We thought it might be helpful to compile for you some sources and recent developments in science, health and environmental areas. Perhaps you will find one or more useful to you. Dick Jones Communications helps 17 colleges and universities with their public affairs work.
THIRSTY FOR SIGNS OF LIFE ON MARS -- A group of Arkansas researchers is developing tools to find life on Mars. Ed Wilson, a chemistry professor at Harding University in Searcy, Ark., who in collaboration with researchers from the University of Arkansas at Little Rock and Arkansas Tech University, has designed and built a laser and two robots to search for water below the surface of the red planet. "If there's life, there's water," says Wilson, who says many scientists suspect large, hidden pockets of water exist below the dusty surface of the planet. Their technology, which will be tested first in Arkansas and then later in the Artic, uses one roaming and one stationary robot equipped with a laser and camera to search large areas for localized sources of water. Wilson hopes they can some day get this technology into space, but it won't be easy. "All over the country, there are people will research projects they'd like to send to Mars," he says. "It's extremely competitive and political. There are some who would sell their grandmothers to get there."
Contact Wilson at 501-279-4523 or [email protected].
INHIBITING BREAST CANCER GROWTH -- Dr. J. Keith McClung, assistant professor of biology at Wartburg College in Waverly, Iowa, has worked with colleagues at The University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center to develop prohibitin -- a Ribo Nucleic Acid (RNA) that has inhibited the growth of breast cancer tumors when injected directly into the cancerous cells of mice. They are continuing to study prohibitin to find out what RNA coding sequences are most important to its inhibitory nature. Overall, they have found prohibitin does function as a tumor suppressor in human breast cancer. The researchers are producing a paper that will be presented at an upcoming national meeting on cancer research.
Contact: McClung, 319-352-8554, [email protected].
SAVING THE ATLANTIC SALMON -- "The Atlantic salmon are disappearing and no one really knows why," says Alan Lewis, a professor on the environmental and biological science department. This is why Alan's main area of study is the Atlantic sea-run Salmon, listed in 2000 as an endangered species in Maine. He is involved in the state plan for restoration and offers a course to students called "Salmon Conservation Projects", and spent a semester monitoring water-quality -- temperature, Ph, and amounts of dissolved oxygen in local streams. One of the things they discovered was that the flowage in this stream had a usual Ph of 5.4 (which is slightly acidic, but livable for a salmon), but dropped to 4.2 after a rain, a Ph that is much too acidic for salmon to live in, much less spawn.
This student project then led to a greatly expanded project that monitored 25 tributaries in the region. Alan's also researching the effect of beaver dams on a five-mile section of tributary called Venture Brook. This tributary to Denny's River was once an important spawning ground, but now has beaver dams blocking the flowage. They've gathered the data of water-quality in such a blocked stream and will be going into the area with the Dept. of Environmental Protection in Maine and other federations to remove the beaver dams. Keeping the tributary free, they will monitor the stream to see if it re-establishes spawning.
Contact: 207-255-1267 or [email protected].
REAL INNER SPACE. It's just like something from a futuristic movie, but the new M2A capsule actually contains an ingestible camera to view the small intestine - an area previously unreachable. The new "camera-in-a-capsule" medical technology was approved last August by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and is now becoming more readily available - even in "rural America" at places like the Geisinger Health System, which provides health care services to nearly two million patients in 31 primarily rural counties of Pennsylvania. Dr. Michael Komar and Dr. David Schaefer have just begun using the device with patients in Geisinger's Department of Gastroenterology.
The Israeli-made device - called the Given Diagnostic Imaging System - is about an inch long and less than a half-inch in diameter, and takes two pictures every second as it records its trip through the digestive tract. Patients ingesting the capsule don't need to rest, or even stay in the hospital, while it operates. It takes an average of six hours for the capsule to travel through the small intestine, and up to three days for it to be excreted -- although there is no need for patients to retrieve the device. The camera takes about 58,000 photos which are then processed into a motion video. The M2A capsule is now allowing doctors to take a good look at diseases of the small bowel - like obscure bleeding, Crohn's disease, and intestinal tumors and polyps - which have previously been difficult to diagnose due to limitations of existing diagnostic tools.
Contact: Mark Davis, system manager of media and community relations, at 570-825-1070, or [email protected].
