UC Science Today

A five million dollar gift will go towards creating a new interdisciplinary center to fight climate change at the University of California, San Diego’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography. UC San Diego Chancellor Pradeep Khosla says the Center for Climate Change Impacts and Adaptation will be a game-changer.

"This name is very carefully chosen – this is not only understanding the impact of climate change, but also understanding that while some of this change is happening, how do we adapt to this change? So for example, one of the possible outcomes of climate change is going to be sea level rise. Disruption of commerce, disruption of real estate properties, disruption of coastal land. This is where SIO, working with engineering, working with GPS, our new school of global policy and strategy, working with social scientists, physical scientists – all scientists and engineers, social scientists coming together to look at problems in ways that has not happened before."

A five million dollar gift will go towards creating a new interdisciplinary center to fight climate change at the University of California, San Diego’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography. UC San Diego Chancellor Pradeep Khosla says the Center for Climate Change Impacts and Adaptation will be a game-changer.

"This name is very carefully chosen – this is not only understanding the impact of climate change, but also understanding that while some of this change is happening, how do we adapt to this change? So for example, one of the possible outcomes of climate change is going to be sea level rise. Disruption of commerce, disruption of real estate properties, disruption of coastal land. This is where SIO, working with engineering, working with GPS, our new school of global policy and strategy, working with social scientists, physical scientists – all scientists and engineers, social scientists coming together to look at problems in ways that has not happened before."

Upwelling in the ocean, in which the deep, cold water rises to the surface, provides a very nutrient-rich environment for the marine ecosystem. But there are detrimental effects related to the upwelling system, too. As Tessa Hill of the University of California, Davis explains, when this water gets pulled back up to the surface, it’s also bringing up very carbon dioxide-rich water, which is increasing due to human activities and changing the chemistry of the water itself.

"We call this ocean acidification because when you add that carbon dioxide into the sea water, it changes the acidity of the water. The ocean soaks up that carbon from the atmosphere, so about 30 percent of what we put into the atmosphere ends up in the ocean. And so on top of all the cycling of carbon that would normally happen in the ocean, including things related to that upwelling system, there’s now a human fingerprint on top of that."

Acidic waters are affecting how oysters and mussels build their shell, so Hill is helping to monitor conditions off the Pacific coast, which helps hatcheries decide when to spawn.

Upwelling in the ocean, in which the deep, cold water rises to the surface, provides a very nutrient-rich environment for the marine ecosystem. But there are detrimental effects related to the upwelling system, too. As Tessa Hill of the University of California, Davis explains, when this water gets pulled back up to the surface, it’s also bringing up very carbon dioxide-rich water, which is increasing due to human activities and changing the chemistry of the water itself.

"We call this ocean acidification because when you add that carbon dioxide into the sea water, it changes the acidity of the water. The ocean soaks up that carbon from the atmosphere, so about 30 percent of what we put into the atmosphere ends up in the ocean. And so on top of all the cycling of carbon that would normally happen in the ocean, including things related to that upwelling system, there’s now a human fingerprint on top of that."

Acidic waters are affecting how oysters and mussels build their shell, so Hill is helping to monitor conditions off the Pacific coast, which helps hatcheries decide when to spawn.

Upwelling in the ocean, in which the deep, cold water rises to the surface, provides a very nutrient-rich environment for the marine ecosystem. But there are detrimental effects related to the upwelling system, too. As Tessa Hill of the University of California, Davis explains, when this water gets pulled back up to the surface, it’s also bringing up very carbon dioxide-rich water, which is increasing due to human activities and changing the chemistry of the water itself.

"We call this ocean acidification because when you add that carbon dioxide into the sea water, it changes the acidity of the water. The ocean soaks up that carbon from the atmosphere, so about 30 percent of what we put into the atmosphere ends up in the ocean. And so on top of all the cycling of carbon that would normally happen in the ocean, including things related to that upwelling system, there’s now a human fingerprint on top of that."

Acidic waters are affecting how oysters and mussels build their shell, so Hill is helping to monitor conditions off the Pacific coast, which helps hatcheries decide when to spawn.

