Chemistry professor Neal Devaraj has taken an important step toward making artificial life forms from scratch. Using a novel chemical reaction, he has created self-assembling cell membranes, the structural envelopes that contain and support the reactions required for life.

VIDEO: Physics professor Brian Maple's lab forges new materials, then tests them under extreme conditions in their search for new properties, like high-temperature superconductivity.

VIDEO: Physics professor Vivek Sharma, who leads the search for the Higgs boson for CERN's CMS detector, explains how this enormous group of scientists, including many from UC San Diego, are searching for the missing particle and why it matters in this UCSD-TV interview.

Electrostatic attraction between the protein kinesin and microtubule 'rails' propels cellular cargo, J. Andrew McCammon and colleagues have found.

The Mathematical Association of America has identified our math program as being among the best at teaching first-year calculus. They're sending a team of professors from other institutions this spring to observe classes and interview instructors and students in an effort to identify factors that contribute to this success.

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Luminance is a quarterly index to interesting news from UC San Diego's Division of Physical Sciences. Let us know what you think! Send comments to scinews@ucsd.edu

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Amaro, who just joined the chemistry faculty, studies the structure of proteins involved in sleeping sickness and bird flu.VIDEO

Just one of many outstanding undergraduates recognized with Dean's Awards this year, biochemistry major Do hopes to be the first in his family to earn a graduate degree.