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Simulations that burn
Combustion is the chemical reaction that keeps our cars driving, planes flying, homes heated, and electricity flowing. How can the process be improved to make our automobiles more efficient and reduce the pollution that spews out of industrial facilities? Design better combustion chambers, says Fabrizio Bisetti, a PhD candidate in UC Berkeley's Department of Mechanical Engineering. To aid in that endeavor, Bisetti and his colleagues are simulating the complexity of combustion in a computer.
Language of Life
What does the work of famed theoretical linguist Noam Chomsky have to do with bioengineering? DNA is just another language that can be translated, says Ian Holmes, a UC Berkeley computational biologist. Holmes is applying Chomsky's theories about grammar and syntax to the piles of genetic data that's emerging from DNA sequencing efforts around the world. The professor of bioengineering's research could someday help shed light on the beginnings of evolution and even inform the development of new antiviral drugs.
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Mighty Microscanner
Two UC Berkeley graduate students have fabricated a tiny microscanner, a pinhead-sized machine that can rotate a miniscule mirror back and forth 24,000 times every second with great precision. The possible applications are wide ranging, from a heads-up display that paints a video image right on your eyeball to advanced endoscopy tools outfitted with onboard CT scanners for 3D medical imaging right inside the body. Compared to similar technology currently on the market, Hyuck Choo and David Garmire's device not only performs much better, it may also be ten times cheaper when produced commercially.
Cool Alum: Yasmin Byron
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