News From the National Science Foundation
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Showing releases 1-25 out of 572 releases.
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Public Release: 16-Oct-2008
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
New solar energy material captures every color of the rainbow
Researchers have created a new material that overcomes two of the major obstacles to solar power: it absorbs all the energy contained in sunlight, and generates electrons in a way that makes them easier to capture. Ohio State University chemists and their colleagues combined electrically conductive plastic with metals including molybdenum and titanium to create the hybrid material.
National Science Foundation, Ohio State University
Contact: Malcolm Chisholm
Chisholm.4@osu.edu
614-292-7216
Ohio State University
Public Release: 16-Oct-2008
Annual Meeting of the Society for Vertebrate Paleontology
Brain structure provides key to unraveling function of bizarre dinosaur crests
Paleontologists have long debated the function of the strange, bony crests on the heads of the duck-billed dinosaurs known as lambeosaurs. The structures contain incredibly long, convoluted nasal passages that loop up over the tops of their skulls.
Scientists at the University of Toronto, Ohio University and Montana State University now have used CT-scanning to look inside these mysterious crests and reconstruct the brains and nasal cavities of four different lambeosaur species.
National Science and Engineering Research Council of Canada, National Science Foundation
Contact: Andrea Gibson
gibsona@ohio.edu
740-597-2166
Ohio University
Public Release: 15-Oct-2008
Nature
Scientists discover quantum mechanical 'hurricanes' form spontaneously
University of Arizona scientists have discovered experimentally that when super-cold gas becomes a Bose-Einstein condensate, it can spontaneously spin up what might be described as quantum mechanical twisters or hurricanes.
National Science Foundation, US Army Research Office, Australian Research Council, University of Queensland
Contact: Lori Stiles
lstiles@u.arizona.edu
520-626-4402
University of Arizona
Public Release: 15-Oct-2008
Nature Physics
First tunable, 'noiseless' amplifier may boost quantum computing, communications
Researchers at NIST and JILA have made the first tunable "noiseless" amplifier. By significantly reducing the uncertainty in delicate measurements of microwave signals, the new amplifier could boost the speed and precision of quantum computing and communications systems.
National Institute of Standards and Technology, National Science Foundation
Contact: Laura Ost
laura.ost@nist.gov
303-497-4880
National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST)
Public Release: 15-Oct-2008
Origin of Alps-size Antarctic mountain range unknown
A US-led, multinational team of scientists this month will investigate one of the Earth's last major unexplored places, using sophisticated airborne radar and ground-based seismologic tools to virtually peel away more than 2.5 miles of ice covering an Antarctic mountain range that rivals the Alps in elevation.
National Science Foundation
Contact: A'ndrea Elyse Messer
aem1@psu.edu
814-865-9481
Penn State
Public Release: 15-Oct-2008
Nature
'Fishapod' reveals origins of head and neck structures of first land animals
Newly exposed parts of Tiktaalik roseae, the intermediate fossil between fish and the first animals to walk out of water onto land, are revealing how this evolutionary event happened. The first detailed look at the internal head skeleton of Tiktaalik shows show how it was gaining structures that allowed it to support itself on solid ground and breathe air.
Private donors, Academy of Natural Sciences, Harvard University, University of Chicago, National Science Foundation, National Geographic Society Committee for Research and Exploration
Contact: John Easton
john.easton@uchospitals.edu
773-702-6241
University of Chicago Medical Center
Public Release: 15-Oct-2008
Nature
New study reveals details of evolutionary transition from fish to land animals
New research by scientists at the Academy of Natural Sciences provides the first detailed look at the internal head skeleton of Tiktaalik roseae, the 375-million-year-old fossil animal that represents an important intermediate step in the evolutionary transition from fish to animals that walked on land.
The study, published in the Oct. 16 issue of Nature shows that the transition from aquatic to terrestrial lifestyles involved complex changes not only to the appendages but also to the head skeleton.
Academy of Natural Sciences, Putnam Expeditionary Fund, University of Chicago, National Science Foundation, National Geographic Society Committee for Research and Exploration
Contact: Carolyn Belardo
belardo@ansp.org
215-299-1043
The Academy of Natural Sciences
Public Release: 14-Oct-2008
Single-pixel camera has multiple futures
A terahertz version of the single-pixel camera developed by Rice University researchers could lead to breakthrough technologies in security, telecom, signal processing and medicine.
