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.

Backyard Scientists Aid Research

Backyard scientists use Web to catalog species, aid research

When a scientist caught onto her efforts, Jirachareonkul and a friend assembled about 20 volunteers — a group she calls the “Toad NUTS” — to collect data on the endangered Western Leopard Toad. The information they collect is being used in scientific research.
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At a time when climate change and urbanization are poised to set off a new wave of extinction, some members of the scientific community are turning toward backyard biologists for the data they need to monitor ecosystems and protect struggling species.
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Project BudBurst, out of Boulder, Colorado, aims to collect so much amateur data about plant species that scientists will be able to tell how climate change is altering the seasons in North America.
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Technology is amplifying this passion for citizen science, which has been around since scientists started cataloging species. Researchers at several universities are working on iPhone applications and computer programs that could analyze digital photos of plant leaves and automatically identify the plant’s species.
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The relationship between formal science and citizen science is similar to that between professional news reporters and bloggers; some scientists worry that the information coming in from nonprofessionals will be inaccurate, said John Musinsky, a senior director at Conservation International.

Great stuff. And you can get involved if you want. Just follow the links or search around the internet to find projects that interest you. These projects can be great ways to get kids involved in science.

The Million Dollar Programming Prize

One of the main areas of collaborative filtering we exploited is the nearest-neighbor approach. A movie’s “neighbors” in this context are other movies that tend to be scored most similarly when rated by the same viewer. For example, consider Saving Private Ryan (1998), a war movie directed by Steven Spielberg and starring Tom Hanks. Its neighbors may include other war movies, movies directed by Spielberg, or movies starring Tom Hanks. To predict a particular viewer’s rating, we would look for the nearest neighbors to Saving Private Ryan that the viewer had already seen and rated. For some viewers, it may be easy to find a full allotment of close neighbors; for many others, we may discover only a handful of neighboring movies.
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A second area of collaborative-filtering research we pursued involves what are known as latent-factor models. These score both a given movie and a given viewer according to a set of factors, themselves inferred from patterns in the ratings given to all the movies by all the viewers [see illustration, “The Latent-Factor Approach“]. Factors for movies may measure comedy versus drama, action versus romance, and orientation to children versus orientation to adults. Because the factors are determined automatically by algorithms, they may correspond to hard-to-describe concepts such as quirkiness, or they may not be interpretable by humans at all.
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The model may use 20 to 40 such factors to locate each movie and viewer in a multidimensional space. It then predicts a viewer’s rating of a movie according to the movie’s score on the dimensions that person cares about most. We can put these judgments in quantitative terms by taking the dot (or scalar) product of the locations of the viewer and the movie.
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We found that most nearest-neighbor techniques work best on 50 or fewer neighbors, which means these methods can’t exploit all the information a viewer’s ratings may contain. Latent-factor models have the opposite weakness: They are bad at detecting strong associations among a few closely related films, such as The Lord of the Rings trilogy (2001–2003).

Because these two methods are complementary, we combined them, using many versions of each in what machine-learning experts call an ensemble approach. This allowed us to build systems that were simple and therefore easy to code and fast to run.

Interesting article. See some other posts on challenge prizes.

Read: posts on programing – Problems Programming Math – Programmers (comic)

Using Barn Owls for Bilogical Pest Control in Israel

Using Barn Owls (Tyto alba erlangeri) For Biological Pest Control In Israel

Agricultural pests come in all forms, but worldwide it is small mammals, mostly rodents, that are responsible for the destruction of about 35% of the total world agriculture. To combat rodents, farmers use rodenticides. However, these pesticides are relatively ineffective as they are short-lived
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During the late 1960’s, hundreds of birds of prey (some of them threatened and endangered species) were killed throughout Israel from secondary poisoning after eating rodents that had been poisoned with rodenticides.
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Once farmers grasp the concept that their ‘winged’ neighbours can help to solve rodent damage if they stop using poisons, Barn Owls and Kestrels will be able to rise to the occasion and control rodents. By living in harmony, both farmers and these birds will be able to benefit from living in co-existence. As we are just beginning to understand the power of nature we realise its many economic benefits, even in modern times. As Barn Owls and Kestrels truly know no boundaries, they not only solve economic problems, but are also bringing peoples together. This is very much needed in the Middle East.

