Chemistry

Indulata Prasad A recent round of "Jeopardy!" made students in Joe Havens' chemistry class a little rowdy, cheering and often speaking out of turn in the haste to answer correctly first. "They get to be a little bit more of themselves because of the game type of environment," Havens said. Havens put together a "Jeopardy!" quiz based on the unit the Costa Mesa High School class had just completed on ionic bonds. Categories were created according to sections of the unit -- chemical names of compounds, formulas, ions, valence electrons, potpourri and salts.

Rick Devereux When people talk about the strength of the Estancia High boys volleyball team, the dominating jump serves are usually the first thing mentioned, and with good reason. When most high schools are happy with one prolific server, the Eagles can send at least four players behind the line to give opponents tough balls to return. Estancia Coach Tracey Ingraham thought the major weapon for the Eagles' 25-10, 25-8, 25-11 sweep of Loara in the opening round of the CIF Southern Section Division III playoffs was something a little less tangible.

Amara Aguilar This is what road trips are all about. Spending time with your teammates outside of practice. Getting to know them as people and not just the center or forward you look to pass the basketball to. Leaving the routine behind. Saying goodbye for just a moment to everything that is familiar. Some people call it bonding. Whatever it is, it's what Vanguard University men's basketball Coach Stephen French has been waiting for. He has been patient with his squad, hoping for team chemistry to kick in all season.

UCI researchers have been granted $20 million to put toward their efforts to build equipment capable of recording video footage of individual molecules. The National Science Foundation gave the Chemistry at the Space-Time Limit research center the award, which will be distributed over five years. In order to accomplish his goal, center Director V. Ara Apkarian will have to find a way to successfully capture images at an unprecedented small size and fast pace. Specifically, billions of times as many frames per second will have to be shot at a magnification 10,000 times greater than the best existing optical microscope.

When the late Nobel Prize winner F. Sherwood Rowland decided to donate his entire scholarly archive to UC Irvine, those on the receiving end knew they would find a treasure trove. But it wasn't until they hired a professional archivist that it became abundantly clear that these were not materials to be simply boxed and shelved. The archivist, Dawn Schmitz, saw the trajectory of a modern-day hero in Rowland's private writings, research papers and public controversy. And she believed it was compelling enough that the public would want to see it, too. The exhibit, "Discovery of a Lifetime: F. Sherwood Rowland and the Ozone Layer," came to life at the Langson Library at UCI last November and is open to the public until April.

CORONA DEL MAR HIGH SCHOOL Lyssa Aruda AP Classes/School Activities/Clubs: AP physics; statistics; lit/comp; gov't/econ; art history; calculus; lang/comp; chemistry; U.S. history; European history; President, National Honor Society; President and Founder of Project Success Club; Peer Tutor; Academic Decathlon; Varsity Cheer; National Chemistry Olympiad Participant California Scholarship Federation. Community: Assistant Acting Coach at Lights, Camera, Action ; Tutor at Been There, Done That Tutoring; Project Success; Newport Beach Public Library Summer Program; CdMHS Summer Registration; Peer Tutoring; Leadership Institute for Tomorrow (LIFT)

The American Assn. for the Advancement of Science has chosen six UC Irvine faculty members to be among its fellows, school officials announced Friday. The six are being honored for their efforts in advances to science or its applications. In alphabetical order and with their disciplines they are: Donald Blake, chemistry; Robert Corn, chemistry; Jean-Luc Gaudiot, electrical engineering and computer science; Michael Goodrich, computer science-computing, Scott Rychnovsky, chemistry; and Athan Shaka, chemistry.

A fire that blazed through two chemistry labs at UC Irvine in July resulted in as much as $3.5 million in damage, officials said. The fire, on July 23 in Frederick Reines Hall, will cost $1 million in damage, including cleanup costs, $1 million toreplace laboratory and research equipment and an estimated $1.2 million to $1.5 million to rebuild the two labs, which will be ready for use by next spring. Reines Hall is one of the two major research buildings in the School of Physical Sciences, housing laboratories, offices and research facilities for the chemistry, physics and astronomy departments.

A UC Irvine engineering and chemistry professor has won a prestigious award for Southland chemists. Peter M. Rentzepis received the Tolman Medal for outstanding contributions to chemistry. His ultra-fast laser techniques for research revolutionized many areas of science. He has also developed methods for three-dimensional optical storage, including a "memory cube" that has the potential to store as much as a trillion bits of information in a volume slightly smaller than a sugar cube.