If you’ve ever wanted to be taller, you may want to consider living in space. It turns out that astronauts can grow as much as two inches taller under microgravity conditions because the lighter load causes the soft discs in their spines to expand. Biomechanics professor Grace O’Connell of the University of California, Berkeley says that under Earth’s gravity, the discs compress and squeeze out water.

"So just having gravity pull down on you all day long, the water flows out of the disc. We see the reverse with astronauts and patients that are bedridden for a very long period of time. Astronauts are actually taller when they come back because they have low loading and their disc continues to expand."

Narrator: But O’Connell says that astronauts are also at greater risk of back injury, which is what inspired her lab to study the properties of spinal discs.

"Astronauts have a significant problem with bone loss when they're in space. And that can cause other problems they have a higher rate of herniation, which causes significant back and leg pain."

If you’ve ever wanted to be taller, you may want to consider living in space. It turns out that astronauts can grow as much as two inches taller under microgravity conditions because the lighter load causes the soft discs in their spines to expand. Biomechanics professor Grace O’Connell of the University of California, Berkeley says that under Earth’s gravity, the discs compress and squeeze out water.

"So just having gravity pull down on you all day long, the water flows out of the disc. We see the reverse with astronauts and patients that are bedridden for a very long period of time. Astronauts are actually taller when they come back because they have low loading and their disc continues to expand."

Narrator: But O’Connell says that astronauts are also at greater risk of back injury, which is what inspired her lab to study the properties of spinal discs.

"Astronauts have a significant problem with bone loss when they're in space. And that can cause other problems they have a higher rate of herniation, which causes significant back and leg pain."

If you’ve ever wanted to be taller, you may want to consider living in space. It turns out that astronauts can grow as much as two inches taller under microgravity conditions because the lighter load causes the soft discs in their spines to expand. Biomechanics professor Grace O’Connell of the University of California, Berkeley says that under Earth’s gravity, the discs compress and squeeze out water.

"So just having gravity pull down on you all day long, the water flows out of the disc. We see the reverse with astronauts and patients that are bedridden for a very long period of time. Astronauts are actually taller when they come back because they have low loading and their disc continues to expand."

Narrator: But O’Connell says that astronauts are also at greater risk of back injury, which is what inspired her lab to study the properties of spinal discs.

"Astronauts have a significant problem with bone loss when they're in space. And that can cause other problems they have a higher rate of herniation, which causes significant back and leg pain."

If you thought NASA’s New Horizons flyby of Pluto was impressive, you may want to mark your calendars for Juno, a Jupiter-bound spacecraft that launched in August 2011 and is set to arrive in July 2016. Research fellow Lauren Weiss of the University of California, Berkeley’s Astronomy Department says that instead of flying by, Juno will orbit the gas giant for a full Earth year.

"The Juno Mission will try to determine whether Jupiter, our own gas giant, indeed has a rocky core because we’ve never actually made a conclusive detection of the rocky core of Jupiter yet. And it will take very careful measurements of the gravitational field, with changing heights, from Jupiter and positions around Jupiter."

Weiss says that the mission will hopefully reveal whether all planets have a rocky core.

"We think that all planets have a rocky interior. And so that will hopefully reveal whether the core is rocky."

Chances are we’ve all been inspired by nature at some point. But scientists at the University of California, Berkeley took their inspiration to the next level after developing a hybrid system of semiconducting nanowires and bacteria that’s modeled after photosynthesis. Study leader Chris Chang credits the merging fields of biology and nanotechnology for their breakthrough system, which can not only produce biomass, but also valuable chemical products including biodegradable plastics and pharmaceutical drugs.

"We're making not just one, but many, many, many different types of useful chemical products, and so acetate is a commodity chemical and something that we use in food, and pharmaceuticals, biodegradable polymers, as well as next generation fuels, all within the same type of system. And so it is a breakthrough in the complexity of what we've been able to make, by tapping the complexity of biology, and then merging it with our ability to make artificial nanotechnology, really, enabling biology to do what biology couldn't do before."