Caldwell, who earned a bachelor’s degree in science at CSUF in 1993, will receive the doctorate during commencement weekend, which also will feature an address by Robert Reich, who served as Secretary of Labor during the Clinton Administration.

The 38-year-old Caldwell began to dream of space travel as a young girl growing up in the California desert. She continued to think about it during her undergrad years at CSUF, and while earning a doctorate in chemistry at UC Davis. But she didn’t apply for the astronaut corps until the 1990s, and wasn’t selected for the job until 1998, while she working as a postdoctoral researcher at UC Irvine.

Caldwell made her first trip into space aboard shuttle Endeavour last August and helped guide spacewalkers as they expanded space station. She also helped inspect Endeavour for damage experienced during lift-off. CLICK HERE to read an earlier post about that mission.

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The current heatwave is being cause by a combination off warm winds off the desert, high pressure, a weak sea breeze and long periods of sunlight. The high pressure extends into Northern California and raised the temperature to 91 degrees in downtown San Francisco today. The combination of these factors led forecasters to place Orange County under a fire advisory, which means conditions are conducive for wildfires. Most of the county’s wildland areas are off-limits to the public due to the dry conditions. Since July 1, John Wayne Airport has received only 8.25 inches of rain, about four inches below normal.

CLICK HERE to check beach and surf conditions.

Sample of Friday’s highest temperatures

Sources: NWS, WeatherBonk.com, AWS WeatherBug

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The U.S. Mussel Watch program, which measures scores of chemicals absorbed by mussels and oysters, says that Southern California waters still have the highest concentrations of the pesticide DDT, as well as lots of Tributyltin, a biocide contained in paints applied to boats. But the levels of both chemicals are steadily dropping. So is the presence of PCBs, a large class of industrial chemicals that can damage marine and plant life.

The findings were drawn from a nationwide study of coastal data collected from 1986 to 2005, and includes data from monitoring stations in Newport Beach and Seal Beach.

“Overall, the story is a positive one for Southern California,” says Gunnar Lauenstein, manager of the U.S. Mussel Watch program. “This is a 20 year drop that’s still going on.”

Laeuenstein’s remarks also are based on the fact that Southern California waters have smaller concentrations of such things as arsenic, a potential source of cancer, copper, which can irritate the eyes of humans, and mercury, which also can affect human health.

But the the new study does not mean that local coastal waters are becoming pristine.

“Mussel Watch is a critical piece of the puzzle in monitoring the oceans,” says Charlotte Stevenson, a staff scientist at Heal the Bay in Santa Monica. “But thousands of chemicals are being released and many of the them are not being monitored.”

James Alamillo, director of Heal the Bay’s Beach Report program, adds that “the overall concentration of some chemicals is decreasing, but there are still ‘hot spots’ in Southern California. There’s still 100 tons of DDT and 10 tons of PCBs off the Palos Verdes shelf.”

And Rick Wilson of the Surfrider Foundation says, “While some marine organisms and bottom sediments continue to be impacted by these chemicals, the focus has now shifted to non-point source pollution or urban runoff, which contributes the bulk of the human pathogens and excess nutrients to our coastal waters.”

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The heat also is being caused by a massive high pressure system over the Great Basin and the fact that the days now have almost 14 hours of sunlight. The result: Sizable crowds are expected to turn out at local beaches.

The temperature could hit 95 in Fullerton, which is 20 degrees above normal, and 90 at John Wayne Airport, which also is 20 degrees higher than normal. The heat will only reach the 70s at the beach, where ocean temperatures are in the upper 50s at Huntington Beach and low 60s in Newport Beach.

The heat wave represents a dramatic turnabout. Through the first 12 days of May, John Wayne Airport reported an average daily high of 68.7 degrees, a couple of degrees below normal. Strong, moist onshore winds cooled the county and brought drizzle Monday. But seasonal rainfall is still way down. Since July 1, the airport has recorded 8.31 inches of rain, which is 4.30 inches below normal.

