Scientists at UT Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas believe newly discovered hormones produced in the brain may influence development of obesity and diabetes.
Tip Sheet from New Scientist for 2-18-98
Bell Labs scientists have combined free-space optics and microscopic mirrors to route and switch individual wavelengths, or colors, of light on optical fiber.
A ceremony in Christchurch, New Zealand on February 20, 1998 marks a significant milestone in the U.S. Navy's withdrawal from the U.S. Antarctic Program (USAP) after 42 years.
Scientists from several research institutes will aim new detectors at the sun's corona during the February 26 solar eclipse, searching for structures they've never before observed. The scientists will use NSF's C-130 Hercules aircraft to conduct many of their studies.
A controlled burn near Kennedy Space Center in Florida is providing scientists with data for improving a computer model that aims to predict the course of wildfires in realtime, providing a tool for fire fighters and fire prevention efforts.
Departing Punta Arenas, Chile, in mid-February, 26 scientists representing 10 countries will sail aboard the ocean drilling ship JOIDES Resolution to collect core samples from the continental rise and shelf of the Antarctic Peninsula.
Three tips from Los Alamos 1) A textbook for quantum computing. 2) New materials for future space mission detectors. 3) Shake the ground to squeeze out all the oil.
Poised to have one of the more unique views of this month's solar eclipse is Michigan State University astronomer Jeff Kuhn who will watch it through a small hole in a plane, 18,000 feet above the surface of the Earth.
Where do you look for clues to ancient El Nino floods? In one of the planet's driest spots.
Civil engineer Robert Ham believes well-designed landfills can be tools for recycling, rather than tombs that harbor trash for generations.
ENERGY - SANDBOX FUSION ENVIRONMENT - EL NINO VS. GLOBAL WARNING PHYSICS - THE MOLECULAR BROOM ELECTRONICS - A SAFER INFORMATION HIGHWAY
Warm Pacific Ocean tempreratures in winter may lead to decreased summer rainfall in New Mexico. That's the message University of New Mexico Earth and Planetary Sciences Professor David Gutzler delivered to members of the American Meteorological Society at their 78th Annual Meeting earlier this month in Phoenix.
Which is the most important factor influencing student performance in mathematics: A good teacher? Innate intelligence? Home environment? Studying hard? They're all important, of course. But differences in how Asians and Americans answer this question help to explain the U.S. disadvantage in math and science achievement.
When politics and science clash, science -- and ultimately society -- are the losers. So says Dr. JoAnn Burkholder, a North Carolina State University aquatic ecologist whose pioneering research on the fish-killing toxic marine microorganism, Pfiesteria piscicida, was one of 1997's top science stories and also fodder for one of the year's most contentious public debates about the role science should play in shaping environmental policy.
A $3M NASA grant to the University of New Hampshire will fund an Earth Observing System Web-based System for Terrestrial Environmental Research, EOS-WEBSTER. This will mean making data available not only to the broader research community, but also to government agencies, schools and others outside the research community.
A Purdue University physicist is developing computer algorithms that may hold the key to making electronic synthesizers reproduce the sound of music more realistically.
President Clinton's selection of Dr. Rita Colwell as the next Director of the National Science Foundation is an outstanding choice. Her record of accomplishment speaks for itself. She is an internationally -recognized researcher, an admired educator, and she has consistently stepped forward as a leader in science and technology policy. She is an ideal choice to lead NSF into the 21st Century.
I welcome the opportunity to help lead the President's science and technology team. This is an exciting and demanding time for science and engineering. America's science agenda has moved rapidly beyond narrow Cold War concerns. Scientists and engineers are now challenged to address a broad range of critical social, economic, environment and health needs.
Depending on how an attorney describes DNA evidence at a trial, jurors will believe the evidence is either irrefutable or unpersuasive, finds Dr. Jonathan J. Koehler, consultant for the defense in the O.J. Simpson criminal trial, and a professor of behavioral decision making at the University of Texas at Austin.
Most people think there's little they could learn from a fruit fly. But Dr. Trudy Mackay knows better. In her research laboratory at North Carolina State University, Mackay studies the genetic basis of complex traits in fruit flies, with the aim of applying that knowledge to better understanding human genetics
Tip Sheet from New Scientist for 2-14-98
1) Hawaiian undersea volcano turns up the heat, 2) Most states' math and science performance is up, 3) Next timss comparisons look at 12th graders
Scientists from some 14 institutions are braving the elements on the icy Great Lakes in an intensive field program underway this winter. Researchers on this Lake-Induced Convection Experiment, or Lake-ICE, are trying to better understand midwest meteorology and lake -effect winter storms. Lake-ICE is funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF).
New advances that will make possible detection of trace gases in airplane cabins, spacecraft and high-rise office buildings with sealed windows are being developed by researchers led by Rice engineer Frank Tittel.
A tiny pump with no moving parts wear out and a switch that emits no spark when turned off are two creations of LSU's mechanical engineering professor Wanjung Wang.
Researchers at Rice have created an ultra-porous ceramic filter with pores about 10-50 nanometers in size that may prove useful to industries ranging from hazardous waste treatment to milk sterilization.
