Science News

• share
• favorite_border

1) Immigrant Scientists And Engineers Decline; 2) NSF & NASA Launch Satellite Assessment; 3) Researchers Recommend Changes In Census' Racial Identifications

• share
• favorite_border

A computer model developed by a Johns Hopkins biomedical engineer mimics the way a heart works, down to the sub-cellular level, and can be used to mathematically "test" drugs for various heart disorders.

• share
• favorite_border

Researchers have discovered that packrats seem to save a little of everything-- including clues in fossilized packrat urine from prehistoric dens--that can help scientists more accurately determine the age of water and other materials.

• share
• favorite_border

Press release of issue dated 26 July for New Scientist, the international science and technology weekly news magazine.

• share
• favorite_border

Remote islands of surreal beauty, the foggy, windswept Aleutians are thousands of miles from heavily populated areas. Even so, the islands harbor a nasty reminder of human activity: Sea otters and bald eagle eggs from the western Aleutians carry potentially harmful levels of DDT and other contaminants.

• share
• favorite_border

Researchers from Southern Illinois University have discovered the oldest African or Asian monkey skull yet found. Their account of their find appears in the July 24 issue of ìNature.î

• share
• favorite_border

UCSD Chemists Create Polymer "Mirror" for a variety of "Time Reversal" Optical Tasks.

• share
• favorite_border

Researchers have found a way of controlling a tailor-made version of a protein that gives the glow to the Pacific Northwest jellyfish. The discovery not only sheds light on the inner workings of the green fluorescent protein (GFP) of the jellyfish Aequorea victoria, it also suggests a potential new way for storing and accessing computer memories in packages the size of a single molecule.

• share
• favorite_border

Using electron-beam lithography, researchers at the Cornell University Nanofabrication Facility have built what they believe are the world's smallest mechanical devices, including a Fabry-Perot interferometer and, for fun, the world's smallest guitar, carved out of crystalline silicon and no larger than a single cell. The technology that could have a variety of uses in fiber optics, displays, sensors and electronics. Mechanical force probes can be made much smaller than a single cell, and forces associated with single biological molecules could be measured.

• share
• favorite_border

El Nino is a warming of surface waters of the tropical Pacific Ocean with far- reaching climatic consequences. This Tip Sheet describes an upcoming scientific meeting on El Nino, the relation between El Nino and global warming, and a new El Nino book, and lists El Nino experts and Web sites.

• share
• favorite_border

Continuing its leadership in optical networking, Lucent Technologies has demonstrated a record-breaking experimental ultra-wideband optical-fiber amplifier that can boost lightwave signals carried simultaneously over 100 or more channels, or wavelengths, of light. The experiment underscores the potential of optical networks to deliver unprecedented network capacity. The optical amplifier spans 80 nanometers of the lightwave spectrum.

• share
• favorite_border

The first ASME Asia Congress and Exhibition, sponsored by the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME), will be held in Singapore, September 30 to October 2, 1997, at the Singapore International Convention & Exhibition Centre. This conference provides a forum for engineers to examine environmental issues and technological advancements relevant to this region's industries, particularly those involved in power generation, offshore technology, oil and gas.

• share
• favorite_border

The M.W. Kellogg Company in Houston has pledged $100,000 to a foundation operated by ASME International (American Society of Mechanical Engineers), a gift which will be put toward programs to enhance science, technology and engineering throughout the world.

• share
• favorite_border

Breeding trees that can be more easily processed into paper, with less harm to the environment, has long been a goal of researchers. Now, thanks to the discovery of abnormal, brown-colored wood in a mutant pine tree, scientists at North Carolina State University may be a step closer to achieving that goal.

• share
• favorite_border

Big-cat expert, Dr. Alan Rabinowitz of the Wildlife Conservation Society, applauds last week's U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service decision to list the jaguar as an endangered species on U.S. soil. Rabinowitz released a report last week on the status of jaguars in the southwest.

• share
• favorite_border

Atlantic City, N.J., was a relative cool spot as it broke five low temperature records and tied another in June, while Baltimore tallied three low temperature records, and Charleston, W. Va., marked its first 90-degree reading in more than a year, according to the climatologists at the Northeast Regional Climate Center at Cornell University.

