Category Archives: Students

Items for students and others, interested in learning about science and engineering and the application of science in our lives. We post many of the general interest items here.

CERN Pressure Test Failure

photo of Femilab inner triplet quadrupole at CERN

On March 27th a high-pressure test at CERN of a Fermilab-built ‘inner-triplet’ series of three quadrupole magnets in the tunnel of the Large Hadron Collider failed. Fermilab Director on the test failure:

We test the complex features we design thoroughly. In this case we are dumbfounded that we missed some very simple balance of forces. Not only was it missed in the engineering design but also in the four engineering reviews carried out between 1998 and 2002 before launching the construction of the magnets. Furthermore even though every magnet was thoroughly tested individually, they were never tested with the exact configuration that they would have when installed at CERN–thus missing the opportunity to discover the problem sooner.

We need and want to make sure that we find the root causes of the problem and from the lessons learned build a stronger institution. Beyond that, there is no substitute for the commitment each of us makes to excellence, to critical thinking and to sweating every detail.

In a Fermilab Update on Inner Triplet Magnets at LHC they state: “The goal at CERN and Fermilab is now to redesign and repair the inner triplet magnets and, if necessary, the DFBX without affecting the LHC start-up schedule. Teams at CERN and Fermilab have identified potential repairs that could be carried out expeditiously without removing undamaged triplet magnets from the tunnel.”

Climate Change Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability

Climate Change 2007: Climate Change Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change – summary (pdf) [the broken link has been removed]

Related articles: International report details impact of global warming [the broken link has been removed] – Climate change around the world – U.S., China Got Climate Warnings Toned Down – Permanent drought predicted for Southwest [paywall added so the broken link has been removed]

Solar Power Innovation: 10 Times Cheaper needs 10 Times less Sun

Dr Wayne CampbellTaking nature’s cue for cheaper solar power (site broke link so I removed it):

Solar cell technology developed by the University’s Nanomaterials Research Centre will enable New Zealanders to generate electricity from sunlight at a 10th of the cost of current silicon-based photo-electric solar cells.
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Dr Campbell says that unlike the silicon-based solar cells currently on the market, the 10x10cm green demonstration cells generate enough electricity to run a small fan in low-light conditions – making them ideal for cloudy climates. The dyes can also be incorporated into tinted windows that trap to generate electricity.

He says the green solar cells are more environmentally friendly than silicon-based cells as they are made from titanium dioxide – a plentiful, renewable and non-toxic white mineral obtained from New Zealand’s black sand. Titanium dioxide is already used in consumer products such as toothpaste, white paints and cosmetics.

“The refining of pure silicon, although a very abundant mineral, is energy-hungry and very expensive. And whereas silicon cells need direct sunlight to operate efficiently, these cells will work efficiently in low diffuse light conditions,” Dr Campbell says. “The expected cost is one 10th of the price of a silicon-based solar panel, making them more attractive and accessible to home-owners.” The Centre’s new director, Professor Ashton Partridge, says they now have the most efficient porphyrin dye in the world and aim to optimise and improve the cell construction and performance before developing the cells commercially.

Solar Flares May Threaten GPS

Solar Bursts May Threaten GPS (site broke link so I removed it):

The cause for their concern, Johnson said, was an unexpected solar radio burst on Dec. 6 that affected virtually every GPS receiver on the lighted half of Earth. Some receivers had a reduction in accuracy while others completely lost the ability to determine position, he said.
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And protecting the system is no simple task, added Paul M. Kintner Jr., a professor of electrical engineering at Cornell University, who monitored the December event. There are two possible ways to shield the system, he said, both very expensive. Either alter all GPS antennas to screen out solar signals or replace all of the GPS satellites with ones that broadcast a stronger signal.

That’s why it’s essential to learn more about the sun’s behavior quickly in an effort to find ways to predict such events, the researchers said. In addition to the GPS system, the December solar flare affected satellites and induced unexpected currents in the electrical grid, Johnson said.
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Dale E. Gary, chairman of the physics department of the New Jersey Institute of Technology, said the burst produced 10 times more radio noise than any burst previously recorded.

Related: Solar Storms – Solar Eruption Photo

Science Journalism

Don’t dumb me down by Ben Goldacre:

Science stories usually fall into three families: wacky stories, scare stories and “breakthrough” stories.

Last month there was an interesting essay in the journal PLoS Medicine, about how most brand new research findings will turn out to be false. It predictably generated a small flurry of ecstatic pieces from humanities graduates in the media, along the lines of science is made-up, self-aggrandising, hegemony-maintaining, transient fad nonsense; and this is the perfect example of the parody hypothesis that we’ll see later. Scientists know how to read a paper. That’s what they do for a living: read papers, pick them apart, pull out what’s good and bad.

Scientists never said that tenuous small new findings were important headline news – journalists did.

