Science – Page 38 – UCSD-TV Blog

Alternatives to Insecticides: High Impact Solutions Without Environmental Trade-offs

To mark the 50th anniversary of “Silent Spring,” Rachel Carson’s landmark book that helped launch the environmental movement, the Center for Ethics in Science and Technology presents
“Alternatives to Insecticides: High Impact Solutions Without Environmental Trade-offs.”

In this talk, Stephen Welter of San Diego State University focuses on biologically-based alternatives to insecticide use in American agriculture that also consider non-target environmental effects, worker safety issues, and consumer needs, as well as the more traditional models of economic trade-offs.

Tune in to UCSD-TV tonight at 8 or watch it now!

Earthquake-Resilient Hospitals for the Future

By Rich Wargo, UCSD-TV science producer

For a few months last spring, things were really rumbling at UC San Diego’s Engelkirk Structural Engineering Center, where researchers subjected a five-story mockup of a hospital to the largest earthquake test of its kind. “Building It Better: Earthquake-resilient Hospitals for the Future,” a UCSD-TV and California Seismic Safety Commission documentary two years in the making, takes you behind the scenes of these dramatic earthquake tests as researchers evaluate their impact on the many complex systems within hospital buildings, including surgical suites, patient rooms and more. The program also reviews the history of seismic safety for California’s hospital infrastructure, and what is being done to secure its future.

Phenomenal is the only way to describe this project. I’ve recorded and produced many programs on tests at Englekirk – from a massive concrete parking structure to an 80′ wind turbine to metal frame buildings and more – but I’ve never witnessed anything like this, and honestly, hope none of us ever experience a quake as intense, or even half as intense, as this test provided.

While we did our best to capture this intensity, being present at the moment of testing brought with it the visceral uncertainty of whether an entire five-story building will collapse before you. This not only induces an instant of panic, but makes you think more than twice about how prepared we all are for such an event – and how truly outstanding and critically important the work of the California Seismic Safety Commission and the many researchers and partners involved in this test is to our common well–being.

After seeing this project closely from the inside, I am certain that too many of us are unprepared and have no idea just how devastating the “big one” – which will happen – will be. But there are people working together to make sure that when we need it most, our critical infrastructure will be ready, and the data, information and lessons from this project are making and will continue to make immense contributions to that goal.

And I didn’t even mention the fire testing……

Watch “Building It Better: Earthquake-resilient Hospitals for the Future,” premiering tonight at 8 and online now.

Local Legends: The Leopard Sharks of La Jolla Shores

Summertime in San Diego means the return of leopard sharks to La Jolla Shores. Contrary to popular belief, these sharks – 97% of which are pregnant females – are not giving birth or mating during their stay.

Tonight (Oct. 10) at 8, join Andy Nosal, a Scripps Ph.D. student who studies local leopards, to find out what scientists really think is going on. Discover what gadgets Nosal uses to track the sharks and learn what makes La Jolla the animals’ preferred hang out. Find out why this shark population is particularly vulnerable and how the local no-take marine reserve protects it.

Or just watch it online now!

Local Legends: The Leopard Sharks of La Jolla Shores

In Memoriam: Reach for the Stars with Sally Ride

Sadly, we learned today that Sally Ride, the first American woman in space, UC San Diego Professor Emeritus, and an advocate for science education, passed away at her home in San Diego. She was 61.

The UC San Diego campus, where Ride became Professor of Physics in 1989, is already relatively quiet this summer break, but the news of Ride’s premature passing due to pancreatic cancer has created a more somber tone. Her loss will obviously also be felt at the San Diego-based company she founded, Sally Ride Science, which provided science education materials and assistance to teachers and schools.

In February 2011, Ride visited UC Berkeley to deliver the UC Berkeley Physics Regent’s Lecture titled “Reach for the Stars with Sally Ride.” In the talk, which aired on UCSD-TV last April, Ride advocates for a stronger foundation of math and science education by describing her own path into the space program. There’s no better way to honor this distinguished woman’s memory than listening to her heartfelt dream that every student — not just future rocket scientists — learn to love math and science.

Higgs Boson Discovery? NOT. Yet….But your search is over.

Here it is, the latest interpretation of the largest dataset from the CMS that was officially released this morning. After weeks of leaks, rumors and speculation it has been officially announced that the Higgs boson has been further cornered into a very narrow sliver of mass around 125GeV by independent results from both the CMS […]

CMS data showing mass range excluded and possible for the Higgs boson, December 2011

CMS data showing detail of lower mass range excluded and possible for the Higgs boson, December 2011

Here it is, the latest interpretation of the largest dataset from the CMS that was officially released this morning.

After weeks of leaks, rumors and speculation it has been officially announced that the Higgs boson has been further cornered into a very narrow sliver of mass around 125GeV by independent results from both the CMS and ATLAS detectors. This is consistent with the Standard Model and previous postulates made before the acquisition of humanity’s most powerful particle accelerator.

Is this the first evidence of the Higgs boson? It could well be, perhaps. But it is still not yet a discovery.

Why?

What do these mean?

What do they show?

And how did thousands of scientists get to this point in the search for the Higgs boson?

In this UCSD-TV video exclusive, UC San Diego Physics Professor Vivek Sharma, director of Higgs research for the CMS detector, explains the massive efforts to discover the Higgs Boson using the LHC at CERN.

Since the search began in March 2010, I have been fortunate (very fortunate) to be able to conduct an unprecedented series of exclusive interviews with Vivek Sharma; UC San Diego Professor of Physics and director of Higgs research for the CMS, or Compact Muon Solenoid detector.He is also one of two people responsible for combining all results from both the CMS and ATLAS detectors – both involving teams of University of California physicists.

In excerpts from some of these interviews Professor Sharma, ok, Vivek, shares his insights from his unique perspective as one of the key figures at the very heart of this gargantuan effort. He provides a detailed, comprehensive but clear and accessible layman’s guide to how this massive team of researchers conducted the science and produced these results, what they look for, what they see, how they (may have) cornered the Higgs, and why they do what they do.

You will be able to understand what this shows, and why it is no longer evidence for the Higgs boson

Not the Higgs. Why?

And you will be able to understand why this could be evidence for the Higgs boson.

Evidence of the Higgs boson?

You will also understand what the seemingly all-too-complex “Brazilian Flag” (above, apologies to Brazil) states so eloquently about hundreds of trillions of proton-proton collision events, putting them all in terms of the chances that what we are seeing might finally be evidence of the “God Particle”.

But more importantly, you will get a sense of why Vivek, and collectively, we, sift through this chatter and noise to find the signal of the Higgs boson, a signal that speaks to something that has always been, and will always remain, at the core of each of us.