• share
• favorite_border

Elevated levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere benefit some plants by making them more tolerant to cold temperatures. If carbon dioxide levels double within the next century as we are expecting, some plant species should be able to withstand temperatures a few degrees cooler than they can now. Northeastern farmers and home gardeners may be able to plant some crops earlier in the spring. This will also affect the distribution and mixture of species.

• share
• favorite_border

The National Science Foundation has awarded grants for seven new projects to study Martian meteorite ALH84001 in greater depth. The grants are part of a coordinated program with NASA to further investigate possible traces of ancient life in the Martian rock.

• share
• favorite_border

The technology that makes the fastest computers so fast ã parallel processing ã is starting to wend its way from the research community into personal computers, and a Purdue University engineer is helping speed that delivery with a new program that automatically translates conventional computer programs so they can run faster.

• share
• favorite_border

Stopping human cells from committing suicide when their environment changes is crucial to the biotechnology industry, where such cells are used to manufacture pharmaceuticals. A team of engineers and scientists at Johns Hopkins is working to disable the weapons the cells use to kill themselves.

• share
• favorite_border

1) Most nature trails emphasize flora and fauna. This week, though, the spotlight is on the wild and varied climate of Colorado's Front Range; 2) A computer forecasting system for Analysis and Prediction of Storms has won a first prize in the 1997 Discover Magazine Awards for Technological Innovation; 3) Global climate change: A recent modeling study predicts that developed countries--the primary emitters of carbon dioxide--would benefit while underdeveloped countries would suffer.

• share
• favorite_border

Scientists from Cornell University will help the Montezuma National Wildlife Refuge in Seneca Falls, N.Y., exact revenge against purple loosestrife, a beautiful but prolific weed that strangles wetlands. More than 20,000 Galerucella pusilla and G. calmariensis -- leaf-eating beetles without a common name -- will be released Thursday, July 17, at 9 a.m. at the refuge.

• share
• favorite_border

Frozen concentrated orange juice generally has the highest vitamin C levels compared to other commercial orange and grapefruit juice products, but even if you favor one of the others, you're probably still getting your daily requirement of the vitamin. That's according to a new, ten-year study reported in the July 16 issue of the American Chemical Society's Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry.

• share
• favorite_border

Montreal, July 13 -- More than 175 of the world's top high school chemistry students arrive here today for the 29th annual International Chemistry Olympiad, which runs through July 21st. The Olympians, who represent 47 countries, will attempt laboratory experiments and a rigorous exam designed at a level that would challenge most second or third-year college students

• share
• favorite_border

Recent revelations about the cause of a 1979 flash off South Africa point to an ongoing concern for the capability of satellites looking for clandestine nuclear weapons.

• share
• favorite_border

Researchers have shown that radiation from radon gas does not need to hit a cell nucleau -- or even the cell itself -- to create DNA-damaging effects.

• share
• favorite_border

U.S. and Mexican researchers are perfecting methods for sampling volcanic discharges from safe distances.

• share
• favorite_border

Ecologists at the Savannah River Site are finding high levels of heavy metals in animals exposed to coal fly ash left over from burning coal at the federal reservation, and they suspect that the same problems are widespread because gigatons of coal are burned around the world every year.

• share
• favorite_border

In the new movie "Contact," astronomer Ellie Arroway, played by actress Jodie Foster, searches for signs of extraterrestrial life using massive, Earth-bound radio telescopes.

• share
• favorite_border

1) Fusion -- Smooth Skies; 2) Materials -- Letting Off Steam; 3) Space -- Next Stop, Mars; 4) Environment -- A Spreading Problem

• share
• favorite_border

Significant progress in controlling poultry-borne infection was reported recently at a Cornell University meeting, the 69th Northeastern Conference on Avian Diseases. Still, two diseases (avian influenza or AI and infectious laryngotracheitis or ILT) threaten the economic health of the American poultry industry and at least one (Salmonella enteritidis) worries Americans who eat eggs.

• share
• favorite_border

The National Science Foundation (NSF) has asked the science and engineering (S&E) community to contribute its views on two significant agency-wide efforts this year.

• share
• favorite_border

Eight Sandia winners of R&D 100 awards proposed devices -- newly or nearly in use -- in fields ranging from medicine to computers, and from manufacturing to resource exploration to the prevention of widespread power failures.

