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| Even trash
needs to be understood
DUMPSTER DIVERS: Members of the newly
formed group, Students for a Greener Berkeley, sort through two
days' worth of trash and recycling from Hearst Memorial
Mining Building. The group, primarily MSE graduate students, was
investigating the building's garbage to understand what
people were throwing away. Volunteers found 100 disposable coffee
cups and 63 coffee cup lids, concluding that Hearst occupants
drink a lot of coffee. Students also found a yam, several rocks
and a master's thesis. Digging through trash, says MSE graduate
student and group co-founder, Becca Jones, "wasn't
nearly as gross I thought. It's been very educational.'"
After they analyze their findings, she says, the volunteers will
launch an educational campaign to encourage Hearst occupants to
reduce their trash and paper waste and increase recycling. The
goal, says Jones, is to make Hearst an environmental model for
the rest of campus.
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The startup is not dead.
Just ask ME Ph.D. student Phil Stephanou and EE Ph.D. students Gianluca
Piazza and Justin Black.
Their story begins two and a half years ago. As part of their Ph.D work,
the threesome was researching ways to produce a smaller, cheaper cell
phone chip that could deliver more functionality in a smaller space.
Like many people, Stephanou, Piazza and Black envisioned cell phones
as THE device. A cell phone will do everything, they say, and envisioned
people watching TV on their cell phones, accessing data bases, and,
of course, connecting to the Internet.
To get to that level of functionality, a chip must be able to process
more without getting bigger, they explain. It must be cheap to produce.
The three students, in conjunction with EE professor Al Pisano, logged
hours and hours in the lab. By last fall, all their hard engineering
work paid off. They realized they'd found the silver bullet.
"We decided to make it real," says Stephanou. "We said, 'Let's write...[FULL
STORY]
It's that time of year again:
ASUC elections. Below is a short Q&A with each candidate. Don't
forget to cast your vote April 5-7. For more information, go to www.asuc.org/.
Chris Abad, ME junior
Why are you qualified? As an ASUC senator this year, I sponsored bills
that helped get funding for engineering student groups and fought for
northside businesses to be open later. What will you do for engineering
students if you're elected? I will continue to get funding and to advocate
for northside businesses to stay open later.
Shalini Bhasker, ChemE freshman
Why are you qualified? I've done similar stuff like this in high school,
such as Model United Nations. I have an interest and I'm really motivated.
What will you do...[FULL
STORY]
Last fall, BioE Ph.D. students
and lab colleagues Nate Beyor, Stephanie Yeung, and Erik Douglas were
looking for research projects they could submit to Berkeley's Management
of Technology International Research Fellowship Program. Beyor remembered
a conversation he'd had with a marine engineer who told him about a
problem considered one of the biggest threats to the world's oceans:
When a ship docks at a port and unloads its cargo, the cargo hold empties.
With nothing to weigh it down, a ship becomes unstable. To correct the
problem, ships are built with ballast tanks around the hold. The tanks
pump in water from the local bay. Now the ship is stable again. At the
next port, the ship takes in cargo and discharges water from the previous
port. With the water...[FULL
STORY]
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