National Science Foundation, NASA
Contact: David Ruth
druth@rice.edu
713-348-6327
Rice University
Public Release: 14-Oct-2008
INFORMS Annual Meeting
Model predicts a system's remaining life and links info to inventory decisions
Research presented at the INFORMS Annual Meeting describes an easier and more accurate method to predict the degradation and remaining useful life of mechanical and electronic equipment, while significantly improving maintenance operations and spare parts logistics.
National Science Foundation, US Navy, Rockwell Collins
Contact: Abby Vogel
avogel@gatech.edu
404-385-3364
Georgia Institute of Technology Research News
Public Release: 14-Oct-2008
Current Anthropology
Why do women get more cavities than men?
Reproduction pressures and rising fertility explain why women suffered a more rapid decline in dental health than did men as humans transitioned from hunter-and-gatherers to farmers and more sedentary pursuits, says a University of Oregon anthropologist.
Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, American Institute of Indian Studies, American Philosophical Society, L.S.B. Leakey Foundation, National Geographic Society, National Science Foundation, Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research
Contact: Jim Barlow
jebarlow@uoregon.edu
541-346-3481
University of Oregon
Public Release: 13-Oct-2008
Nano Letters
Strong elasticity size effects in ZnO nanowires
Researchers at the McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science at Northwestern University recently performed experiments and computations to resolve major existing discrepancies about the scaling of ZnO nanowires elastic properties. These properties are essential to the design of reliable novel ZnO devices, and the insight emerging from such studies advances scientific understanding about atomic structures, which are also responsible for piezo-electric and piezo-resistive properties.
National Science Foundation
Contact: Kyle Delaney
k-delaney@northwestern.edu
847-467-4010
Northwestern University
Public Release: 13-Oct-2008
PLoS
Florida's 'worm grunters' collect bait worms by inadvertently imitating mole sounds
Vanderbilt biologist Ken Catania has discovered the secret of "worm grunting" -- the Florida practice of driving a wooden stake into the ground and rubbing it with a long piece of steel to produce a grunting sounds that drives nearby earthworms to the surface where they can be collected for bait. The worm grunters are unknowingly mimicking the sounds that the worm's arch-enemy the mole causes while burrowing.
National Science Foundation, MacArthur Foundation
Contact: David F. Salisbury
salisbury107@bellsouth.net
615-353-6351
Vanderbilt University
Public Release: 13-Oct-2008
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
Researchers write protein nanoarrays using a fountain pen and electric fields
Most tools capable of patterning on the nanoscale were developed for the silicon microelectronics industry and cannot be used for soft and relatively sensitive biomaterials such as DNA and proteins. Now Northwestern University researchers have demonstrated the ability to rapidly write nanoscale protein arrays using a tool they call the nanofountain probe. The probe works much like a fountain pen, only on a much smaller scale, and the "ink" is the protein solution.
National Science Foundation
Contact: Megan Fellman
fellman@northwestern.edu
847-491-3115
Northwestern University
Public Release: 13-Oct-2008
Developmental Cell
Scientists trace molecular origin of proportional development
When it comes to embryo formation in the lowly fruit fly, a little molecular messiness actually leads to enhanced developmental precision, according to a study in the Oct. 14 Developmental Cell from Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center. The study provides new information about how cells choose their own fates, especially in maintaining the size relationship and proportionality of body parts during embryonic development.
National Institutes of Health, National Science Foundation, National Natural Science Foundation of China
Contact: Nick Miller
nicholas.miller@cchmc.org
513-803-6035
Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center
Public Release: 10-Oct-2008
UCSB center helps land $24M national center to study environmental impacts of nanotechnology
The Center for Nanotechnology in Society at the University of California at Santa Barbara helped to win the new University of California Center for the Environmental Implications of Nanotechnology, a five-year, $24 million center co-funded by the National Science Foundation and the US Environmental Protection Agency to study the environmental impacts of nanotechnology.
National Science Foundation, US Environmental Protection Agency
Contact: Valerie Walston
valerie@cns.ucsb.edu
805-403-8928
University of California - Santa Barbara
Public Release: 10-Oct-2008
PhysTEC addressing physics teacher shortage
US schools are struggling with severe shortages of physics teachers. The Physics Teacher Education Coalition is spearheading an effort to meet the demand for qualified science educators by tripling the output of K-12 physics teachers at more than a dozen colleges and universities.