• share
• favorite_border

The hormones oxytocin (OT) and vasopressin (AVP) play a vital role in influencing complex social behaviors such as affiliation, parental care, territorial aggression and several behaviors associated with monogamy (pair bonding, paternal care, mate guarding). Scientists at Yerkes Primate Center at Emory University are examining these hormones in rodents to eventually help develop treatments for autism and schizophrenia, both of which result in social isolation and detachment.

• share
• favorite_border

A neonatologist in NY, using the internet, saves the life of a premature infant in Argentina.

• share
• favorite_border

A University of Massachusetts graduate is the chief scientist on NASA's Mars Pathfinder mission. Matthew Golombek, who has worked with NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory on the mission since its inception five years ago, studied the geology of Mars, Earth, and the moon while earning his master's and doctoral degrees in geology from the University in 1978 and 1981, respectively.

• share
• favorite_border

Lucent Technologies will receive a Primetime Engineering Emmy Award from the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences in ceremonies in Beverly Hills, Calif., Thursday (July 10) for its work on digital television as part of the High-Definition TV (HDTV) Grand Alliance.

• share
• favorite_border

Only Finnish children read better than U.S. kids--yet, too many 17-year-old minority children read at roughly the same level as the average 13-year-old white child, a University of Delaware educator reported July 10, when he urged U.S. policymakers to help correct such "huge inequalities."

• share
• favorite_border

A recently graduated geologist is one of the two scientists with University of Massachusetts degress who are working on NASA's Mars Pathfinder mission. Nathan Bridges earned his doctorate in geology this past April, before being hired by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., for a postdoctoral position.

• share
• favorite_border

In a study that sheds new light on how the brain organizes language, researchers report that the organization of the brain's language-production region in bilingual individuals is directly related to whether they learned a second language as toddlers (simultaneously with their native language) or as young adults. Using a new, non-invasive imaging method called functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), the researchers found that bilingual persons who acquire a second language as young adults have distinct areas in the brain associated with their native and second languages.

• share
• favorite_border

Goodyear and the U.S. Department of Energyís Sandia National Laboratories will work together to develop new and more efficient manufacturing processes.

• share
• favorite_border

The University of Missouri-Rolla is leading a team of five universities in a five-year project to develop new methods to detect and neutralize the concealed land mines that currently endanger the populations of more than 60 nations. Research includes the use of sound waves, ground-penetrating radar, electromagnetic pulses, robotic vehicles and shooting streams of water underground to look for and "float" the mines to the surface.

• share
• favorite_border

Working fathers involved in child care tend to do more of the low-stress, pre-arranged activities and less of the unpredictable situations such as staying home when a child suddenly gets sick, according to a University of Tulsa professor.

• share
• favorite_border

The trajectory of the Near Earth Asteroid Rendevzous (NEAR) spacecraft was adjusted July 3 to target the spacecraft for an Earth swingby in 1998.

• share
• favorite_border

A 25-minute flyby of the asteroid Mathilde by the Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous (NEAR) spacecraft took place June 27. This resulted in spectacular images of a dark, crater-battered little world assumed to date from the b eginning of the solar system.

• share
• favorite_border

Despite the world-wide investment of trillions of dollars (and other world currencies) in more than 20 years, technology still falls short of providing the information we most need and want, finds Thomas H. Davenport, director of the information management program at The University of Texas at Austin and a regular columnist for CIO magazine.

• share
• favorite_border

When Mars Pathfinder lands on Mars on July 4, James Bell, research associate in the Cornell astronomy department's Center for Radiophysics and Space Research, will help determine what types of minerals and rocks are present on the Martian surface, making use of a video camera on the lander which uses about a dozen color filters to discriminate individual minerals.

• share
• favorite_border

Jim Adam agreed to chair a major fund-raising campaign for ASME International (American Society of Mechanical Engineers) and donate $150,000 of his company's funds.

• share
• favorite_border

Foster Wheeler Corp. has contributed $200,000 to a fund-raising campaign operated by ASME International (American Society of Mechanical Engineers), a philanthropic gesture which demonstrates the firm's commitment to the future of mechanical engineering throughout the world.

• share
• favorite_border

Phillips Petroleum Company announced the pledge of $150,000 to a foundation operated by ASME International (American Society of Mechanical Engineers) to recognize the significance of technical personnel to Phillips, and at the same time helping to ensure the health of the mechanical engineering profession today and in the future.