Author Archives: curiouscat

NSF TeraGrid

$150 Million TeraGrid Award Heralds New Era for Scientific Computing:

“We fully expect TeraGrid to catalyze the next generation of scientific discoveries,” said Deborah Crawford, acting director of NSF’s Office of Cyberinfrastructure. “Simply put, breakthrough science and engineering depends on a first-class cyberinfrastructure.”

Using Design to Reduce Medical Error

Wrist tags may stop drug errors

A wristband designed by a London-based design graduate could see hospital patients being tagged to ensure they are given the right medication.

While that like a decent idea I think an even better one is the redesign of the pill bottle. It seems like it would reduce errors but also seems fairly complex.

Target Unveils New Look for Prescription Pill Bottles: audio from NPR – includes a good photo of the improved bottle design.

New Pill Bottle Could Save Lives, MSNBC

The new bottle has a different color-coded band for every member of the family. All grandma’s bottles, for instance, could be coded green. The drug’s name and instructions for use are big and written on flat surfaces, instead of wrapped around a tiny bottle. Additional information about the drug is printed on a card that stays tucked in a space on the bottle, instead of a piece of paper often thrown away.

Target is using the new bottles starting this month and health safety experts hope other companies will adapt similar designs.

Science and Engineering Doctoral Degrees Worldwide

Lagging Engineer Degrees a Crisis by Kevin Hall:

Relative to the sizes of their populations, Asian nations are graduating five times as many undergraduate students in engineering as the United States. A study by Engineering Trends determined that the United States ranks 16th per capita in the number of doctoral graduates and 25th in engineering undergraduates per million citizens.
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U.S. universities continue awarding more doctoral degrees in engineering than universities anywhere else. But the American Association of Engineering Societies said foreign nationals received 58 percent of the U.S. doctoral degrees in engineering last year: 3,766 degrees out of 6,504. A decade earlier, they accounted for less than half.

I doubt that US universities are awarding more doctoral degrees than others are. Even if that is true I doubt it will last for even 5 more years. You might measure this in various ways including: absolute number of doctoral degrees awarded or using a per capita number. I believe several European countries are ahead today on a per capita basis. On an absolute basis I would be surprised if China or India isn’t already ahead. But if neither is, that will not true for long. I tried to find some good data online and wasn’t able to find anything certain in the time I took. Lost Dominance in Ph.D. Production sites a National Bureau of Economic Research report:
Continue reading →

Stanford Students Win $10,000 for Aneurysm Treatment

Stanford students win $10,000 for aneurysm treatment (sigh they removed the page – poor usability):

The students won the first Biomedical Engineering Innovation Design Award conducted by the National Collegiate Inventors and Innovators Alliance, an alliance of approximately 200 colleges and universities in the United States established in 1995 to encourage innovation and entrepreneurship in higher education.
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The Stanford team designed a porous balloon mechanism, which they named Embolune. To use the new invention, a surgeon navigates the balloon to the site of the aneurysm, where it is detached. A hardening polymer substance is then released into the aneurysm space to create a permanent clot and stifle further growth.

Pentagon’s New Goal: Put Science Into Scripts

Fewer and fewer students are pursuing science and engineering. While immigrants are taking up the slack in many areas, defense laboratories and industries generally require American citizenship or permanent residency. So a crisis is looming, unless careers in science and engineering suddenly become hugely popular, said Robert J. Barker, an Air Force program manager who approved the grant. And what better way to get a lot of young people interested in science than by producing movies and television shows that depict scientists in flattering ways?

Vast Community of Bacteria and Clams Under Antarctic Ice

Beneath Ice Shelf’s Remains, Life Blossoms from Washingtonpost.com

The area had been isolated under the ice for at least 10,000 years, and the discovery means that “the chance of life happening in other places that are even more restricted is increased,”
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The bacteria under the Larsen B ice shelf evolved in far colder conditions than other known cold-seep communities, thriving in near- or below-freezing temperatures, and may have unique properties.

Planting Trees May Create Deserts

Planting Trees May Create Deserts, New Scientist:

Forests planted with the intention of trapping moisture are instead depleting reservoirs and drying out soils.

Studying the actual results let us learn what actually happens. Making decisions using the best available information at the time is what we must do. But then we need to study what happens. See, previous post on: Medical Study Results Questioned.

Science and Engineering Fellowships Legislation

Senators will propose legislation to spur innovation from InfoWorld:

John Ensign, a Nevada Republican, Joseph Lieberman, a Connecticut Democrat with support announced by four other senators will propose legislation that establishes 5,000 science and engineering fellowships, redirects 3 percent of government agency R&D spending to specific areas of research and provides automatic green cards for graduate engineering students, the senators said Wednesday.

And on the same topic, Senators Promise ‘Brain Drain’ Bill:

According to Sen. George Allen (R-Va.), the U.S. is averaging 50,000 engineering graduates a year, with 40 percent of those from overseas. India is averaging 150,000 engineering graduates a year while China is graduating 250,000 engineers every year.

Medical Study Results Questioned

Third of study results don’t hold up (cnn broke the link so I removed it);

in a review of major studies published in three influential medical journals between 1990 and 2003, including 45 highly publicized studies that initially claimed a drug or other treatment worked.

Subsequent research contradicted results of seven studies — 16 percent — and reported weaker results for seven others, an additional 16 percent.

The scientific community will gain once the barriers to the flow of knowledge created by subscription sites. We would link to the actual study but it is not available – it is behind a subscription wall. Support the adoption of the Public Library of Science and the Public Library of Medicine.

The Mysteries of Mass

The Mysteries of Mass (bozos at Scientific American broke the page so I removed the link – poor usability):

Physicists are hunting for an elusive particle that would reveal the presence of a new kind of field that permeates all of reality. Finding that Higgs field will give us a more complete understanding about how the universe works.