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Computers Search for Understanding in Bioscience
A key part of any scientific research is knowing what's already known. To stand on the shoulders of giants, researchers browse, search, and synthesize journal articles written by their colleagues. For bioscientists, this means frequent forays into MEDLINE, the US National Library of Medicine's bibliographic database of journal references dating back forty years. Currently, MEDLINE houses 13 million citations with half a million more added each year. How does one find the needles in this ever-growing data haystack? UC Berkeley professors Marti Hearst and Adam Arkin are developing smart search technology to help bioscientists find what they're seeking and, perhaps someday, valuable information they didn't even know they were looking for.
A Fresh Look at Water Treatment
It's a do or dry situation for Australia's national water shortage. According to the Australian Water Services Association, the country is facing a 275 gigaliter shortage of drinking water in the next ten years unless drastic conservation measures and new treatment methods are put into place. To UC Berkeley professor David Sedlak, the situation is similar to California's own water problems, only much worse. During a Fulbright fellowship last year at the University of New South Wales, Sedlak helped develop a novel treatment technique that could aid in the purification of contaminated water and increase drinkable resources down under.
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Autosensing for Autos
Automobile rollovers often occur when a car's wheels lose traction, the vehicle slides sideways, and the lateral force causes the car to flip. Of course, the tires "know" they're skidding long before the driver can react by turning the wheel. But what if the wheels were smart enough to alert the vehicle's control and stability systems to compensate for the loss of traction with an appropriate power boost? That's just one future application of the tiny, wireless strain sensors that UC Berkeley engineers are developing in the Microfabrication Laboratory. Someday, the sensors could be bonded to most any steel structure -- from an automobile suspension to a critical girder in a building -- to keep a constant vigil on the forces that affect a structure's performance.
Cool Alumni: Michael Chu, creator of Cooking For Engineers
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