Author Archives: curiouscat

Building Nanotechnological Structures

New Nanotechnological Structures Reported for the First Time by Alex Lyda, Columbia News:

“You can think of nanocrystals as building blocks like the toy Lego, in which a larger structure can be assembled by locking in the pieces according to their shape and the way they prefer to join to each other,” O’Brien says. “Except all of this is on an incredibly small lengthscale — billionths of a meter.”

The Columbia/IBM team has borrowed ideas from the natural world, in which the right conditions can stimulate the slow growth of highly uniform structures out of miniature building blocks. Opals are an example of this phenomenon: opals consist of tiny spherical building blocks of silica packed into an ordered structure. In this new research, the materials used as building blocks are a variety of man-made nanocrystals with known useful magnetic or electronic properties.

“This work may lead to the development of an entirely new class of multifunctional materials in which there are cooperative interactions between the nanocrystal components,” says MRSEC director Irving P. Herman, also a professor of applied physics. “Moreover, the properties of these nanocrystals can be tailored during synthesis, and they can be deposited to form the desired ordered array by controlling particle charge and other properties. O’Brien’s study also demonstrates the value of vibrant collaborations between universities and industry.”

Video: Magnetic and Semiconducting Nanocrystals Can Self-Assemble, Says Stephen O’Brien, Columbia University

Math in the “Real World”

Math Will Rock Your World cover story in Business Week:

From fledglings like Inform to tech powerhouses such as IBM (IBM ), companies are hitching mathematics to business in ways that would have seemed fanciful even a few years ago. In the past decade, a sizable chunk of humanity has moved its work, play, chat, and shopping online. We feed networks gobs of digital data that once would have languished on scraps of paper — or vanished as forgotten conversations. These slices of our lives now sit in databases, many of them in the public domain. From a business point of view, they’re just begging to be analyzed. But even with the most powerful computers and abundant, cheap storage, companies can’t sort out their swelling oceans of data, much less build businesses on them, without enlisting skilled mathematicians and computer scientists.

Amber’s Science Talent Search Blog

Photo, left to right: Erika Ammons, Intel; Amanda Berry; Dr. A. J. Galindo, teacher at my school; Amber Hess; Tami Casey, Intel.

Amber’s 2005 Intel Science Talent Search Blog. Today the 300 semifinalist for 2006 were announced. Amber’s blog recounts her experience in 2005.

The CNN broadcast aired today. I was on NewsNight with Aaron Brown. They did a great job with me in a segment that lasted about three minutes, although they showed stock footage that included microscope images of chromosomes while we were discussing my project. They were either alluding to the genetic differences between women and men (I don’t think so), or they thought that “chromatography” and “chromosomes” were similar. Not really, but whatever! Nonetheless, I am mad at CNN right now because they didn’t show very much of Amanda. I think something “important” also aired that day, and they needed more room for it, so they cut her out. Bleah…but I am happy that they did not make me look stupid. All of this has been really exciting!

Also see, Amber Hess’ 2005 Intel International Science and Engineering Fair Blog

Intel Science Talent Search Semifinalists

Intel Science Talent Search Semifinalists Named

300 teens have been named semifinalists in the Intel Science Talent Search (Intel STS). The Intel STS is America’s oldest, most highly regarded pre-college science competition and heir to more than six decades of science excellence. View a list of the semifinalists.

The Intel Foundation will award $1,000 to each semifinalist with a matching amount going to their schools. Intel implemented the school award in 2000 and since then has contributed more than $2 million to help improve math and science in U.S. high schools.

Over the past 65 years, STS alumni have received more than 100 of the world’s most coveted science and math honors including six Nobel Prizes, three National Medals of Science, 10 MacArthur Foundation Fellowships, and two Fields Medals.

This year’s semifinalists were selected from 1,558 entrants representing 486 high schools in 44 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands and an overseas school. Their research projects cover all disciplines of science including biochemistry, chemistry, physics, mathematics, engineering, behavioral science and medicine and health. Students range in age from 15 to 18 with females representing 53 percent of the total entrants.

