Face / Off

For now, UCLA's foray into the face transplant business seems inspired by disfigured war veterans who have served in Iraq and Afghanistan. The university announced this week that it is establishing the first such surgery lab in the western United States -- the UCLA Face Transplantation Program.

To celebrate, it sent us this creepy video:

YouTube

The best kind of robots know the foam rule.

A team of four students at California State University, Long Beach have mechanically engineered your new best friend. It hasn't really been branded yet, but the team member who uploaded it to YouTube describes it as a "beer machine," which is as accurate a name as any.

Here's what it does:

ABC7

Not bad.

If your answer is "catching up on back-episodes of Game of Thrones, you heathen" -- joke's on you, brother. You just missed a real-life fantasy apocalypse: a stunning solar ring over the mountaintops/bay views of Los Angeles, the likes of which won't return for another 59 years.

The good news:

Kidovate via YouTube

Best science project ever.

It's called "Low-Cost Autonomous Civilian Unmanned Aerial Systems," and it's essentially an affordable drone that your average dude would be able use for daily spying purposes. All at the touch of an iPhone remote!

So impressive was Stewart's work, that
it won both...

Caine's Arcade via Facebook

Rocket scientist, meet boy genius.

How wrong we were! "Caine's Arcade" filmmaker Nirvan Mullick, who's now a member of the kid's staff, just posted a photo to Facebook of Monroy visiting a top scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena.

"Robert Manning used to make cardboard rockets when he was Caine's age..."

Fox

It turns out that there's almost nothing these little babies can't do, and this week UCLA came up with a humdinger of a headline when it announced that stem cells it developed have been proven to seek and destroy HIV. Really.

Sort of like heat-seeking missiles:

USC

Robot researcher Maja Mataric.

It's getting so bad that Yale University, with the help of L.A.'s own USC, is trying to develop a robot that will essentially do parents' jobs for them.

Well, that's not exactly how USC is spinning the project in a statement today (but it's certainly our read on it):

Karina Allrich

Scientists at USC today are warning that global warming could result in ... acidic seas. That's right: Increasing levels of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere could taint our beloved Pacific ocean with "acidification" and turn it into a giant can of soda. Really.

And, along with being bad for the skin, such a phenomenon would ...

Tyler Perry could buy 7 more years of life.

Oh, you get the picture.

But UCLA researchers say that black men lose about 7 years in life expectancy when compared to white men. Today. Now.

Why?

UCLA

Yang Yang has a PhD in badass.

Now, UCLA is expanding its stretch-nology into the Big Green industry.

A new method of collecting the sun's energy and using it to power man's devices is being perfected by Yang Yang, a researcher with the university's School of Engineering. Just yesterday, Yang announced...

Austin Powers

And not just any galaxy, but a "dwarf galaxy." Despite its relatively Manny Pacquiao-like dimensions, the new-to-us baby known as NGC 4449B is, when stretched out, bigger than the Milky Way and the Andromeda galaxy, according to our friends in Westwood.

What's really extraordinary about this find:

Johnny Dangerously

Hallelujah.

The findings were published this week in The Lancet, a leading medical journal.

Caltech

Three planets were found around 'red dwarf' KOI-961.

Well, not that small, but Caltech states the trio comprises the "smallest confirmed planets ever detected outside our solar system."

The three, discovered by Caltech researchers working on NASA's Kepler Mission, appear to be orbiting a "red dwarf." No not Seth Green.

According to a Caltech statement:

RadarOnline

Doctor's orders.

Battle of the studies! Just a couple months ago, Harvard University released some buzz-killing stats showing that "women who drink just four small glasses of wine a week increase their risk of developing breast cancer by 15 percent." That's largely because alcohol consumption is thought to increase estrogen levels -- and lord knows cancer cells love their estrogen.

But hold up: Researchers at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center here in L.A. would like to make a case for the red variety. A new study out of the hospital to the stars shows that...

Dear Elijah: Pics or it didn't happen. Love, Science.

They oversaw a recent study by the Out-Of-Body Experience Research Center in Los Angeles. Shockingly, of 30 volunteers taught to enter an out-of-body sleep state called a "lucid dream" and instructed to look for angels in their bedroom (then eat some food, a la Elijah), 24 had the vision.

So much for miracles. The study's conclusions give us a post-holiday E hangover of "Santa Clause is fake" proportions. Via the Daily Mail:

Plastic, and proud of it.

But we've always had a sneaking suspicion that the land of shirtless Chris Lees and boxerless Anthony Weiners might be playing the fake game even harder than our red-carpet lipo victims.

Thanks, LivingSocial, for making it official.

NASA

They're getting closer and closer to finding aliens in space, and not the kind who'll help you remodel your home for only $50 a day.

And while we here in journo land are psyched to get the occasional minor scoop or a mention in LA Observed (and that alone is worthy of a bender), our friends over at NASA's Caltech-bred Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena can say today that they helped to discover a frigging planet.

And not just any planet:

cure.med.ucla.edu

Dr. Peter Anton, who led the study.

But both those laboratory victories are far from practical application. One of the more tangible goals, as of late, has been to invent an HIV-preventing topical gel that people can purchase and apply themselves. Huge news on that front:

Hot-dog hangover doesn't help any.

But clearly, one doesn't. For our counterparts in New York, what should have been a dewy-fresh start to September has turned out to be a horribly rainy day of damp jeans and umbrella blunders. Here in L.A., we've got quite an opposite set of environmental depressants, if equally crap:

Today, Los Angeles scientists are apparently...