You might think of Professor Kendall Houk as the Shonda Rhimes of Organic Chemistry. Like Rhimes, the writer/producer known for her steady stream of hit television shows including “Grey’s Anatomy” and “Scandal,” Houk is also known for his prolificness but in publication; he averages around 20 papers a year. Houk, who began teaching at UCLA…
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As for the phrase “as far as the eye can see,” it turns out to be actually not that much. This was proven during the 17th century by Robert Hooke, an English physicist, architect and polymath who used a hand-crafted microscope to detail his accounts of plants, insects, and objects. His microscope was so precise…
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NSF video illustrates IDRE Executive Committee member Andrea Bertozzi’s Research Group’s work on PredPol, a set of algorithms based on earthquake science that pinpoints the location of potential crimes before they happen.

While her grade-school classmates were learning the alphabet and how to count to five, Andrea Bertozzi remembers studying negative numbers and modular arithmetic. Math often gets a bad rap as an uncreative left-brain oriented activity, but Bertozzi said she was fascinated with it as a child because of its creative potential. “Teachers have trouble teaching…
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You probably don’t want a doctor who is a general practitioner to perform your open heart surgery. While both a general practitioner and a cardiothoracic surgeon have extensive medical training, each doctor has specific skill sets. To choose the former is just not the most efficient use of resources. A similar line of thinking exists…
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Each June, thousands of UCLA students graduate and find themselves thrust out of the familiar university environment. Some have secured full-time jobs, others acceptance to graduate schools, and for many the path ahead is simply unknown. In the world of genetics, though, much of what’s ahead can be scientifically-speculated directly out of the womb. And…
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Imagine stepping into your lab to find that you have captured your very own star on which to conduct research. It’s a nice thought, but housing what amounts to an exploding ball of gas that can reach 100,000 degrees Fahrenheit isn’t what most scientists would call practical. Enter Jaime Marian, a professor in UCLA’s School…
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It’s safe to say that hacking has recently blown up on the international stage. However, University of Arizona Regents’ Professor Dr. Hsinchun Chen, who is also the founder and director of the university’s Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, has been researching security informatics for more than two decades. “When I started, people did not consider this as…
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Although IDRE Technologist Yoh Kawano has spent more than two decades working with geographic information systems (GIS) – technology designed to help visualize, analyze, and interpret data – he said when he first arrived at UCLA he had no prior knowledge of GIS. It was only when he took a class on the subject while…
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