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.

Google Gadget Awards

If you’re a student with an email address ending in .edu, the Google Gadget Awards is your chance to win a Google programming competition – even if you’re not a programming ninja. If you’ve ever taken a web design class, you can probably create a gadget in a few minutes – no need to download anything or even own hosting space. Once you’ve submitted your gadget, people can add it to their Google homepage with a few mouse clicks.

Gagets are plugins for Google Desktop or code that run work on web pages. Apply by November 1st.

Google asks students for gadgets

Why the Frogs Are Dying

photo of blue poison frog

Why the Frogs Are Dying by Mac Margolis (photo is of a Blue Poison Frog):

A study by 75 scientists published earlier this year in the journal Nature estimated that two thirds of the 110 known species of harlequins throughout Central and South America have vanished. And that may be just the beginning.
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Scientists monitoring wildlife around the world are echoing Pounds’s research. Their conclusion: many more species will perish.

This article does a good job of discussing the interactions caused by global warming and the consequences to some animal species.

Innovative Science and Engineering Higher Education

CMU student with small robot

Popular Mechanics provides glimpses of 10 cutting-edge science and engineering programs in: 10 Radically Innovative College Programs. Of course Olin College is highlighted again, as they should be: Olin Engineering Education Experiment. They also spotlight: University of California, Irvine; Florida State University, Panama City; Rocky Mountain College of Art + Design; Tufts University; MIT, The Ohio State University; Louisiana State University; Art Center College of Design; and Carnegie Mellon University:

CMU’s Robotics Institute in Pittsburgh is the world’s biggest academic robotics research center. Undergrads minoring in the subject take courses such as Introduction to Robotics, in which the weekly homework assignment is to build LEGO robots demonstrating that week’s concepts. “If the robot works, they get their A,” says Howie Choset, who teaches the course. But the real fun happens in the research labs, where students work on projects such as a slithering snake robot for search-and-rescue missions.

Students also participate in a dazzling array of competitions, such as the RoboCup, which pits teams of Sony AIBO robot dogs against each other in soccer. The highlight of the year is probably the Mobot Races at the CMU Spring Carnival. “Mobot is more important than the football team,” Choset says.

Tour the Carnegie Mellon Robotics Lab. One theme I see is the focus on projects – versus learning things for a test. A good thing. I would imagine some might worry it is too fun and not enough reading books 🙂 I think students will learn far more from a well crafted experiential education system. But it is a challenge to put that together well. We will all benefit from those that attempt to do so now.
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Science and Engineering Degrees – Career Success

Fortune magazine has selected the 50 most powerful women in business and selected 4 rising stars. It is another example (granted just an anecdote) illustrating that science and engineering degrees can pave the way to career success (also see: Top degree for S&P 500 CEOs? Engineering).

Shona Brown, Senior Vice President, Business Operations, Google, has a bachelor of computer systems engineering degree from Carleton University in Canada and a master’s degree in economics and philosophy from Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar. She received her Ph.D. and Post-Doctorate from Stanford University’s Department of Industrial Engineering and Engineering Management. Our management blog mentioned her last month: Chaos Management (by design) at Google – and her book, Competing on the Edge: Strategy as Structured Chaos.

Adriane Brown, President and CEO, Transportation Systems, Honeywell. Degree: environmental health from Old Dominion University.

Padmasree Warrior, EVP, Chief Technology Officer, Motorola – “received a M.S. degree in chemical engineering from Cornell University, and a B.S. degree in chemical engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) in New Delhi, India.”
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Researcher Provides Undisclosed Data to FDA

Companies conduct medical studies and then provide their research to government authorities (the FDA in the USA) to receive approval to market the drugs. Medical studies are complicated, in the best of circumstances. But the financial pressure on companies to bias the results so that they gain approval can be great. There need to be vigorous enforcement to counter the danger of bias rising from the hope companies have for the drugs.

Harvard Researcher Forced Bayer to Give Drug Data

“It calls into question the honesty of Bayer and the honesty of the pharmaceutical industry in general,” says John Teerlink, director of the heart failure clinic at the San Francisco Veterans Affairs Medical Center.

“I think the public health has been harmed in two ways,” said Teerlink, who is a member of the FDA panel that met to review Trasylol. “One, we didn’t have complete information to make our decision. But secondly, it calls into question a process that all of us depend on.”

