The Chicago area's largest university, the university of Illinois at Chicago, has created a department of bioengineering, giving significant new emphasis to the burgeoning field and combining UIC's strengths in engineering and medicine. The new department head says bioengineering is not just biotechnology.
The proposition that the Earth's little understood inner core is a frozen yet white hot globe of curiously laid out iron crystals, spinning independently of the rest of the planet, is confirmed by University of Washington geophysicist Kenneth Creager in tomorrow's Science.
The days of senior citizens simply adding up their pensions, grabbing their gold watches and flocking to Florida are over. A Michigan State University study shows that during retirement seniors tend to be found where friends abound.
After testing emissions from buses and heavy-duty vehicles in 32 cities researchers at WVU have found that alternative fuels have a strong potential to reduce particulate matter and other pollutants in urban areas. Results of the study were recently published in Environmental Science and Technology, the journal of the American Chemical Society.
Science and math learning are in the forefront of the agendas of President Clinton, Congress and concerned parents and teachers, as well as American business representatives.
Electrical engineers at the University of Missouri-Rolla -- working with private computer companies -- are creating a software program to keep electromagnetic glitches out of the printed circuit boards used in computers, automotive parts and other electronic products.
Texas Christian University's engineering researchers are tiny thinkers. Edward S. Kolesar, professor of engineering, and his research assistants are making microscopic machines. Microelectromechanical systems, or MEMS, are tiny gadgets too small to see with the naked eye. But if Kolesar is right, MEMS someday will be a vital part of almost everything. The researchers are developing projects now for Lockheed Martin and for possible use in prosthetic lenses for the human eye.
University of Michigan geochemists have made the most accurate estimate yet of the age of our moon and discovered that it formed later in the development of the solar system than many scientists believed---almost certainly as the result of a collision between Earth and another planet at least as large as Mars.
Scientists at the University of Michigan and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign have developed a new class of large, organic molecules which could one day be used for focusing and converting sunlight into electricity. They're called dendrimer supermolecules and can harvest and convert sunlight with great efficiency.
Evidence is mounting that the sun's magnetic field looks more like a wild cyclone than a tidy lawn sprinkler---the image scientists had accepted for almost 40 years. The cyclone-like shape comes from a mathematical model first proposed last year by University of Michigan space scientist Len Fisk.
A late-model lander and rover, equipped with a Cornell University scientific instrument package called Athena, will roam and study a large corridor of the Martian highlands and ancient terrain. The mission, to be launched in April 2001, will seek out the geological record of ancient Martian waterways and possible biology.
Cornell University scientists have discovered a wild tomato's chemical secret for repelling insect pests: a complex, waxy substance that commercially grown tomatoes have "forgotten" how to make. A simplified formulation of the wild tomatoes' chemical has been granted a U.S. patent on "Non-cyclic Esters for Pest Control" and could become the next-generation nontoxic insect repellent for a long list of crops.
WASHINGTON, Nov. 10 -- New technologies and scientific research are finding innovative ways to detect, attack and prevent food safety problems caused by the microorganisms that are linked with some 90 percent of all food-related contamination outbreaks, according to an article published in the Nov. 10 issue of Chemical & Engineering News, the weekly news magazine of the American Chemical Society, the world's largest scientific society.
A New handbook, "Leading the Way," co-authored by Cornell gerontologist Karl Pillemer, helps nursing supervisors in long-term care facilities develop leadership skills.
Intelligence test scores among racial and socio-economic segments of American society are not growing ever wider, contrary to arguments in The Bell Curve, but are, in fact, converging, say Cornell University psychologists Wendy M. Williams and Stephen J. Ceci, based on analyses of national data sets of mental test scores. This is contrary to often-reported arguments that Americans are getting dumber because low-IQ parents are outbreeding high-IQ parents.
A new research season is underway in Antarctica, encompassing 175 research projects supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF), the federal agency that funds and manages the U.S. Antarctic Program.
George Avrunin, professor of mathematics and statistics at the University of Massachusetts, has received a $1.4 million grant from the National Science Foundation for research on the effective linking of computer systems. He is working in conjunction with UMass computer science professors Lori Clarke and Leon Osterweil. The group's research could eventually be used in the development of computer systems used in areas such as air traffic control, airline reservation systems, and the monitoring of hospital patients.
The National Science Foundation has appointed University of Washington Professor Mark Haselkorn to coordinate its external efforts to address the year 2000 computer problem.
Spurred by predictions that we may have only 90 years of high-quality rock phosphate fertilizer left, Purdue University researchers have taken a step toward helping plants get the nutrient out of soil. They were the first to isolate genes that help plant roots take up phosphate, a common form of phosphorus.
Faculty in the Purdue University School of Agriculture give a better-than-educated guess of what the future holds for American food and fiber industries with a new book and video set entitled "FoodSystem 21: Gearing Up for the New Millennium." Purdue Agricultural economist Mike Boehlje calls it "a frank and brutal look" at where farms, input suppliers, processors and consumers are heading.
The National Science Board (NSB) will meet on Wednesday, November 12 through Friday, November 14, 1997 at National Science Foundation headquarters in Arlington, Virginia. Sessions open to the public include: Thursday, November 13, from 2:20 p.m.-5:45 p.m. and Friday, November 14 from 8:30 a.m.-11:30 a.m.
The number of Atlantic salmon in American rivers has dropped dramatically in recent years. UC Santa Cruz ecologist Marc Mangel is probing the biological and environmental factors that trigger the salmon's patterns of migration and spawning.
