News – Page 21

Good to the Last Drop: What Will We Do When the Wells Run Dry?

Written on March 22, 2012.

Jay Famiglietti, National Geographic Water Currents Since today is World Water Day, I thought that I would kick off my contributions to the Water Currents blog with a renewed wake-up call. It’s one that you’ve heard before, from me and from many, many others — that groundwater is being depleted at a rapid clip in many of the world’s major aquifers — but one that demands a fresh look and immediate action…and here’s why. Groundwater depletion is emerging as a global phenomenon, as well as...

Discovering the End of the World

Written on March 15, 2012.

The recent death of Sherwood Rowland, whose work helped us avoid one of the world’s great environmental disasters, should be a reminder that we can’t afford to ignore the lessons of chemistry. David Rotman, Technology Review The work and life of F. Sherwood Rowland, a chemist at the University of California, Irvine, who died last weekend, should provide ample inspiration for those now grappling with the debate over climate change. Rowland is best known for figuring out, along...

On Our Radar: Saluting a Colossus of Chemistry

Written on March 12, 2012.

Green Blogs, The New York Times Accolades flow in for F. Sherwood Rowland, who won the Nobel Prize in chemistry two decades after reporting that chlorofluorocarbons were destroying the ozone layer. He died on Saturday at age 84. “He saved the world from a major catastrophe,” a dean at the University of California, Irvine, says. [The Christian Science Monitor] Japan ends its whaling season in the Antarctic after meeting less than a third of its annual target — 266 minke whales and one fin...

Sherwood Rowland, the Scientist Who Saved the World

Written on March 12, 2012.

Paul Whitefield, Los Angeles Times It’s not often you can say that someone saved the world — and mean it literally. But that’s the case with F. Sherwood Rowland. The UC Irvine chemist, who died Saturday at 85, was one of three scientists who won the 1995 Nobel Prize in chemistry, The Times reported, for their work “explaining how chlorofluorocarbons, ubiquitous substances once used in an array of products from spray deodorant to industrial solvents, could destroy...

Nobel Laureate Discovered Damage to the Ozone Layer

Written on March 12, 2012.

F. Sherwood Rowland dies at 84; work led to phaseout of chemicals Gary Robbins, U-T San Diego Nobel laureate F. Sherwood Rowland, who discovered that a class of common household chemicals was destroying the ozone layer and endangering the planet, died Saturday at his home in Corona del Mar of complications from Parkinson’s disease. He was 84. Rowland’s death was announced Sunday by his home campus, UC Irvine, a school he helped to build at the same time UC San Diego was being prepared...

UCI loses the legendary F. Sherwood Rowland

Written on March 11, 2012.

His research is credited with saving Earth’s critical ozone layer. UC Irvine founding professor F. Sherwood Rowland, who patiently endured years of criticism and then won a Nobel Prize for showing that chlorofluorocarbons could destroy the Earth’s ozone layer, died Saturday, March 10, at his home in Corona del Mar of complications from Parkinson’s disease. He was 84. “It is with a heavy heart that I am writing to tell you that Sherry Rowland died yesterday afternoon. After spending a peaceful...

Something in the air

Written on February 27, 2012.

UCI-led team makes key discovery about smog in their innovative lab. Janet Wilson, University Communications Clutching a large, perforated disc dubbed “the showerhead,” chemist Veronique Perraud perches beside what appears to be a huge, hissing missile. So it goes at UC Irvine’s Atmospheric Integrated Research unit, one of the world’s leading air pollution laboratories. Situated in a suburb of smoggy Los Angeles, AirUCI’s innovative experts are making news again, providing...

Researchers Provide New Insight into Formation of Secondary Organic Aerosols in Atmosphere; Implications for Health and Climate Models

Written on February 23, 2012.

Green Car Congress A new study led by a team from the University of California, Irvine is providing important new insight into the mechanisms by which secondary organic aerosol (SOA) particles form and grow. The work, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, has implications for model formulations of SOA, both outdoors and indoors, and the associated health and climate impacts predicted based on those model outputs. Airborne particles have significant impacts...

‘Sticky Smog’ Might Help Solve Smoggy Mystery

Written on February 21, 2012.

Pat Brennan, Orange County Register The hazardous gases that make up Southern California’s smoggy haze might stick together like tar, not dissolve inside droplets, a new study by UC Irvine scientists shows. And while that might sound like splitting hairs, it could have profound implications for how we understand smog and forecast its effects. The finding, by UCI chemistry professor Barbara Finlayson-Pitts and a team of researchers, might help solve the mystery of “missing”...

Gases Drawn into Smog Particles Stay There, UCI-Led Study Reveals

Written on February 21, 2012.

Finding could explain why air pollution models underestimate organic aerosols Janet Wilson, UC Irvine Today Airborne gases get sucked into stubborn smog particles from which they cannot escape, according to findings by UC Irvine and other researchers published today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The results could explain a problem identified in recent years: Computer models long used by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, California air regulators...