Alexander Walker, a professor at Harvard’s School of Public Health, told the FDA he conducted a study that analyzed the safety of Bayer’s Trasylol and which confirmed an earlier study that the drug increased the risk of kidney failure, heart attacks and strokes. Good job.

2006 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine

The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2006 goes to: Andrew Z. Fire and Craig C. Mello for their discovery of
RNA interference – gene silencing by double-stranded RNA.

This mechanism, RNA interference, is activated when RNA molecules occur as double-stranded pairs in the cell. Double-stranded RNA activates biochemical machinery which degrades those mRNA molecules that carry a genetic code identical to that of the double-stranded RNA. When such mRNA molecules disappear, the corresponding gene is silenced and no protein of the encoded type is made.

RNA interference occurs in plants, animals, and humans. It is of great importance for the regulation of gene expression, participates in defense against viral infections, and keeps jumping genes under control. RNA interference is already being widely used in basic science as a method to study the function of genes and it may lead to novel therapies in the future.

The Nobel Prize site also includes does a great job by including advanced information on this work.

Engineers Save Energy

Dr. Rosenfield - Fermi Award Winner

Arthur Rosenfeld the 2005 Enrico Fermi Award Winner which is the “government’s oldest award for scientific achievement” according to the Department of Energy. I question that, and on another page they say “one of the oldest…”

“Dr. Rosenfeld is one of the ‘founding fathers’ of energy efficiency, and the legacy of his research and policy work is an entire new energy efficiency sector of our economy, which now yields an astounding annual savings of around $100 billion, and growing.”
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Rosenfeld received his Ph.D. at the University of Chicago in 1954 and was Nobel Laureate Enrico Fermi’s last graduate student.
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In 1973, when OPEC embargoed oil sales to the West, Dr. Rosenfeld redirected his career. He recognized the potential for energy savings in the building sector, which uses one third of U.S. primary energy and two-thirds of our electricity. In 1975, he founded a program which grew into the Center for Building Science at DOE’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.
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The U.S. National Research Council (NRC) has estimated that energy efficiency improvements developed solely at DOE’s National Laboratories, saved the U.S. $30 billion between 1978 and 2000

Great stuff. Another great example of how much good scientists and engineers can do. And also a good reminder of the economic benefits that are less obvious – such as increasing energy efficiency.

Another Strike Against Cola

This is definately not the year of Cola. This summer has seen many stories on Drinking Soda and Obesity. High visability attempts to rid schools of Cola have grown. And now news that, Drinking cola may increase risk to women’s bones

A study of 2,500 people concluded that drinking the carbonated beverages was linked with low bone mineral density in three different hip sites in women, regardless of age, menopausal status, calcium and vitamin D intake and use of cigarettes or alcohol.

Similar results were seen for diet pop and less strongly for decaffeinated pop.

In men, there was no link with lower bone mineral density at the hip, and both sexes showed no link for the spine.

As with most medical studies one big conclusion from this study: more study is needed. While this may be frustrating it is still true, it is not easy to get a full picture of health effects, see: Medical Study Results Questioned. So from some results (with varying degrees of confidence) experts can give the best advice they can and seek to better understand the situation with more studies.

RI FIRST

Ocean State to enlist all high schools in robotics challenge

tarting next year, state officials say, students at all 67 of Rhode Island’s public, charter and career and technical high schools will have a chance to participate in the FIRST Vex Challenge, a robot-building competition. The announcement last week makes the Ocean State the first to involve all its public high schools in the challenge, which involves building a robot able to complete a specific set of tasks.
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Throughout the challenge, students must maintain an engineering notebook to track their progress, successes and challenges. During the build period, teams work as a group to brainstorm solutions, design a robot to do various tasks, and build and test their designs. The projects culminate in competitions designed to be fun, high-energy, sports-like events with judges and awards.

FIRST is an exciting program we have mentioned before: For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology (FIRST). Dean Kaman (R&D Magazine’s 2006 Innovator of the Year) founded the program and it continues to do a great job of capturing the natural desire for people to learn and create. Learn about regional events this school year.

UK Young Engineers Competitions

Young Engineers is a organization in the United Kingdom that supports engineering events and competitions. Established in 1984, in 2005 there were 1,100 active clubs with over 18,000 club members (36% female).

The site is packed with information on events and especially photos. See the Young Engineer for Britain Galleries and Robotic Games.