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Nano-Transistor for Biology Not Bits
Traditional transistors are essentially valves that control the flow of electricity to perform calculations. But what if, instead of voltages, a transistor could manipulate the flow of biological molecules like proteins and DNA? Such a nanofludic transistor in development at UC Berkeley may someday detect cancer in a drop of blood much smaller than the period at the end of this sentence.
A Bay In Flux
UC Berkeley researcher Mark Stacey analyzes the physics of the 1,600 square mile waterway between the Pacific Ocean and the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. By studying the estuary, from centimeter scale turbulence to the seasonal transport of salt between the ocean and the Bay, Stacey's research could impact everything from the preservation of delicate ecosystems to the quality of our drinking water.
The Right Person for the Job
What do a sandwich shop, a bank, and an automobile plant have in common? They're all places where the work of UC Berkeley professors of Industrial Engineering and Operations Research (IEOR) Rhonda Righter and Hyun-soo Ahn may help amp up productivity. Righter and Ahn apply the esoteric mathematics of IEOR to determine how employees in various industries should best be trained and assigned tasks.
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Twister Gets A Telepresence Twist
Tele-Twister, IEOR professor Ken Goldberg's cyber version of the '60s
party game, gives it a chess-like element while allowing Goldberg to
collect data for his teleactor project.
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Protecting Our Ports
Each year, nearly seven million shipping containers pass through US ports. With tight time constraints allowing just two percent of the containers to be inspected, there is a very real fear that one of these 20 to 40 foot long containers could be a Trojan horse hiding the key ingredient in a nuclear weapon. To detect the clandestine transport of nuclear weapons materials, researchers at UC Berkeley, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, and the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory are developing a nuclear detection method that may be 10,000 times more sensitive under some conditions than other approaches currently being tested.
1949: Impact and collision pioneer Werner Goldsmith (1924-2003) earns his Mechanical Engineering PhD from UC Berkeley and joins the faculty
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Lab Notes is published
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The Lab Notes mission is to illuminate groundbreaking research underway
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2003 UC Regents. Updated 10/31/03.
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