More than 100 top scientists from a variety of disciplines review and judge all Intel STS entries and examine each individual’s research ability, scientific originality and creative thinking. From these 300 semifinalists, 40 finalists will be announced on Jan. 25. These students will take an all-expense-paid trip to Washington, D.C. to attend the Intel Science Talent Institute. There they will participate in final judging and compete for college scholarships totaling more than $500,000. Winners will be selected based on rigorous judging sessions and announced at a black-tie banquet on March 14.

Science Service is the nonprofit organization which has administered the Science Talent Search since its inception in 1942. The mission of Science Service is to advance the understanding and appreciation of science. In addition to its education programs, Science Service publishes the weekly magazine Science News.

Filling the Engineering Gap

Filling the Engineering Gap by Vivek Wadhwa, an update on the previous post: USA Under-counting Engineering Graduates. In this article Vivek Wadhwa writes:

So what should be done? Further research is needed on a subject of such critical national importance. The Duke study was a small step toward establishing certain baseline facts and reliable statistics. As Professor Ausubel notes, if a team of engineering students can accomplish so much within a semester, why not the experts and analysts?

This is exactly right. We need better information. The Duke study was an excellent step in the right direction but more is needed.

Dynamic engineers develop renewable energy sources, solutions for purifying water, sustaining the environment, providing low-cost health care, and vaccines for infectious diseases. They also manage projects and lead innovation. Talk to any CEO, CIO, or engineering manager, and they’ll likely tell you that they’re always looking for such people.

With all the problems that need solving in the world, we probably need many more dynamic engineers. India and China need them as badly as the U.S. does. But by simply focusing on the numbers and racing to graduate more, we’re going to end up with more transactional engineers — and their jobs will likely get outsourced.

I am not convinced that this dynamic versus transactional engineering distinction is the key. I am willing to listen to more evidence. But I am not at all sure this “dynamic engineering” is the answer. I think it might be too simplistic an explanation. Still at least it is an attempt to look at the matter more deeply. I think much more effort would be helpful. And I am hoping those working on this at Duke, and others, provide us with some additional data, research, theories and proposals.

Google 2006 Anita Borg Scholarship

Google 2006 Anita Borg Scholarship for female computer science and computer engineering students.

A group of female undergraduate and graduate student finalists will be chosen from the applicant pool. The scholarship recipients, selected from the finalists, will each receive a $10,000 scholarship for the 2006-2007 academic year.

Eligibility:
* be entering their senior year of undergraduate study or be enrolled in a graduate program in 2006 – 2007 at a university in the United States.
* be Computer Science, Computer Engineering, or related technical field majors.
* be enrolled in full-time study in 2006 – 2007.
* maintain a cumulative GPA of at least 3.5 on a 4.0 scale or 4.5 on a 5.0 scale or equivalent in their current program.

“Last year we awarded 23 scholarships; this year we’d like to do more.”

Apply – Deadline: 20 Jan 2006

Symbiotic relationship between ants and bacteria

Study reveals classic symbiotic relationship between ants, bacteria

Ants that tend and harvest gardens of fungus have a secret weapon against the parasites that invade their crops: antibiotic-producing bacteria that the insects harbor on their bodies.

“Every ant species [that we have examined] has different, highly modified structures to support different types of bacteria,” says Currie. “This indicates the ants have rapidly adapted to maintain the bacteria. It also indicates that the co-evolution between the bacteria and the ants, as well as the fungus and parasites, has been occurring since very early on, apparently for tens of millions of years.”

Furthermore, Currie says, the fact that the species have coexisted for so long means there might be a mechanism in place to decrease the rate of antibiotic resistance – which could help address a significant problem facing modern medicine. “We can learn a lot about our own use of antibiotics from this system,” he says.