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Nathan Onderdonk, a member of the geological sciences faculty at Cal State Long Beach, has been awarded $25,000 by the Southern California Earthquake Center to study the northern end of the strike-slip fault system, which extends about 130 miles, from roughly east of Riverside to slightly west of the Salton Sea.

“The over-riding objective is to get a better idea of the hazards it poses for the Inland Empire,” says Onderdonk. “We also want to see how the fault relates to the San Andreas system.”

Scientists have long expressed concern that the southern San Andreas could snap, setting off part of the San Jacinto fault, increasing shaking in the populated areas of the Inland Empire. Such a chain reaction also would cause hard and prolonged shaking in Orange County. There’s also concern that a large quake on the San Jacinto could set off the Elsinore fault, which passes through northeast Orange County.

Onderdonk (shown above) is focusing on the northern leg of the San Jacinto, largely because it is closer to heavily populated areas. That leg has generated many quakes. But the southern end has been the most active. Here’s a sample of notable quakes for the entire system.

San Jacinto fault quakes

Source: U.S. Geological Survey

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The campaign is meant to benefit the entire university, but school officials say it will emphasize areas of excellence and growth, such as stem cell research, energy and environment, education, and possibly Irvine’s young, emerging program in pharmaceutical science.

The original start date of the campaign was this fall, but it might be briefly delayed because of the weak condition of the national and local economy.

“If things get worse and the university has to make (budget) cuts we may wait a little longer,” said Tom Mitchell, UCI’s vice chancellor of university advancement. “That’s why campaigns go on for five to 10 years. You can hit a soft spot (in the economy.)
UCI private fundraising

UCI is launching the campaign for basically two reasons: State financing for UC campuses has been declining for years, as a percentage of each school’s budget. And Irvine expects to expand its enrollment by about 5,000 students over the next five to seven years.

Large fundraising campaigns aren’t uncommon. More than 20 colleges and universities are in the midst of trying to raise at least $1 billion. UC San Diego, which opened the same year as UCI, finished a $1 billion campaign about a year ago.

Even comparatively rich schools — such as UCLA — push for private donation. The university raised more than $3 billion over a 10-year period that ended in 2005. And UCLA is running large newspaper ads emphasizing its contributions to the economy and society. The ads are meant to influence private donors and the Legislature, which is finalizing the details of the UC system budget.

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You arrive at the party, and as you enter the room you see lots of happy people talking, laughing loudly, and, to top it off, there is a band in the back of the room, playing some old tunes from the fifties. As you look around, you see an elegant young man whispering something to your wife. … Wouldn’t you wish you could pick up exactly what he is saying (and her response) instead of all the chatter and music?

This scenario is something that scientists face in a wide variety of contexts. For example, biomedical researchers are now trying to isolate, in the blood of potential patients, the proteins (biomarkers, as they call them) that may indicate the incipient stage of a cancer. However, in many cases, such proteins are very small and their presence is hidden by large quantities of large and (at least from this perspective) unimportant proteins (for example, albumin, which we all have in large quantities in our blood).

How can we isolate the small protein we are interested in, instead of being distracted by the irrelevant proteins? A terrorist may have introduced a small (and yet lethal) quantity of a biotoxin in the air or in our water reservoir. How can we detect such traces of biological materials, when both the air and the water are full of other such materials, whose presence overwhelms the biotoxins we want to identify? And finally, more to the original example, how can we detect an acoustic signal (maybe from an enemy submarine, maybe from a terrorist conversation) in an ocean of noise?

There are at least two technical issues to deal with in these scenarios. One has to do with what engineers call “denoising,” i.e., the development of techniques used to remove noise from a signal. This is something we all are very aware of. For example, when we talk to a friend, our brain does a lot of automatic denoising. The noise from the road, from the television in the background, and from other sounds is filtered out, so that we can concentrate fully on our conversation (at least as long as the noise is not too much). We only become aware of noise when denoising techniques do not work too well (for example, when we are on our cell phone, and the static becomes an impediment to the conversation), or when the noise is so strong that it cannot be reasonably eliminated. The past 20 years have seen great new developments in denoising (both for audio and video signals), and while this is a topic of great interest and relevance, we will probably put it aside for another column.

