The University of California announced today (Nov. 30) that a $22 million investment from the State of California to accelerate innovation and entrepreneurship across the UC system has supported more than 500 new startups and existing companies, helped launch at least 47 new products and enabled companies to attract $3.7 million in additional investments.

In a paper that appears in the journal Nature, Chris Palmstrøm, a UCSB professor of electrical and computer engineering and of materials, and colleagues describe a method by which “hashtag”– shaped nanowires may be coaxed to generate Majorana quasiparticles. These quasiparticles are exotic states that if realized, can be used to encode information with very little risk of decoherence — one of quantum computing’s biggest challenges — and thus, little need for quantum error correction.

Drum roll, please... Milo Sensors has been awarded a $223,000 Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Grant by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism!

The SBIR Grant was awarded based on the peer-reviewed evaluation of criteria such as scientific merit, significance in the field, innovation, team, and research approach.

UCSB Assistant Professor Paolo Luzzatto-Fegiz and Marco Carminati, a microelectronics and sensors expert from the Politecnico di Milano, developed Conduino, an affordable and high-resolution multichannel water conductivity sensor using micro USB connectors.  The researchers' cost-saving alternative to an expensive conductivity probe improves on design, offers teaching and learning opportunities.