecular Electronics: A Field in its Infancy with a Bright Future, Reports UCLA chemists: The emerging field of molecular electronics - using nanoscale molecules as key components in computers and other electronic devices - is in excellent health and has a bright future, conclude UCLA, Caltech and University of California, Santa Barbara, chemists who assess the field.

UCLA Chemists Report New Nano Phenomenon: Welding in Response to an Ordinary Camera Flash: UCLA chemists report the discovery of a remarkable new nanoscale phenomenon: An ordinary camera flash causes the instantaneous welding together of nanofibers.

UCLA Scientists Control a Single Electron's Spin: Quantum computing, which holds the promise of nearly unlimited processing power, secure communications and the ability to decode encrypted conversations by terrorists and others, is a significant step closer to becoming a reality today with new research published by a team of UCLA scientists.

UCLA Chemists Create An Elegant Solution To A Centuries-Old Problem: UCLA chemists have devised an elegant solution to an intricate problem at the nanoscale that stumped scientists for many years.

UCLA Chemists Develop New Coating for Nanoscale Probe: A new process developed by chemists in the College allows the observation of the "molecular dance of life," and opens the door to potential nanotechnology applications for biology and medicine.

UCLA Chemists Report the Most Sophisticated Artificial Nanomachine Yet: UCLA supramolecular chemists have created an artificial molecular machine that functions like a nanoscale elevator, a device that could find use in such processes as slow-release drug delivery systems, or control of chemical reactions conducted in 'laboratories on a chip.'

Conference on April 16 Brings Together World-Renowned Scientists to Address Origin of Animals: An all-day symposium on April 16 hosted by the UCLA Center for the Study of Evolution and the Origin of Life will explore the geologically "sudden" appearance of animals in the fossil record -- a period known as the Cambrian explosion.

Large Asteroid, Lost for 66 Years, Is Found to Be Two Objects Orbiting Each Other: A UCLA planetary scientist and colleagues have found that an asteroid that has eluded astronomers for decades turns out to be an unusual pair of objects traveling together in space.

UCLA Physicists Create A New Sensor Using A Single Molecule: UCLA physicists have created a first-of-its-kind sensor using a single molecule less than 20 nanometers long -- one-thousandth the thickness of a human hair.

UCLA Chemists Report New Method for Producing Carbon Nanoscrolls, an Alternative to Nanotubes: UCLA chemists have found a room-temperature chemical method for producing a new form of carbon called carbon nanoscrolls. Nanoscrolls are closely related to the much touted carbon nanotubes - which may have numerous industrial applications - but have significant advantages over them.

UCLA Professors Named to Scientific American's List of 50 'Visionaries': UCLA Chemistry Professor James R. Heath has been named by Scientific American magazine as one of the "Scientific American 50" - the magazine's first "celebration of visionaries from the worlds of research, industry and politics whose recent accomplishments point toward a brighter technological future for everyone."

UCLA, British Astronomers Discover the Wake of a Planet Around a Nearby Star - Strong Evidence for Solar Systems Like Ours: An international team of astronomers reports the first strong evidence for the existence of massive planets on wide orbits - like those of Saturn, Uranus and Neptune - around many stars. The new research provides some of the strongest evidence so far that solar systems similar to our own, or even larger, are likely to exist.

UCLA Astronomers See Dusty Spirals in Center of Milky Way Galaxy: UCLA astronomers and colleagues present the highest resolution mid-infrared picture ever taken of the center of our Milky Way galaxy, which reveals details about dust swirling into the black hole that dominates the region.

UCLA Chemist Richard Kaner Awarded Gold Shield Faculty Prize for Excellence in Teaching, Research and Service: Richard B. Kaner, a UCLA professor of chemistry and biochemistry whose internationally renowned research in materials chemistry has led to several patents, has been awarded the 2002-04 Gold Shield Faculty Prize for Academic Excellence -- an honor presented every second year in recognition of "extraordinary accomplishment" in research, teaching and university service.

UCLA-Led Team Creates Self-Repairing Plastic: A UCLA-led team of chemists and engineers has developed a transparent plastic that if fractured will mend itself when heated - a discovery that can be used to create self-repairing products.

UCLA Scientists, Colleagues Validate the Biological Origin of Earliest Fossils: UCLA paleobiologist J. William Schopf and colleagues have verified the biological origin of the earliest known cellular fossils, which are 3.5 billion years old.

UCLA-Led Project Will Send Spacecraft to Study the Origins of the Solar System: NASA has approved the Dawn Mission, a UCLA-led project that will develop a spacecraft to orbit and study Ceres and Vesta, the two largest asteroids (minor planets) in our solar system. The Dawn Mission marks the first time that a spacecraft will orbit two planetary bodies on the same mission. Christopher T. Russell, professor in the Department of Earth and Space Sciences at UCLA, will direct the Dawn mission.

Interview: ABC Science (Australia): UCLA Astronomer Matthew Malkan discusses his findings on distant galaxies, infrared technology, and the Hubble Space Telescope

Hewlett-Packard and UCLA Collaboration Receives Key Molecular Electronics Patent: Hewlett-Packard Company and UCLA have received a U.S. patent for technology that could make it possible to build very complex logic chips -- simply and inexpensively -- at the molecular scale.

"Fiat Lux" Program: UCLA To Offer New Small Courses for Undergraduates: UCLA has created a new program that, beginning in fall 2002, will offer a broad range of small seminars primarily to freshmen.

Interview: ABC Science (Australia): UCLA Chemist Catherine Clarke discusses her research on Conenzyme Q and aging

UCLA Receives $4.8 Million Grant to Support Research in World's Best Plasma Physics Facility: In experiments that last barely a hundred-millionth of a second, UCLA physicists are learning the secrets of plasma - the turbulent, hot, ionized, gas-like matter that may help us destroy toxic waste and chemical and biological weapons, and perhaps help generate unlimited energy through fusion.

UCLA, Ohio State Astronomers Present the Hercules Deep Field of Distant Galaxies, Some Like Our Own: A team of UCLA astronomers and colleagues at Ohio State University presented detailed new images of hundreds of distant galaxies at the January 2002 meeting of the American Astronomical Society

Coenzyme Q Shortens Life Span of Worms Substantially, UCLA Chemists Report: A popular dietary supplement, Coenzyme Q, accelerates aging and death in a microscopic worm studied by UCLA biochemists.

Mathematician Tony Chan Named Dean of Physical Sciences: "Science does not respect traditional disciplinary boundaries. Science goes where it wants to go."

Scientists from UCLA and Australia Find Evidence of Water on Earth 4.3 Billion Years Ago: Analysis of rock from Western Australia using a powerful instrument at UCLA has produced strong evidence that liquid water existed at or near the Earth's surface 4.3 billion years ago - some 400 million years earlier than previously known.

UCLA Dedicates $12.5 Million Mathematics Institute to Strengthen Ties Between Math and Other Sciences: UCLA today inaugurated its new Institute for Pure and Applied Mathematics (IPAM), which was awarded $12.5 million for five years from the National Science Foundation to strengthen the ties between mathematics and the other sciences.

UCLA Astronomers Identify Evidence of Asteroid Belt Nearby Star; Findings Indicate Potential for Planet or Asteroid Formation: Identifying what may be a galactic replay of how our own solar system was formed, UCLA astronomers have found evidence of a massive asteroid belt around a nearby star - findings that could indicate that planets are forming there or have already formed.