Scraping an icy windshield can be a seasonal struggle for those that live in colder climates. But engineers from UBC’s Okanagan campus are aiming to ease that winter frustration with a new surface coating that can shed ice from large areas using little effort. The new anti-ice coating is a new class of surfaces called…
Drones Count The Costs Of The 2017 B.C. Wildfires
Researchers at the University of British Columbia are using drones to survey the aftermath of the 2017 wildfires in B.C. “Currently, we are testing the use of drones for various forestry applications, including fire burn assessment following the 2017 wildfires,” said Nicholas Coops, Canada Research Chair in Remote Sensing and professor in forest resources management at UBC.…
Looking To The Future Of Bone Replacements
A UBC Okanagan researcher has discovered a new artificial bone design that can be customized and made with a 3D printer for stronger, safer and more effective bone replacements. Hossein Montazerian, research assistant with UBC Okanagan’s School of Engineering, has identified a way to model and create artificial bone grafts that can be custom printed.…
Algorithms That Can Sketch, Recreate 3-D Shapes
A University of British Columbia computer scientist has created a new software that can create a design sketch of an everyday object, addressing the challenge of accurately describing shapes. The program, called FlowRep, was designed by computer science professor Alla Sheffer, in cooperation with Adobe Research and Washington University in St. Louis. “If you try…
Smart Surface Enables Advanced Manipulation of Droplets
For many years, engineers have sought to create a special kind of surface: one that can both repel and absorb liquids, and whose ability to do so — its “wetting behaviour” — can be quickly and precisely controlled. The technology would have a wide range of potential applications, from water filtration and biomedical devices to…
3-D-Printed Water Quality Sensor Tested
Researchers at UBC’s Okanagan campus have designed a tiny device — built using a 3D printer — that can monitor drinking water quality in real time and help protect against waterborne illness. Prof. Mina Hoorfar, Director of the School of Engineering, says new research proves their miniaturized water quality sensors are cheap to make, can…
Researchers Test 3-D-Printed Water Quality Sensor
Researchers at UBC’s Okanagan campus have designed a tiny device —built using a 3D printer—that can monitor drinking water quality in real time and help protect against waterborne illness. Prof. Mina Hoorfar, Director of the School of Engineering, says new research proves their miniaturized water quality sensors are cheap to make, can operate continuously and can be…
Astronomers Discover New Distant Dwarf Planet Beyond Neptune
An international team of astronomers including researchers from the University of British Columbia has discovered a new dwarf planet orbiting in the disk of small icy worlds beyond Neptune. The new object is about 700 km in diameter — roughly one-and-a-half times the size of Vancouver Island — and has one of the largest orbits…
Astronomers Find New Way To Measure The Pull Of Gravity At The Surface Of Distant Stars
Researchers have found a new way to measure the pull of gravity at the surface of a star. For distant stars with planets orbiting them, this information is key in determining whether any of those planets can harbour life. The new method is described in a study published today in Science Advances. The research was led…