MAN-MADE FLOODING. New Jersey has become know for its multi-million dollar flooding disasters in recent years and Dr. Jonathan Husch, professor geological/marine sciences at Rider University in Lawrenceville, N.J., thinks he knows why. Husch believes some of the recent serious flooding is being caused, or at least enhanced, by urbanization -- both in New Jersey and around the nation. Since there's been an explosion of housing developments and paving over land, he theorizes that there's no ground for the water to soak into now -- meaning it runs over the paved areas and directly into the local stream system. Husch sees an increase in inflow, and not outflow -- resulting in more severe and common flooding that is largely caused by how humans have altered the stream system forever. He believes the only way to reverse that trend is to allow the stream to go back to its natural system -- saying the Egyptians understood that 4-5,000 years ago, which is why they moved out of the Nile flood plain. He believes certain government officials have to make similar decisions.
As for flood walls, he reports that they only move the problem from Point A to Point B -- making the problem of flooding worse in Point B. He also believes flood walls are built more because of influence by powerful politicians, and less because of the actual potential for flooding in the first place. Flood walls, according to Husch, don't solve the overall problem, anyway -- just the ones in the community that has them.
Contact: Husch, 609-896-5330, [email protected].
WIRED FOR SOUND. When David Myers, The John Dirk Werkman Professor of Psychology at Hope College in Holland. Mich., visits Europe, his hearing improves because of technology available there in most public venues. With just one switch, his hearing aids become in-the-ear loudspeakers -- free of distortion and muffling. Induction audio loops, which loop a wire around a room and hook it into a public address system, allow a speaker's comments to be transmitted through an electromagnetic field to certain types of hearing aids.
The author of A Quiet World: Living with Hearing Loss -- a book providing his unique perspective on hearing loss along with insight and advice -- Myers is now the driving force behind The Holland-Zeeland Hearing Loop Initiative, which is attempting to make the area a model looped community. As widespread as hearing loop systems are becoming in European countries, they are virtually absent in the U.S. Myers, who has looped his home family room to broadcast TV sound directly through his hearing aids, is trying to change that -- and apparently gaining support. Two local corporations and a family foundation have pledged $80,000 to support Holland-Zeeland churches and nonprofit institutions that want to install the induction loop hearing-assistance technology. By the end of the year, most of the community's major public facilities will be looped. Myers also hopes to take his "Let's Loop America!" initiative to the nation.
Contact: Myers, 616-395-7728, [email protected], or get additional information on his website at www.hearingloop.org.
CATCHING DRUNK DRIVERS -- A device that could give police the upper hand in nabbing drunk drivers has been developed at Texas Christian University in Fort Worth. It is an ethyl alcohol sensor installed in the steering wheel to alert police that a driver in the area is over the legal blood alcohol concentration limit. Theoretically, each sensor would be encoded with a unique vehicle identification number or with the car's license plate number to allow law enforcement officers to determine which vehicle was being driven by a suspected drunk driver. The sensor triggers a wireless communication signal if a driver is "over the limit" that can be received by police at nearby highway checkpoints.
Contact: Ed Kolesar, professor of engineering, 817-257-6226 or via e-mail at [email protected].
THE BUSINESS OF SCIENCE. Since a lot of science requires big business for much of its financial backing, the "The Business of Science" course at Rider University in Lawrenceville, N.J., just makes sense. Jim Riggs, chairman of the biology department; joined with Ilene Goldberg, associate professor of business policy/environment, to create the course, which helps non-science majors fulfill their science requirement. It is also popular with business majors. Students in the class have been studying cells and genetics for half of the semester, and will turn to business issues relating to the commercialization of science in the second half of the course. New Jersey is a natural place for such a course since the intermingling of science and technology are critical to the state's flourishing pharmaceutical industry.
Contact: Riggs, 609-895-5426, [email protected].
TELESCOPE FOR HIGH SCHOOLERS -- The Student Telescope Network allows high school students and teachers to log on to www.youthinastronomy.org for free, point a remote controlled telescope to different parts of the sky and snap digital photos. "We're trying to get high school students interested in research," explains Robert Stencel, professor of astronomy at the University of Denver, one of the network's partners along with New Mexico Skies Observatory, Software Bisque of Golden, CO, and the Astronomical League. "The average high school student doesn't have access to a classy telescope with a digital camera," Stencel says. "They might live in a city where the lights are so bright they can't see the stars anyway, and there's also the weather factor."
Contact: Stencel at 303-871-2135 or at [email protected].
Please let me know if there's anything further that I can provide. You can reach me at 814-867-1963 or [email protected].
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