UCI School of Physical Sciences

Fiat plaque. If you're walking by the Infinity Fountain by Physical Sciences, you may discover, thanks to a new plaque, that "Infinity" is only the fountain's middle name. https://ps.uci.edu/news/1021

NASA's Perseverance Mars Rover will work to make oxygen from martian air for manned Mars missions. "The future of human space exploration is no longer just an idea it's becoming a reality, and it begins here!" said UCI Physics & Astronomy Ph.D. student Sophia Gad-Nasr | NASA/JPL-Caltech

"What's interesting about Perseverance to me is that, for the first time in 45 years, we're sending probes outside Earth for the explicit purpose of looking for signs of life," said UCI Physics & Astronomy's Professor Paul Robertson of NASA's Perseverance Mars Rover, which is set to land on the red planet today. "We've certainly not closed the case, either past or present, for life on Mars. We are well overdue to try again." NASA/JPL-Caltech

Our eyes are on the sky today as NASA's Perseverance Mars Rover soars ever closer to Mars, prepping for a landing that would make any trapeze artist blush. Tune in later for thoughts from our scientists at UCI Physics & Astronomy as they weigh in on this stellar story. NASA/JPL-Caltech

To properly understand why cells do certain things, and to predict their future actions, we need to be able to listen to what they are saying to one another," said UCI Department of Mathematics Professor Qing Nie, who's a co-author of a new Nature Communications study on deciphering the "language" of cells. https://news.uci.edu//uci-researchers-eavesdrop-on-cellul/

Our first Women in Natural Sciences award goes to Arianna Long. Congratulations, Arianna! https://ps.uci.edu/news/2268

Mike Fenton, a postdoctoral researcher in the UCI Department of Physics & Astronomy, and a team just published a paper about particle collisions at CERN. What we have here is a little puzzle of having to fit six similar looking pegs into the correct six holes on a big board, Fenton said. "What we did is train an AI to figure it out just from the jumble of unordered pegs." https://bit.ly/3jpqQhX

A Moment of Science: The bust of Nobel laureate Sherry Rowland looks at passersby with an expression that seems to say Zot’s a cool mask you’re wearing. Photo credit: Don Blake

I hope that COMP really normalizes experiences in grad school and makes people kind of feel like ‘yes, grad school is hard, but everyone feels that way, and we can all get through it together.' Read how the UCI Department of Mathematics is shifting its culture. https://bit.ly/3lUWMfz

To close out Hispanic Heritage Month, meet and read a bit about Fernando Quintino, a Ph.D. student in the UCI Department of Mathematics. "My advice is the following: No matter your background, I believe that hard work and dedication will take you a long way," Quinto said. "No matter what you choose to do, do a job that you can be proud of. There are things that you can control and things that you cannot control in life. Do your best on what you can control and do not stress on what you cannot control." https://ps.uci.edu/news/2258

We were able to track the cascading effects of COVID-19-related disruptions of human activities from China in February to the United States and Europe in March through May," said professor Steve Davis the UCI Department of Earth System Science, who's part of a new Nature Communications study. https://news.uci.edu//pandemic-lockdowns-caused-steep-and/

This Friday at 1 p.m. All are welcome to join. https://sites.uci.edu/sops4inclusion/

Check out our first Zot Tip of the Fall 2020 Quarter! Keep checking back for more helpful Zot Tips throughout the year! Zot! Zot! <3 #physicalsciencesstudentaffairs #zottips #pssazot

Maybe they’ll ship me a good dinner via FedEx or post office. Congratulations to Helene Seroussi and Isabella Velicogna of UCI's Department of Earth System Science for their honors from the American Geophysical Union. https://ps.uci.edu/news/2260

Happy Indigenous Peoples’ Day! UCI PS acknowledges its presence on the traditional, ancestral and unceded territory of the Acjachemen and Tongva peoples, who still hold strong spiritual, cultural and physical ties to this place.

As we continue celebrating #HispanicHeritageMonth, read a bit about George Vazquez, a Department of Mathematics alumnus who now works at the California Alliance for Minority Participation (CAMP) program at UCI. https://ps.uci.edu/news/2024

A letter from UCI Department of Chemistry chair Professor Douglas Tobias on the passing of Mario Molina, who shared the 1995 Nobel Prize with F. Sherwood Rowland for his work revealing the presence of the human-caused ozone hole. https://bit.ly/2SI0kVK

"Nitrous oxide emissions are increasing...so fast that if left unchecked, they along with carbon dioxide will push the rise in global mean temperature to well above 2 degrees Celsius." https://bit.ly/3lrF4jI