What I want to discuss here instead, is the second technical issue which is involved in the examples I have given before. Namely, even if we were to remove all the noise, how can we measure something which is so small that it falls below the capability of current measurement techniques. For example, how do we detect a contaminant, which is present in such minimal quantities as to be virtually invisible? How do we detect a biomarker in the blood, when its presence reaches levels below the sensitivity of our instruments?

The recent Feb. 8 issue of Science seems to indicate that a new revolutionary step has been taken in this direction. A recent experiment of O. Hosten and P. Kwiat indicates that it is in fact possible to amplify signals up to 10,000 times, so that the phenomenon that they describe can now be measured by standard instruments. The specific experiment which is described in the two articles in Science has to do with the deviation of a ray of light. In a lab experiment, the two scientists from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign were able to detect a deviation of only a few nanometers (one nanometer is only one billionth of a meter and, to give an idea, a typical germ measures about one micron or 1,000 nanometers).

This is particularly impressive because the vibration of the room where the experiment is conducted is, by itself, sufficient to hide such a shift. In addition, the usual instruments can only detect variations of the order of microns (a micron is equivalent to 1,000 nanometers), and therefore such a feat seemed impossible to achieve.

What is even more fascinating is the fact that the technique used by Hosten and Kwiat is a first stunning application of a theoretical result first discovered, exactly 20 ago, by Professor Yakir Aharonov (one of the great quantum physicists of the last century, slated to join the faculty at Chapman University this coming academic year). In an article in Physics Review Letters, Aharonov and two of his collaborators (David Albert and Lev Vaidman) were the first to introduce the notion of ‘weak measurement’. This is a sophisticated idea which exploits the strangeness of quantum physics to allow the measurement of quantities that would otherwise be undetectable.

For many years, the concept of “weak measurement” has been rather controversial, and it was only a few years ago that a team from Rice University utilized this notion to slightly amplify a signal (about 30 times). This result, however, only showed that Aharonov’s idea could be applied, but was not enough to offer any practical application. The new discovery of Hosten and Kwiat, on the other hand, managed to take advantage of the notion of weak measurement to truly open a new vista on the field of metrology (that area of physics and engineering that deals with improving the way in which we measure lengths, weights, volumes, etc.).

The lag between the 1988 paper of Aharonov, and the 2008 paper of Hosten and Kwiat is not unusual in science, and it reminds us of the importance of fundamental research. Even results which appear to be esoteric, and possibly simply of theoretical interest, may (and often do) turn out to be central to important technological advances.

The Scripps Institution of Oceanography has discovered that RCA bacteria – a natural marine microbe – can attack and kill the single-cell plankton that produce red tide blooms. It appears that RCA killed the massive red tide that spread along the Southern California coast in the summer of 2005. As shown in this image, the bloom stained the waters off southern Orange County.

“From a practical point of view, if these RCA bacteria really do kill (plankton cells) and potentially other harmful algae that form dense blooms, down the road there may be a possibility of using them to mitigate their harmful effects,” Scripps oceanographer Peter Franks says in a news release.

Some blooms, adds the release, “carry toxins that have been known to threaten marine ecosystems and even kill marine mammals, fish and birds.”

Red tides also stir concern among surfers and swimmers.

“I know our local red tides are supposed to be harmless, and they don’t bother me personally a bit, health wise,” says Sean Collins, founder of Surfline.com in Huntington Beach. “But I do know a number of people who are greatly affected with sinus issues, ear aches, etc., when they surf in the red tide.

“And even some people who don’t even go in the water but their sinuses get all stuffed up like hay fever during severe local red tides, which we assumed was from the onshore winds blowing over the red tide. So I guess everyone is different but there are definitely some issues with some people.”

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Friday the X-ray Diffraction course took the day off for a trip to the Honglu Buddhist temple complex, which also includes intricate gardens. It is spread across the base of a mountain about an hour north of Beijing. The instructors, which, with visiting lecturers, have now swelled to twelve (with recent additions from Rutgers, Oxford, Cambridge, National Cancer Institute, and the University of Upsala, Sweden), were accompanied by about 85 of the students.

