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A doctoral candidate in marketing in the Pamplin College of Business looks at strategies that low-income consumers employ to get their needs served in the marketplace.

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Virginia citizens have been reporting a significant number of deaths of birds common to bird feeding stations such as finches. The current problem is not yet epidemic statewide. Salmonella occurs in wildlife in regular cycles, and we appear to be in one of those up cycles, says a wildlife specialist. Good sanitation with feeding stations is recommended.

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Cancer treatments, including chemotherapy and radiotherapy, may alter and damage taste and odor perception, possibly leading to patient malnutrition, and even significant morbidity. From their review of the literature, the research team put together a listing of management strategies to improve taste and odor abnormalities for cancer patients.

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The ultrafine coal particles that are the residue of the coal cleaning process have been discarded into hundreds of impoundments. Now, a dewatering technology developed at Virginia Tech has succeeded in reducing the moisture content of ultrafine coal to less than 20 percent.

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Internationally known author Nikki Giovanni offers five tips on how to write a love poem. She also celebrates her 65 years with a new book containing 65 love poems.

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With limited resources and an aging bridge population, bridge owners need reliable information on bridge health in order to manage their bridge inventory efficiently and economically. The Federal Highway Administration has awarded a $25.5 million contract to establish a Long-Term Bridge Performance Program. Virginia Tech and the Virginia Transportation Research Council are responsible for the instrumentation and monitoring of 10 bridges in the eastern U.S.

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Eleven graduate students from the history and social science education program at Virginia Tech will be partnering with high school and middle school students from across the country to witness the historic inauguration of President-elect Barack Obama.

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The U.S. water delivery infrastructure may be inadequate both for current requirements and projected growth, according to the EPA. An NSF Career Award recipient and a MacArthur Fellow have teamed to establish the Center of Excellence in Sustainable Water Infrastructure Management (SWIM).

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Dwellings in colonies on the moon one day may be built with new, highly durable bricks developed by students from the College of Engineering at Virginia Tech. The invention won the In-Situ Lunar Resource Utilization materials and construction category award from the Pacific International Space Center for Exploration Systems (PISCES).

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Charles E. Walcott, Virginia Tech professor of political science, can provide background on the presidential transition process, presidential appointments, George W. Bush's legacy, and the organization and operation of the presidency.

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The Army Corps of Engineers is mandated to provide New Orleans with an improved hurricane protection system by 2011. Virginia Tech geotechnical engineers are among the researchers analyzing the floodwall and levee systems, working with engineers from the U. S. Army Engineering Research and Development Center and from other universities. Advanced testing in Virginia Tech's geotechnical laboratory will determine the tests' cost effectiveness when applied to levee projects that entail hundreds of miles.

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The Robotics and Mechanisms Laboratory (RoMeLa) of the College of Engineering at Virginia Tech won the grand prize at the 2008 International Capstone Design Fair with a trio of pole-climbing serpentine robots designed to take the place of construction workers tasked with dangerous jobs such as inspecting high-rises or underwater bridge piers.

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Restore the economy with loans to all taxpayers, proposes T. Nicolaus Tideman, professor of economics at Virginia Tech.

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The financial system rescue package necessary; but think twice about politicians running the auto industry. "There are a number of significant misconceptions about the economic crisis," said George Morgan, the SunTrust Professor of Finance in the Pamplin College of Business at Virginia Tech.

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Virginia Tech and the Naval Surface Warfare Center at Dahlgren signed a memorandum of understanding to develop mutually beneficial innovative research projects and activities. The agreement is supported by a variety of longstanding partnership programs and research.

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Virginia Tech researchers report that skilled females with an interest in technology consistently disregard IT careers and express less confidence in their abilities. The researchers will now investigate ways to engage females in information technology career fields in five states ¬ "“ Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, North Carolina, and West Virginia.

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An international consortium of researchers has begun an effort to sequence the genome of the domesticated turkey. The genomic resources that will be developed should provide turkey breeders with tools to improve commercial breeds of turkey for such traits as meat yield and quality, health and disease resistance, fertility, and reproduction.

