Materials scientist Suveen Mathaudhu shows us how both our favorite superheroes and real-world scientists create materials to save the world every day. Some of Mathaudhu’s own research at UC Riverside has been inspired by Captain America’s shield: is it possible to make a material that is both incredibly strong and super lightweight? Advances in this … Read more
Nobody blows things up like Hollywood. Frequently, those jaw-dropping pyrotechnics are digitally created in post-production. Now, with the help of a tool called Wavelet Turbulence, filmmakers can generate realistic swirling smoke and fiery explosions that are more detailed, easier to control and faster to create. UCSB researcher Theodore Kim (along with three collaborators) developed the … Read more
Spoilers give away endings before stories begin and the conventional wisdom is that they diminish suspense and ruin a story, but here’s the twist… Research by UC San Diego psychologists find that spoilers make reading stories more enjoyable (Story spoilers don’t spoil stories). How they tested it: Participants in the study were given a series … Read more
In 1926, the U.S. National Forest Service began a natural vegetation survey of California. The initial purpose was to provide data in support of statewide land use and fire protection policy development. Part of this was photo documentation of the different regions of California. View more of the photography archive here →
“Self Portrait of the Artist’s Brain” – Painting on Silk After being diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis (MS), Elizabeth Jameson began creating paintings based off of MRIs and other digital scans of her brain: “My diagnosis initiated a fascination with these eerie images, which I found frightening, yet mesmerizing. I felt a strong urge to reinterpret my brain … Read more
Inside Science recently wrote about the study by UCSD’s Neil Cohn, Navigating Comics, which looks at the underlying structure of the comics language: People who read the English written word scan text from left to right. Once our eyes hit the end of the page, we stop. Then ding!, like an old-time typewriter, our eyes … Read more