The temples, some as many as 1,700 years old, were in remarkable condition, and the gardens overflowing with bougainvillea, wisteria, peonies, bamboo, and roses. Most of temples were dominated by imposing gold leafed or brightly painted Buddha figures. Arrayed in formations throughout the pinewoods that surrounded the temples was an army of monks and nuns individually carved from marble, 500 in number we were told, each about twice the size of a human, and each adorned with a red velvet cape.

Like the terra cotta soldiers at Xian, but intended to wage peace through meditation, rather than militant defense. We climbed, with some not inappreciable effort, 420 meters to the final temple at the top of the mountain, but the city of Beijing was invisible through the brown haze. China has taken a newfound, and very serious attitude toward preserving and renovating its cultural and architectural monuments. It clearly shows in smaller examples like the Honglu Temple and large ones like the Xian archeological pits.

We had all observed, over the past two weeks, the overnight transformations of dusty trenches and vacant lots into tree lined boulevards and forested parks. Literally, hundreds of thousands of young trees, mostly ginkgo, willows, and honey locusts are being trucked into that part of the city surrounding the Olympics area of the city; the trees, along with masses of flowers. On the trip to Honglu, we found the sources of the transplants. The northern edge of the city (perhaps all edges) is banded by a continuum of tree farms and nurseries. Reducing the city’s carbon dioxide balance is likely to be a fortunate consequence, but the real motive is to impress the visitors in August. Mao said something about letting a million flowers bloom, and the officials are taking that in a literal sense. The big board in downtown now reads 90 days until opening ceremonies.

The architecture and its requisite engineering in Beijing are astounding. Students tell me, however, that it is not confined to Beijing, but such developments are emerging throughout China. The rate at which new skyscrapers are rising is awesome, and every architect seems in competition with every other to produce the most unique and striking effects. The Olympic Stadium is only the most prominent example, but there are many others. There is generally some attempt, even if only subtle, to incorporate an oriental touch or two into the buildings, which otherwise reflect Western design; perhaps to simply remind the viewer of the cultural context. Generally these are seen in the rooflines and embellishments of entryways. There is nothing in any American or European city I know of that is even remotely comparable to what is happening here. (more…)

In an average week, Southern California records 3-5 quakes measuring at least 3.0 in magnitude. There’s been at least eight quakes of that level or higher since last Saturday, including a 4.1 temblor south-southeast of Palm Springs that shot seismic energy all the way to the southern Santa Ana Mountains.

The increase in activity doesn’t mean that a catastrophic quake is about to occur, especially since this week’s events occurred across such a broad area, in areas known to produce lots of shaking, says the USGS. In fact, it’s not unusual to experience clusters of quakes, such as the ones the often occurred at a spot called Geysers. But the shaking has been a bit higher than usual.

The notable shaking began at 11:16 a.m. on Sunday with a 3.7 quake near Mount Palomar in San Diego County. The quake sent energy into the southern Santa Ana Mountains.

Then at 11:01 a.m. on Thursday, the USGS website reported a 2.4 quake off Ortega Highway, on the border between Orange and Riverside counties, in the Cleveland National Forest. Later that day, the USGS took down the report for review. Such reviews usually lead to a lowering or raising of a quake’s magnitude. But they rarely result in the Geological Survey saying the quake didn’t happen at all.

The highlight of the week came at 3:38 p.m. Friday when a 4.1 quake broke on the southern San Jacinto fault, (at right) south-southeast of Palm Springs. That quake also sent seismic energy flowing into the Santa Ana Mountains. But the event was more notable because it occurred on the most active fault in Southern California — a strike-slip system that has produced many 6.0 or larger events over the past half-century.

Only 21 minutes after the Palm Springs event on Friday, a 3.4 quake broke at Telescope Peak in Death Valley. It was followed by a pair of 3.1 quakes in the same region. Thankfully, this small cluster had something in common with the rest of the week’s quakes: they didn’t cause significant damage.
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