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.

Designed Experiments

One-Factor-at-a-Time Versus Designed Experiments by Veronica Czitrom:

The advantages of designed experiments over [One Factor at a Time] OFAT experiments are illustrated using three real engineering OFAT experiments, and showing how in each case a designed experiment would have been better. This topic is important because many scientists and engineers continue to perform OFAT experiments.

I still remember, as a child, asking what my father was going to be teaching the company he was going to consult with for a few days. He said he was going to teach them about using designed factorial experiments. I said, but you explained that to me and I am just a kid? How can you be teaching adults that? Didn’t they learn it in school? The paper provides some examples showing why OFAT experimentation is not as effective as designed multi-factor experiments.

NASA Tests Robots at Meteor Crater

John Hunter at Meteor Crater

NASA Auditions Robots for Lunar Exploration Missions

Arizona’s famous Meteor Crater is a long way from the Moon. But for a menagerie of intelligent robots hoping to earn supporting roles in NASA’s lunar exploration plans, the massive impact crater west of Flagstaff is center stage.

In September, several such robots and an autonomous Moon buggy called Scout were put through their paces in the rough desert terrain. During a two-week campaign conducted by NASA’s Desert Research and Technology Studies team — a collection of government, university and industry scientists and engineers known as the Desert Rats — the robots demonstrated their ability to work side-by-side with space-suited researchers, helping with the kinds of tasks that actual astronauts will have to perform as they begin exploring the Moon and establishing outposts.

The photo shows me at Meteor Crater. I visited it, and some other sites in Arizona, a few years ago. It is interesting but hardly seems that amazing to me More travel photos: Glacier National Park, Kenya, Rocky Mountain National Park, New York City.

13 things that do not make sense

13 things that do not make sense by Michael Brooks discusses such things as dark matter, the horizon problem and the placebo effect:

Don’t try this at home. Several times a day, for several days, you induce pain in someone. You control the pain with morphine until the final day of the experiment, when you replace the morphine with saline solution. Guess what? The saline takes the pain away.

NSF Undergraduate STEM Scholarships

NSF Undergraduate Scholarships in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (S-STEM).

“This program makes grants to institutions of higher education to support scholarships for academically talented, financially needy students, enabling them to enter the workforce following completion of an associate, baccalaureate, or graduate level degree in science and engineering disciplines. Grantee institutions are responsible for selecting scholarship recipients, reporting demographic information about student scholars, and managing the S-STEM project at the institution.” Students apply directly to the school.

Related: July post on this program (applications are taken each semester) – More science and engineering fellowships and grants

Tree of Life

Tree of Life (showing 3,000 species, based on rRNA sequences), from the University of Texas. Humans are shown in the upper left “you are here.” I must admit this graphic doesn’t quite work for me but I figure some people might like it.

More Nutritious Wheat

A wheat gene, now present but inactive, could boost nutrition if it were active. Wheat’s lost gene helps nutrition

The gene occurs naturally in wheat, but has largely been silenced during the evolution of domestic varieties. Researchers found evidence that turning it back on could raise levels of the nutrients in wheat grains.

Writing in the journal Science, they suggest that new varieties with a fully functioning gene can be created through cross-breeding with wild wheat. “Wheat is one of the world’s major crops, providing approximately one-fifth of all calories consumed by humans,”
…
“This experiment confirmed that this single gene was responsible for all these changes.”

The researchers deduced that the reverse process – enhancing GPC-B1 activity – ought to produce plants which have higher levels of these nutrients in their grains and mature faster. The UC Davis team is already making such varieties, not by genetic engineering but through crossing domesticated wheat plants with wild relatives.

Report on Use of Online Science Resources

The Internet as a Resource for News and Information about Science (pdf) from the Pew Internet & American Life Project:

“40 million Americans rely on the internet as their primary source for news and information about science,” second to TV.

Another interesting piece of data: “59% of Americans have been to some sort of science museum in
the past year.” I find this unlikely but… That rises to79% for those that have visited a science website.

The respondents also reported extremely positives views of science, such as (see page 26-28):
To be a strong society, the United States needs to be competitive in science 39% strongly agree 50% agree 8% disagree 1% strongly disagree
Developments in science help make society better 31% 58% 8% 1%
Scientific research is essential to improving the quality of human lives 35% 56% 7% 1%
Science creates more problems than solutions for us and our planet 3% 19% 52% 19%

H5N1 Influenza Evolution and Spread

H5N1 Influenza – Continuing Evolution and Spread from the New England Journal of Medicine:

The current H5N1 virus is apparently not well “fitted” to replication in humans, although the genetic makeup of a small proportion of humans supports attachment and replication of the virus, if not its transmission. The specific receptor for the current avian influenza virus ({alpha}2-3 sialic acid) is found deep in the respiratory tract of humans
…
Clearly, we must prepare for the possibility of an influenza pandemic. If H5N1 influenza achieves pandemic status in humans – and we have no way to know whether it will – the results could be catastrophic.

National Defense Science and Engineering Graduate Fellowship

The National Defense Science and Engineering Graduate Fellowship (NDSEG) pays the fellow’s full tuition and required fees (not to include room and board). In addition, fellows receive a stipend for 12-month tenures. The stipend levels for each of the 12-month tenures are as follows:
Period First Year Second Year Third Year
Amount $30,500 $31,000 $31,500

From 2003 to 2006, 656 awards were granted out of 10,593 applications. Applicaitons must be submitted by January 8, 2007.

Awards provided to applicants who will pursue a doctoral degree in, or closely related to (see web site for full list):

* Aeronautical and Astronautical Engineering
* Chemical Engineering
* Computer and Computational Sciences
* Electrical Engineering
* Materials Science and Engineering
* Mathematics
* Mechanical Engineering
* Oceanography
* Physics

Using Viruses to Construct Electrodes and More

She harnesses viruses to make things

Manufacturing was once the province of human hands, then of machines. Angela Belcher, professor of materials science and engineering and biological engineering at MIT, has pushed manufacturing in another, much smaller, direction: Her lab has genetically engineered viruses that can construct useful objects like electrodes and wires.
…
Her lab employed this method to form an electrode that can be used in a lithium ion battery like the rechargeable ones used in electronics. The result looks like an innocuous length of celluloid tape, the sort you could use to wrap a package.

“It’s self-assembled,” says Belcher. “The viruses make these materials at room temperature.” So there’s little pollution.
…
Belcher hopes to be making prototypes within the next two years. “Actual devices are five to 10 years off.”