Stratospheric ozone depletion, global warming and global smog are issues that will be discussed next Tuesday afternoon at Orange Coast College by Nobel Prize-winning atmospheric chemist F. Sherwood Rowland. Rowland will speak at 2 p.m. in the Robert B. Moore Theatre. Admission is free. Rowland served many years as chairman of the Department of Chemistry at UC Irvine. He is a member of UCI's emeritus faculty. Rowland was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1995 for his work in atmospheric chemistry, particularly concerning the formation and decomposition of ozone.

MONTEBELLO - The bond between baseball brothers on the Estancia High team only became stronger in the third inning at Montebello High. A wild-card playoff game in the CIF Southern Section Division 4 playoffs can bring out the best in players. Yet, a highly questionable call against the Eagles also seemed to trigger some big-time energy from Estancia. The Eagles responded well from a controversial hit-by-pitch judgment call. They scored five runs over the final four innings and pushed past Montebello, 7-1. Estancia will play at South Torrance (17-10)

Chemistry students across the nation and the world will have free and open access to videotaped, online classes from UC Irvine under an unusual initiative starting Monday. UC Irvine's “OpenChem” program will allow curious visitors and serious science scholars to watch 15 quarter - length undergraduate chemistry courses and some graduate-level lectures, according to a campus announcement. It is not for degree credit but is expected to help students and the public prepare for examinations, review material before taking credit courses or just explore things for knowledge's sake.

The American Chemical Society awarded a doctoral candidate from Costa Mesa with the green chemistry travel award, the group recently announced. Shannon Woodruff was one of four students in the United States to receive the 2012 Ciba travel award in green chemistry, which will sends students to an ACS conference. Woodruff is studying at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas, concentrating in polymer chemistry, and is expected to attend the ACS meeting in New Orleans in April.

When the late Nobel Prize winner F. Sherwood Rowland decided to donate his entire scholarly archive to UC Irvine, those on the receiving end knew they would find a treasure trove. But it wasn't until they hired a professional archivist that it became abundantly clear that these were not materials to be simply boxed and shelved. The archivist, Dawn Schmitz, saw the trajectory of a modern-day hero in Rowland's private writings, research papers and public controversy. And she believed it was compelling enough that the public would want to see it, too. The exhibit, "Discovery of a Lifetime: F. Sherwood Rowland and the Ozone Layer," came to life at the Langson Library at UCI last November and is open to the public until April.

CYPRESS - The Sage Hill School girls' volleyball program's history with monolithic St. Margaret's has featured more back to the drawing board than it has back and forth. But it was the Lightning who captured the majority of the momentum to claim a momentous victory over their Academy League rival, the Southern Section powerhouse Tartans, on Saturday night. Sage Hill, which split its two league matches with St. Margaret's this season and shared the Academy League crown with the Tartans, earned a 27-29, 25-21, 22-25, 25-18, 15-9 triumph in the CIF Southern Section Division IV-AA title match at Cypress College.

CORONA DEL MAR HIGH SCHOOL Lyssa Aruda AP Classes/School Activities/Clubs: AP physics; statistics; lit/comp; gov't/econ; art history; calculus; lang/comp; chemistry; U.S. history; European history; President, National Honor Society; President and Founder of Project Success Club; Peer Tutor; Academic Decathlon; Varsity Cheer; National Chemistry Olympiad Participant California Scholarship Federation. Community: Assistant Acting Coach at Lights, Camera, Action ; Tutor at Been There, Done That Tutoring; Project Success; Newport Beach Public Library Summer Program; CdMHS Summer Registration; Peer Tutoring; Leadership Institute for Tomorrow (LIFT)

CORONA DEL MAR — At the end of the first day in helmet and pads, Coach Jason Hitchens brought up concussions to his Corona del Mar High football team. He mentioned the new CIF Southern Section rule dealing with head injuries. Referees can now take players out of games if they believe they have concussion symptoms. “If you get dizzy, feel nauseous and if you get headaches during the game, you've got to tell us,” Hitchens told his players. “You're coming out of the game if you have these symptoms.

UCI researchers have been granted $20 million to put toward their efforts to build equipment capable of recording video footage of individual molecules. The National Science Foundation gave the Chemistry at the Space-Time Limit research center the award, which will be distributed over five years. In order to accomplish his goal, center Director V. Ara Apkarian will have to find a way to successfully capture images at an unprecedented small size and fast pace. Specifically, billions of times as many frames per second will have to be shot at a magnification 10,000 times greater than the best existing optical microscope.

NEWPORT BEACH — While the prospect of finding the perfect partner has created a lucrative business for Internet dating services, high school tennis coaches are annually forced to do a little matchmaking of their own when it comes to setting their doubles lineup. Veteran Sage Hill School girls’ coach A.G. Longoria said Thursday’s 11-7 nonleague victory over Estancia at the Balboa Bay Club Racquet Club may have provided a few answers in terms of the Lightning’s on-court coupling.