Scientist Peter Fox and colleagues at the National Center for Atmospheric Research are using observations, theoretical physics, and computer modeling to get the best representation so far of the total radiative output of the sun. The research will lead to a better understanding of the sun's influence on earth's climate.
The sun's 11-year solar cycle may be the driving force behind periodic changes in temperatures and pressure heights of earth's lower stratosphere from pole to pole, according to new research by Harry van Loon of the National Center for Atmospheric Research and Karin Labitzke of the Free University of Berlin.
Scientists at Boston University have announced the development of a new blue laser that may lead to a new generation of more vivid color video screens and computer displays as well as optical storage disks that can hold four times the amount of information that can be squeezed onto today's new digital video disks.
The Milky Way is being invaded by another galaxy, but don't worry: we're bigger. On the other hand, new research shows, the intruder is surprisingly sturdy. A large quantity of dark matter is apparently protecting it from being torn apart by the Milky Way's gravity.
A student at Virginia Tech has used a prestigious veterinary summer fellowship grant from the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation to develop a genetically engineered bacterium to serve as an oral contraceptive which may one day help solve a major animal overpopulation problem.
To combat heart disease and problems that arise after angioplasty, the balloon procedure used to open clogged arteries, Rice bioengineer Jennifer West is developing alternatives like bioengineered arteries--including assisted healing that will stop clotting and allow healthy cells to grow.
Scientists from the National Center for Atmospheric Research and other colleagues will aim new detectors at the sun's corona during the February 26 solar eclipse, searching for structures they've never observed before. The total eclipse over the Caribbean promises to be one of the most heavily studied in recent history.
1) ConBio Clearinghouse: An online educational site based at Rice called the Center for Conservation Biology Network (CCBN) offers information ranging from Native Americans' water rights to new species of orchids to university degree programs, 2) Rice researchers are creating an Engineering Design Tutor, a World Wide Web-based automated learning system
A manufacturable transistor operating under quantum mechanical laws is faster than any commecial transistor in use today. Developed at Sandia National Laboratories, the quantum transistor-jokingly called the Quantristador - has many possible uses.
Deep inside the earth, two thousand miles beneath its surface, pockets of molten rock can be found in a region where many scientists did not expect to find anything but solid rock. Researchers funded by the National Science Foundation report the finding in this week's issue of the journal Nature.
A Carnegie Mellon University astrophysics professor is weighing in on the ultimate fate of the universe, with a new analysis that shows the universe may eventually stop expanding.
Neuroscientists at Brandeis University have found new evidence of how memory is selectively retained by the brain. In a paper published in the Feb. 15 Journal of Neuroscience, John Lisman, Ph.D., and Nonna Otmakhova, Ph.D., show how the chemical dopamine operates in the hippocampus of the brain to retain memories. Dopamine appears "to modify the rules of activity-dependent synaptic plasticity," the authors say.
A new technique for reducing waste from chemical processes involved in everything from petroleum refining to pharmaceutical manufacturing also may hold the key to cleaning up radioactive remains at eastern Washington's Hanford nuclear site, according to University of Washington researchers studying the new process.
Overdevelopment and the rise in human population are fast becoming the downfall of coastal regions. The greatest threat to sea life today -- other than overfishing -- arises from human activity on land. In fact, humans affect coastal areas, even if they live hundreds of miles inland. This is a critical, global topic, and the New England Aquarium is one organization tackling it.
A study led by University of Minnesota molecular biologist David Zarkower has found that a nematode maleness gene is very similar to maleness genes in fruit flies and maybe humans. These are the first examples of sex-determining genes whose structure has been conserved through eons of evolution, in this case the approximately 500 million years since ancestors of the three animal species split from each other.
A Sandia National Laboratories physicist and his Texas-based colleague have done calculations that may offer additional insight into a decade-old controversy about whether up to 30,000 house-sized snowballs, or icy comets, are striking Earth each day.
1) "Seismic quiescence" sometimes precede the world's strongest and most damaging earthquakes, 2) Scientists have detected an ongoing seafloor volcanic eruption 300 miles off the Oregon coast, 3) Certain habitat conservation plans that promote timber-cutting accords often are based on few hard scientific results
Creighton researchers spent three months fishing in Antarctica. A three-year NSF grant funds the study of Antarctic teleost fish's ability to survive in the Antarctic Ocean. Research will focus on the fish's salt regulation, and function and size of their chloride cells.
A molecular biologist at the University of Georgia has proposed that transposable elements may play a crucial and central role in evolution and could be the "missing link" in our understanding of how multicellular organisms work.
Two University of Wyoming scientists have discovered a gene that produces the most highly elastic fiber from a spider's silk.
NIGHT VISION -- Military and beyond ENERGY -- Lighting tomorrow's way COMPUTING -- Passing today's chips
After several well-publicized meat safety scares in recent years, irradiation was approved late in 1997 for beef, pork and other red meats. What will this mean for food safety? For consumers?
A University of Arizona geologist and a Yale University colleague have found an unlikely new source of informati9on source of information about prehistoric earthquakes - rock-loving lichens.
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