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Five years ago, Virginia Tech burst onto the high-performance computing scene using Apple Power Mac G5 computers to build System X, one of the fastest supercomputers of its time. Now the university, Apple, and Mellanox have created System G "“ twice as fast and green.

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Intense glacial erosion has not only carved the surface of the highest coastal mountain range on earth, the spectacular St. Elias range in Alaska, but has elicited a structural response from deep within the mountain.

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A group of nine international car manufacturers and suppliers is awarding $4.9 million to the Virginia Tech - Wake Forest University School of Biomedical Engineering and Science's Center for Injury Biomechanics, known internationally for its research on trauma and how it affects the human body, for a study to produce a better understanding of what happens to individuals subjected to body trauma.

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Virginia Tech Intellectual Properties (VTIP) announced today that the US Patent and Trademark Office has granted a patent for targets and methods to develop new drugs for malaria. The target is a protein vital to the parasite's survival. The method is an entirely new mechanism of action and can help with the increasing problem of drug resistance.

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Two Virginia Tech engineers have developed a new technology for controlling the motion of bacteria that produce cellulose. The invention will allow precise control of the tiny weavers so that they can be guided to shapes that will support cartilage and bone tissue growth and other complex biomaterials.

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In his native Newark, N.J., Joseph Freeman, director of the Musculoskeletal Tissue Regeneration Laboratory at Virginia Tech, has been working with Diana Freeman, his mother and a science teacher at Alexander Street Elementary School, to provide children in the third through eighth grades with DVDs showing the work he is doing in Blacksburg, Va.

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Acupuncture has proven to be a safe and relatively painless treatment for a variety of illnesses in animals. The Virginia-Maryland Regional College of Veterinary Medicine's Veterinary Teaching Hospital offers this therapy to both large and small animals. Conditions that respond well to acupuncture range from skin disorders to musculoskeletal issues to neurological problems.

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Researchers from three universities are examining the impact of the independence of Kosovo upon three quasi-state regions in Eurasia. The research is critical to future relations between the United States and Russia.

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Software that will save data centers millions of dollars in energy costs has won the Southeastern Universities Research Association Intellectual Property to Market (IP2M) competition. The patent-pending invention, dubbed EcoDaemon by the researchers at Virginia Tech who created it, ranked number one among submissions from more than 60 research institutes in the southeast.

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A new company is being created as a spin-off from Virginia Tech research to develop nutritional interventions against chronic inflammatory and infectious diseases. BioTherapeutics Inc. will promote health and well-being through the discovery and development of nutraceuticals "” naturally occurring molecules that can be integrated into nutritional products and functional food ingredients.

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The Choices and Challenges project at Virginia Tech has launched an interactive website (www.choicesandchallenges.sts.vt.edu/2008/index.php) that includes resources on the topic of IT and politics, and opportunities for discussion. And five days before the U.S. Presidential election, a public forum will examine how new information and communication technologies are changing political life.

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Papaya is a multimillion dollar crop in Indonesia, India, countries in the Caribbean and South America, the Hawaiian Islands, and Florida. The first reported occurrences of papaya mealybug in Indonesia and Southeast Asia were in May and then in July. Scientists are using integrated pest management to contain the pest.

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Seong K. Mun has joined Virginia Tech in the National Capital Region as professor of physics and research fellow at the Virginia Tech Institute for Advanced Study. Mun's research focuses on the role of imaging and information technology in such healthcare settings as diagnostic imaging, chronic illness management, home monitoring, telemedicine, disease surveillance, surgical instrumentation, and cancer therapy.

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GPS is a United States navigation system of more than 30 satellites circling Earth twice a day in specific orbits, transmitting signals to receivers on land, sea, and in air to calculate their exact locations. If such a ubiquitous system were to come under attack, would we be ready?