National Science Foundation, American Physical Society
Contact: James Riordon
riordon@aps.org
301-919-2173
American Physical Society
Public Release: 10-Oct-2008
Iowa State researchers developing wireless soil sensors to improve farming
Iowa State University researchers are developing wireless soil sensors that could one day help farmers maximize their production while minimizing environmental impacts. The prototype sensors are designed to collect and send data about soil moisture -- and eventually soil temperature and nutrient content -- while working completely underground. Farmers and their equipment could work right over the top of them.
National Science Foundation
Contact: Ratnesh Kumar
rkumar@iastate.edu
515-294-8523
Iowa State University
Public Release: 10-Oct-2008
Nano Letters
Sensitive nanowire disease detectors made by Yale scientists
Yale scientists have created nanowire sensors coupled with simple microprocessor electronics that are both sensitive and specific enough to be used for point-of-care disease detection, according to a report in Nano Letters.
US Department of Defense, National Institutes of Health, US Department of Homeland Security, National Science Foundation
Contact: Janet Rettig Emanuel
janet.emanuel@yale.edu
203-432-2157
Yale University
Public Release: 10-Oct-2008
Making waves
The American Institute of Mathematics announces that Soundararajan and Roman Holowinsky have proven a significant version of the quantum unique ergodicity conjecture. Their work, based in the pure mathematics area of number theory, illuminates deep connections between classical and quantum physics in what is being hailed as one of the best theorems of the year.
National Science Foundation
Contact: J. Brian Conrey
conrey@aimath.org
650-845-2071
American Institute of Mathematics
Public Release: 9-Oct-2008
Physics of Fluid
Ripple effect: Water snails offer new propulsion possibilities
A UC San Diego engineer has revealed a new mode of propulsion based on how water snails create ripples of slime to crawl upside down beneath the surface.
National Science Foundation
Contact: Andrea Siedsma
asiedsma@soe.ucsd.edu
858-822-0899
University of California - San Diego
Public Release: 9-Oct-2008
Cerebral Cortex
Risk and reward compete in brain
Imaging study follows on previous lesion studies to pinpoint regions of brain involved in risk management: finds that individuals' response to risk and reward can be gauged from activity in two distinct brain regions.
National Science Foundation, NIH/National Institute on Drug Abuse
Contact: Carl Marziali
marziali@usc.edu
213-740-4751
University of Southern California
Public Release: 9-Oct-2008
Geophysical Research Letters
Wildfires cause ozone pollution to violate health standards, new study shows
Wildfires can boost ozone pollution to levels that violate US health standards. A new study by NCAR scientists found that California wildfires in 2007 tripled the number of ozone violations across a broad area.
National Science Foundation
Contact: David Hosansky
hosansky@ucar.edu
303-497-8611
National Center for Atmospheric Research/University Corporation for Atmospheric Research
Public Release: 9-Oct-2008
MIT's CarTel aims to reduce commute times, detect engine woes
Dozens of cars in the Boston area are testing the latest generation of an MIT mobile-sensor network for traffic analysis that could help drivers cut their commuting time, alert them to potential engine problems and more.
National Science Foundation, T-Party Project
Contact: Jen Hirsch
jfhirsch@mit.edu
617-253-1682
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Public Release: 9-Oct-2008
IEEE Transactions on Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence
Researchers teach computers to search for photos based on their contents
A new statistical approach that one day could make it easier to search the Internet for photographs has been given a patent. Its accuracy now is being improved with public participation. Called Automatic Linguistic Indexing of Pictures, the system works by teaching computers to recognize the contents of photographs rather than by searching for keywords in the surrounding text, as is done with most current image-retrieval systems.
National Science Foundation
Contact: Barbara K. Kennedy
science@psu.edu
814-863-4682
Penn State
Public Release: 9-Oct-2008
Science
Deep magma matters in volcanic eruption cycle
Although the Soufriere Hills volcano on Montserrat exhibits cycles of eruption and quiet, an international team of researchers found that magma is continuously supplied from deep in the crust but that a valve acts below a shallower magma chamber, releasing lava to the surface periodically.
National Science Foundation
Contact: A'ndrea Elyse Messer
aem1@psu.edu
814-865-9481
Penn State
Showing releases 1-25 out of 572 releases.
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