A supercomputer is ushering in a new era of high-precision weather forecasting. The University of Washington has switched on the latest version of its MM5 weather forecasting system, the world's first to diagnose and forecast local weather on a scale of a few thousand yards. The four-kilometer system can follow a region's topography so accurately that it can "see" rain showers on one side of a mountain and the rain shadow on the other.
Unusually warm temperatures can wreak havoc on the world's climate, but these warming periods also have an upside that may help researchers better understand global climate change. In a study published in "Science" magazine, University of New Hampshire scientists describe how a warm anomaly helps temporarily brake the ongoing rise in atmospheric CO2 attributed to human activity.
Dave A. Berque, DePauw University associate professor of computer science, and his students have developed an electronic blackboard that enables the professor to write lecture notes on a laser board on the wall, and the professor's handwritten lecture notes are automatically transferred to PCs at the students' desks. Students can use a light pen to annotate the notes on their PC screens and then save the notes for future review and study.
Microorganisms require a different way of thinking in terms of diversity. Cultivated soils, for example, often have more microbial diversity than do native grassland soils. Whereas in undisturbed soil, microbes tend to develop pockets and communities, in tilled soils they become evenly distributed. When we till soil, we think we're doing the right thing, says Kennedy. But what's happening is the community is going berserk.
Minority psychologists in academic settings are generally less satisfied than their White counterparts. That's according to a new study co-authored by John D. Dovidio, professor of psychology at Colgate University which examines how perceptions of racial distinctivess relate to job satisfaction of White and ethnic/racial minority American Psychological Association members working in psychology departments in academia.
Washington, DC -- Thousands of school children and American Chemical Society volunteers across the country will celebrate the 10th Anniversary of National Chemistry Week in their communities through exhibits in local museums, malls and parks, and in displays organized to demonstrate the wonders of chemistry and its impact on our lives.
Chemists graduating in 1998 should find a favorable job market that will offer the most opportunities since the late 1980s, according to the annual employment outlook published in the Nov. 3 issue of Chemical & Engineering News, the weekly news magazine of the American Chemical Society, the world's largest scientific society. "Only four years ago," says C&EN editor Madeleine Jacobs, "the job market was being described as the bleakest in 20 years." But now "there are more recruiters with more job openings coming out sooner to get the jump on their competition," notes Paul A. Bartlett, chemistry department chair at the University of California, Berkeley.
Chemists from the University of California, San Diego will measure and analyze the oxygen content of winds flowing from the Sun as part of a $216 million international space mission scheduled for launch in 2001.
Astronomers using the 5-meter Hale telescope on California's Mount Palomar report the discovery of two "new" moons orbiting the planet Uranus. The objects -- first observed Sept. 6 and 7 and photographed again by the astronomers in late October -- bring to 17 the number of satellites known to orbit Uranus.
Buckyballs, the soccer ball-shaped molecules touted as revolutionary when they were discovered over a decade ago, may not have lived up to their promise yet, but Boston College Chemistry Professor Larry Scott is hoping to change that by creating pieces of them in his laboratory.
1) NSF, Singapore To Link High Performance Networks, 2) Harmful Algal Blooms Linked to Eutrophication, 3) New Technique Allows Visualization of Events in Living Cells
New York, N.Y.--Mutations in the gene P-TEN can increase a woman's risk of breast cancer, according to scientists at Columbia University College of Physicians & Surgeons. The findings identify the third breast cancer susceptibility gene; the other two such genes are BRCA1 and BRCA2.
While regulators, environmentalists and industry debate whether there's enough evidence to warrant restrictions on mercury emissions from coal-burning power plants, researchers say that questions remain on how to accurately measure such emissions and control them in a cost-effective manner.
Droughts, severe winters and air pollution may not cause obvious harm to trees until decades after these environmental stresses occur. That's according to new research by Brian S. Pedersen, visiting assistant professor of biology at Roanoke Colelge in Salem, VA, that punches holes in the theory that environmental events like droughts immediately lead to tree death.
The great formal gardens at Versailles, with their geometrically precise parterres and topiry-lined allees, are usually noted for teir restrained classicism and elegance, not for their politics.
This season's prime-time television lineup of angels, space aliens, witches and other oddities may influence people to believe in such creatures, according to a survey by a Purdue University communication expert.
Although El Nino events or volcanic eruptions can boost or depress global temperatures within months, their strongest impacts on the earth's biosphere may not occur until years later, according to a study published in the October 31 issue of Science and conducted at the National Center for Atmospheric Research.
Heavy metal ions are toxic but nevertheless required by cells in tiny amounts. A special "chaperone" protein encases one of these hazardous materials, copper, to safely escort it through the cell to the specific site where needed. Other essential metals, such as zinc and iron, may have their own chaperones.
El Nino events or volcanic eruptions can boost or depress global temperatures within months, but their strongest impacts on the earth's biosphere may not occur until one to three years later, according to a paper published in the October 31st issue of Science.
Stumps of cedar trees are revealing details of a huge earthquake along North America's west coast more than 100 years before the arrival of the first European occupants. University of Washington researchers are reporting in Nature that evidence in the dead wood confirms that a great earthquake struck the Pacific Northwest coast in 1700 and set off a tsunami, a train of massive ocean waves, that flooded coastal Japan.
A little-known brain wave thought to be found in only small percentage of people is instead sitting inside most of our heads and could one day become a key for understanding connections between movement and vision.