Category: News

 

Registration for Plasma Fest 2015 is open (and FREE!) but required due to limited seating. In case you haven’t done that yet, please register now at:

http://psti.ucla.edu/plasmafest/register.html

AGENDA

8:30-12:30: Symposium
Location: Physics and Astronomy Building (PAB) Room 1-434

After a welcome by Joseph Rudnick, Dean of the Division of Physical Sciences, and opening remarks by Frank Jenko, Director of UCLA’s Plasma Science and Technology Institute (PSTI), there will be several overview talks highlighting the outstanding breadth and depth of UCLA-based plasma research. This includes space and astrophysical plasmas, fusion energy, advanced accelerators and radiation sources, plasma-materials interactions, and space propulsion.

12:30-5:30: Lunch, Poster Session, and Focus Area Discussions
Location: Covel Commons 3rd Floor

During the lunch break (lunch will be provided), there will be a Poster Session, serving as an opportunity (also for graduate students and postdocs) to present and discuss current research projects with colleagues from other groups and departments within the PSTI.

This will be followed by two discussions, which are meant to help establish Focus Groups. One of them will center on “Bounded Plasmas,” i.e., issues related to relatively cold plasmas in contact with material walls; this includes, for instance, the edge region of fusion plasmas, plasma thrusters, and a variety of basic plasma science experiments. The other one will deal with important aspects of “Plasma Astrophysics,” i.e., physical processes is space and astrophysical plasmas linked, for instance, to black hole accretion disks, cosmic magnetic fields, cosmic rays, or turbulent dissipation in the solar wind, as well as laboratory experiments shedding light on the dynamics in these systems.

Throughout these sessions, there will be an emphasis on close interactions between observation, experiment, theory, and simulation, as well as on exploring cross-departmental collaborative opportunities involving applied mathematics, space and astrophysics, plasma physics, and engineering.

This year’s Exploring Your Universe (EYU) event at UCLA will be held on Sunday, November 8th, 2015.  Exploring Your Universe is an annual event held on the UCLA campus that includes science exhibitions, hands-on activities, demonstrations and experiments.  The event is free to the public and promises an exciting time and a great learning experience for kids and adults alike.

To read more about previous years’ EYU events and other iPLEX outreach events, please visit our Exploring Your Universe page and stay tuned for more updates!

We are extremely happy to announce that JPL and UCLA have agreed upon a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) “to enable collaboration in the planetary sciences between UCLA and JPL to promote the stature, visibility, and excellence of the field…by facilitating interactions among scientists and students at both institutions.”

To mark this occasion, we are celebrating with a collaborative science workshop to be held from 10am-4pm on Wednesday, May 27th, 2015 at UCLA.  The meeting will include the joint signing of the MOU at 3pm by UCLA’s Senior Dean Joe Rudnick and JPL’s Chief Scientist Dan McCleese.

This first collaborative meeting under the auspices of the MOU will be of broad planetary scientific scope.  In addition to invited talks from each institution, we seek posters and discussion on planets, exoplanets, small bodies, space physics, and related areas, particularly as pertinent to broadening partnerships between researchers and students at the two institutions.

Registration is free at:

http://planets.ucla.edu/meetings/past-meetings/jpluclamou/registration/

Catered lunch will be provided for those who register by May 15th.

 

 

In a study published online in the journal Nursing Research, Professor Jean-Luc Margot debunks the myth that the full Moon has an influence on the number of hospital admissions, births, and other human affairs.  Margot explains that this belief stems from “confirmation bias” – where we take note of evidence that reinforces beliefs we already have and ignore evidence that conflicts with those beliefs.

For more information, read the full press release.

Two large iron meteorites are now on display at the UCLA Meteorite Gallery.  The specimens are both on long-term loan to the gallery through the generosity of UCLA alumnus Peter Utas and his wife, Barbara Broide.  The larger of the two specimens is 811 pounds, making it the largest meteorite on display in the gallery.

To learn more, read the full press release here.

EPSS graduate student Jessica Watkins explains her research about massive landslides on Mars in a new post featured on the Planetary Geomorphology Photo of the Month blog run by Dr. Mary Bourke.  Watkins uses satellite imagery of Mars to identify and study signs of long-runout landslides, large scale movement of material over distances greather than 50 kilometers.  To learn more about her work, read the full post.

At the 2014 fall meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco, more than 24,000 students and researchers met to discuss topics in the Earth and Space Sciences.  However, the latest scientific discoveries were not the only issues presented.  iPLEX’s own Ivy Curren shared our organization’s recent innovations in science education and outreach that include streamlining the process of scheduling community outreach events and keeping better tabs on UCLA volunteers through online forms and databases.  Informal and formal educators can easily access the outreach hub of the iPLEX website in order to request an outreach event for their school or organization, find out more about upcoming public events, or find resources to help them create their own hands-on planetary science demos.  To read more about iPLEX’s new science education and outreach initiatives, click here to read the complete poster.

 

 

EPSS graduate student Carolyn Crow is being recognized by Wiley-Blackwell and The Meteoritical Society for her outstanding presentation at the 77th Annual Meeting of the Society in Casablanca this past September.  Carolyn received a prize for her talk entitled “Impact shock microstructures in Apollo 14 zircons”.