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A team of researchers systematically studied diaries that examined the stresses of daily life in conjunction with helping an older parent. Results clearly suggest a downward trajectory of health and well-being among midlife adults helping an elderly parent.

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Virginia Tech researchers have developed an efficient compact ultra-wideband antenna (CUA) for a range of home, automotive, medical, and military applications. The antenna has achieved a near optimal performance for size and bandwidth.

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From air quality to wildlife scat, the Summer 2008 Virginia Tech Research magazine provides articles about environmental research.

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The technology, irreversible electroporation, which uses electric pulses to destroy cancer tissue, has been selected for an Early Career Translational Research Award in Biomedical Engineering in order to support commercial development.

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All journalists are invited to attend the Society of Environmental Journalists 2008 Annual Conference Oct. 15-19 at the Hotel Roanoke in Roanoke, Va. (See www.sej.org) The event is hosted this year by Virginia Tech.

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Supercomputer performance and energy efficiency can co-exist. Roadrunner, the top-ranked supercomputer in the TOP500, is ranked third on the Green500. The first sustained petaflop supercomputer, Roadrunner was developed by the U.S. Department of Energy Los Alamos National Laboratory.

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A team of Virginia Tech students have converted the banana split into convenient, bite-sized, frozen slices of banana filled with non-fat frozen yogurt and enrobed in dark chocolate. The decadent dessert, which could be sold from grocery stores or fast food restaurants, was introduced at the New Orleans food expo.

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Biométhodes, a French biotechnology company in Evry, has signed an exclusive and worldwide option-to-license agreement with Virginia Tech Intellectual Properties Inc. (VTIP) for multiple technologies for converting biomass to bioethanol and biohydrogen.

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A year-long study of chimpanzees in Tanzania's Mahale Mountains National Park has produced evidence that chimpanzees are becoming sick from viral infectious diseases they have likely contracted from humans.

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The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), which has re-entered national politics as the U.S. presidential election approaches, has increased U.S. agricultural exports to Mexico and Canada even though most of this increase occurred a decade after its ratification.

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Paul Sorrentino was awarded a Guggenheim for his work on the life of Stephen Crane. Bob Hicok, awarded the Guggenheim for poetry, has been called one of the best poets of his generation. He also garnered the 2008 Rebekah Johnson Bobbitt National Prize for Poetry for his most recent collection, This Clumsy Living.

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Hurricanes often lift the roofs off buildings and expose them to havoc and damaging conditions, even after the worst of the wind has passed. A local roofer, Virginia Tech faculty members from architecture and engineering, and a graduate student have devised an inexpensive vent that can reduce roof uplift on buildings during high winds, even a hurricane.

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This year's meeting will focus on developing a more definite partnership between Virginia Tech, the University of Virginia, and Virginia Indian Nations through the possible development of an American Indian Studies Institute.

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Commercial fishing has by far the highest fatality rate among all occupations in the U.S, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Saving lives and ships by improving the stability and safety of sea-going vessels is the goal of an engineering researcher who has won two highly competitive grants to support her research.

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According to a Virginia Tech study, the most water-efficient energy sources are natural gas and synthetic fuels produced by coal gasification. The least water-efficient energy sources are fuel ethanol and biodiesel.

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About 40 percent of water is lost due to leaks. With funding from the EPA and NSF, Virginia Tech researchers are creating the prototype of a national internet-based geospatial database of underground water pipes.

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Many chiral molecules are important for medical treatment for illnesses ranging from acid-reflux to cancer. The research goal is to provide organic chemists with computational tools to determine the handedness of a particular molecule, which could speed up the drug development process by years.

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A veterinary neurologist on faculty in the Virginia-Maryland Regional College of Veterinary Medicine at Virginia Tech has been awarded funding from the Wake Forest University Translational Science Institute to study innovative approaches for treating brain tumors in dogs, cats, and humans.

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Work at the Virginia-Maryland Regional College of Veterinary Medicine is the first to alter Newcastle disease virus through a reverse genetic system for selective protease targeting.