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Hunting for Black Gold
In the classic Clark Gable and Spencer Tracy film Boom Town, the characters determine where to drill for oil by looking at the lay of the land. In reality, a lot of black gold was found that way. Wild catters looked for telltale topographical signs that indicated underground reservoirs. These days though, the tried-and-true technique doesn't work so well. The oil and gas reserves in this country are depleting rapidly, requiring a high-resolution view of the subsurface long before the big drills are brought in. To create these images, UC Berkeley professor James Rector applies technology more commonly seen in the doctor's office.
Community Water Works
Every day, those of us who live in the United States use on average a couple hundred gallons of clean water per person. According to the World Health Organization though, 1.1 billion people around the world lack access to safe water. Dirty drinking water is to blame for approximately 240 child deaths every hour, almost all of them occurring in developing nations. In the next few months though, technology developed by Berkeley Lab scientist Ashok Gadgil will bring clean, low-cost water to 25,000 residents of 10 Indian villages, demonstrating one way that this massive health problem might be addressed worldwide. Just don't call it charity.
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Simulating You
Imagine that along with your medical records, your doctor had access to a digital doppelganger of you. The "software you" would be a 3D image-based simulation of your body. Physicians could practice minimally invasive surgery on the computer simulation long before you enter the operating room. Drugs, represented by mathematical equations, could be administered to your virtual body to identify any side effects that you may experience over the course of a real treatment. UC Berkeley computer science professor Katherine Yelick has put her heart into just this kind of high performance computing.
Cool Alumni: Cecilia Aragon, computer scientist, air show pilot
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