Read more about the overuse of antibiotics

Oregon and Arizona Technology Economies

Ore. growing into tech rival, Jane Larson, The Arizona Republic:

The “Silicon Forest,” with barely two-thirds the population of the “Silicon Desert,” surpassed Arizona in 2003 as the nation’s third-largest state for semiconductor manufacturing jobs. The world’s biggest chip manufacturer, California-based Intel Corp., has grown from a few hundred employees at its Oregon outpost in the mid-1970s to become Oregon’s largest private employer.
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In Oregon, Intel has three chip-making plants and 15,500 employees. Its Ronler Acres campus in Hillsboro, started in 1994, has become the company’s largest and most complex site, with research into technologies still generations away; an experimental factory dedicated to developing the company’s new manufacturing processes; and a more traditional high-volume manufacturing plant.

The site is so cutting edge that, of the 14 Intel manufacturing plants worldwide, Oregon is where new manufacturing technologies are developed and rolled out to Arizona, New Mexico and other locations…

Mixing researchers, developers and manufacturing technicians in one location has proved powerful. Skywalks connect Ronler Acres’ research lab to its development factory and high-volume plant. That enables the various groups and Intel vendors to work side by side, screening new ideas, ramping them to the point where Intel knows it can produce good yields and then transferring the process to the high-volume factories.

“It’s one of the most amazing facilities anywhere in the world, and the leading research, development and manufacturing site of any semiconductor company,” Bob Baker, senior vice president and general manager of Intel’s Technology and Manufacturing Group, told the summit. “It brings together the unique aspects of our path-finding, our research and development and our volume manufacturing capacity.”
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Both states still worry about shoring up their kindergarten-through-12th-grade education systems. Arizona, though, has the edge when it comes to engineering schools, the graduates of which feed the industry in both states.

Indian Institute of Technology Madras Engineering Festival

Shaastra 2005 – the spirit of engineering – ITT Madras, India. The main sponsor of the event was SAP, co-sponsors Google and GE, the media sponsor was the Hindu Express. One more indication of how international the world has become.

Spread over a period of five days in the month of October, Shaastra is a veritable engineer’s paradise where fervent enthusiasts participate in intense contests, witness spectacular demonstrations, assimilate world-class lectures, avail of informative workshops and do much more.

Chennai online article on Shaastra:

Competitions are the mainstay of Shaastra, but most competitions here are hands-on, requiring participants to actually create something using their engineering skill to meet particular objectives. This time, participants can try their hand at making missiles to hit a particular target or make programs to hack into a secure system. For the first time, a competition especially for inventors – students will have to create hardware design to solve any real life problem…this could be anything, from the mundane (automatic back scratchers) to the sophisticated (jet propelled race cars!).

The ethos of IIT has always been to engineer for society. Shaastra takes up the cudgels for the less favoured by encouraging engineering design solutions to real life problems posed by the National Innovation Foundation (NIF) which encourages invention in the rural areas to target local difficulties. Winners of the ‘Engenious’ competition will even be funded by NIF to get their product in a marketable form!

DNA Offers New Insight Concerning Cat Evolution

DNA Offers New Insight Concerning Cat Evolution, Nicholas Wade, New York Times:

Before DNA, taxonomists had considerable difficulty in classifying the cat family. The fossil record was sparse and many of the skulls lacked distinctiveness. One scheme divided the family into Big Cats and Little Cats. Then, in 1997, Dr. Johnson and Dr. O’Brien said they thought most living cats fell into one of eight lineages, based on the genetic element known as mitochondrial DNA.

Having made further DNA analyses, the researchers have drawn a full family tree that assigns every cat species to one of the lineages. They have also integrated their tree, which is based solely on changes in DNA, with the fossil record. The fossils, which are securely dated, allow dates to be assigned to each fork in the genetic family tree.
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The leopard lineage appeared around 6.5 million years ago in Asia. The youngest of the eight lineages, which led eventually to the domestic cat, emerged some 6.2 million years ago in Asia and Africa, either from ancestors that had never left Asia or more probably from North American cats that had trekked back across the Bering land bridge.

Photos from Curious Cat Travel Photos – Kenya