Interesting read, if a bit harsh, it serves to highlight real problems. There are good sources such as: Seed, National Geographic, Knight Science Journalism Tracker, PLoS, Scienceblogs -see more in our science links directory.

$500 Million to Reduce Childhood Obesity in USA

$500-Million Commitment to Reverse Childhood Obesity in U.S.:

The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) today announced it will commit at least $500 million over the next five years to tackle one of the most urgent public health threats facing our nation: childhood obesity. This is the largest commitment by any foundation to this issue. The Foundation’s goal is to reverse the epidemic of childhood obesity in the United States by 2015.

During the past four decades, obesity rates have soared among all age groups, more than quadrupling among children ages 6 to 11. Today, more than 33 percent of children and adolescents—approximately 25 million kids—are overweight or obese.
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In addition to the toll on our nation’s health, obesity also poses a tremendous financial threat to our economy and our health care system. It’s estimated that the obesity epidemic costs our nation $117 billion per year in direct health care costs and lost productivity. Childhood obesity alone carries a huge price tag-up to $14 billion per year in direct health care costs to treat kids.
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The Foundation will focus on improving access to affordable healthy foods and opportunities for safe physical activity in schools and communities.

Fellowship Winners

Several fellowships and scholarships have announced winners for this year:

NSF Graduate Research Fellowships
Department of Defense (NDSEG) Fellowships – no online list of winners yet
Marshall Scholarships (link broken, so removed)
Google Anita Borg Memorial Scholarship – blog announcement

As I have mentioned before I work for ASEE (which manages the NSF and NDSEG fellowships): this blog is my personal blog and is not associated with ASEE.

Find out more about these and other science and engineering fellowships and scholarships. Also see: How to Win a Graduate Fellowship – NSF Undergraduate STEM Scholarships

Ranking Universities Worldwide

The Webometrics Ranking of World Universities provides another estimate of the top universities. The methodology is far ideal however I still find it interesting. The various attempts to rank schools can provide a general idea of impact of various institutions (though the measures are fairly crude). Still a sensible picture (especially at the country level) can emerge. And the various rankings should be a able to track shifts in the most influential institutions and relative country strength over time. How quickly those rankings track changes will vary depending on the measures used. I would imagine most will lag the “real” changes as it is easy to imagine many measures that would lag. Still, as I have said before, I expect the USA will lose in relative ranking compared to China, India, Japan, Singapore, Mexico…

The ranking methodology used here weighed rankings in: Jiao Tong academic rankings, Essential Science Indicators, Google Scholar, Alexa (a measure of web site visits to universities) and The Times Higher World University Rankings.

Country representation of the top universities (number of top schools in each country):

location	Webometrics Top 100	Jiao Tong Top 101	% of World Population	% of World GDP*
USA	53	54	4.6%	30.4%
Germany	10	5	1.3	6.3
Canada	8	4	0.5	2.5
United Kingdom	6	10	0.9	5.0
Australia	3	2	0.3	1.6
Japan	1	6	2.0	10.3
The rest of Europe	16	13
Brazil	1	0	2.8	1.8
Mexico	1	0	1.6	1.7
Israel	0	1	0.1	0.3

* IMF, World Economic Outlook Database, September 2006 (2005 data)
Continue reading →

Lead the Way – Cleveland

Project Lead the Way introduces students to engineering (site broke the link so I removed it – poor usability):

Project Lead The Way offers hands-on curriculum to allow students a taste of the creativity, variety, teamwork and possibilities engineering fields are offering. The course teaches students the key elements and skills of engineering and technology-based careers.
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“In the five years we’ve had this program, we went from 20 to over 300 students,” he said. “Our goal is gender equity. We want to see more diversity. We started out with two females five years ago. Now we’re about 28 percent female. We’re seeing more African Americans and more Asians coming in.”

Big Atlantic Sharks Disappearing, Study Warns

Tiger Shark

Big Atlantic sharks disappearing, study warns (phb broke link so I removed it):

Humans, mainly those in countries with a craving for shark-fin soup, have devoured so many of the oceans’ top predators that it has rattled the length of the marine food chain, according to a study to be published today in the prestigious journal Science. While previous studies have calculated declines by half or more, this one argues that seven of the largest sharks along the Atlantic Coast have all but vanished because of overfishing — down as much as 99 percent for bull, dusky and smooth hammerheads over the last 35 years.
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The study’s premise: As larger sharks disappeared, smaller ones and rays, both often prey, exploded over the same period. One in particular, the cownose ray, perpetuated to the point that by 2004 it gulped down much of the scallop population in Chesapeake Bay. ”I think that’s just the tip of an iceberg,” Fordham said. “There are so many connections we don’t understand. Sharks keep the oceans in balance.”

Photo by Jim Winstead