Great stuff.

Tiny Machine Commands a Swarm of Bacteria

Researchers in Canada have created a solar-powered micro-machine that is no bigger than the period at the end of this sentence. The tiny machine can carry out basic sensing tasks and can indirectly control the movement of a swarm of bacteria in the same Petri dish.

Sylvain Martel, Director of the NanoRobotics Laboratory at the Ã‰cole Polytechnique de MontrÃ©al, previously showed a way to control bacteria attached to microbeads using an MRI machine. His new micro-machine, which measure 300×300 microns and carry tiny solar panels, will be presented this week at ICRA ’09 in Japan.

On such a small device there is little room for batteries, sensors or transmitters. So the solar cell on top delivers power, sending an electric current to both a sensor and a communication circuit. The communication component sends tiny electromagnetic pulses that are detected by an external computer.

The sensor meanwhile detects surrounding pH levels–the higher the pH concentration, the faster the electromagnetic pulses emitted by the micro-machine. The external computer uses these signals to direct a swarm of about 3,000 magnetically-sensitive bacteria, which push the micro-machine around as it pulses. The bacteria push the micro-machine closer to the higher pH concentrations and change its direction if it pulses too slowly. This is more practical than trying to attach the bacteria onto the micro-machines, says Martel, since the bacteria only have a lifespan of a few hours. “It’s like having a propulsion engine on demand,” he says…

Intel Science and Engineering Fair 2009 Webcasts

Tara Adiseshan, 14, of Charlottesville, Virginia; Li Boynton, 17, of Houston; and Olivia Schwob, 16, of Boston were selected from 1,563 young scientists from 56 countries, regions and territories for their commitment to innovation and science. Each received a $50,000 scholarship from the Intel Foundation.

(video removed, so the embed code has been removed)

In the webcast, Tara Adiseshan, talks about her project studying the evolutionary ties between nematodes (parasites) and sweat bees. She identified and classified the evolutionary relationships between sweat bees and the nematodes (microscopic worms) that live inside them. Tara was able to prove that because the two have such ecologically intimate relationships, they also have an evolutionary relationship. That is to say, if one species evolves, the other will follow.

Li Boynton developed a biosensor from bioluminescent bacteria (a living organism that gives off light) to detect the presence of contaminants in public water. Li’s biosensor is cheaper and easier to use than current biosensors, and she hopes it can be used in developing countries to reduce water toxicity. Li Boynton on What’s Great About Science:

Olivia Schwob isolated a gene that can be used to improve the intelligence of a worm. The results could help us better understand how humans learn and even prevent, treat and cure mental disabilities in the future.

In addition to the three $50,000 top winners, more than 500 Intel International Science and Engineering Fair participants received scholarships and prizes for their groundbreaking work. Intel awards included 19 “Best of Category” winners who each received a $5,000 Intel scholarship and a new laptop. In total, nearly $4 million is scholarships and awards were provided.

Friday Fun: Bird Using Bait to Fish

In the webcast an Aukuu bird (Black-crowned Night Heron) fishes using bread as bait. They normally hunt by waiting at the side of a lake and fishing. This individual learned how to bait the fish with bread and improve the fishing results. It also passed on that method to other birds that learned how to use the bait method themselves.

Another bird using bait (with turtles trying to get the bait) and another bird using bait (with a stork trying to steal the fish). And another one. The videos seem to be different species of birds to me.

Waste Treatment Plants Result in Super Bacteria

Multiple antibiotic-resistant bacteria has emerged as one of the top public health issues worldwide in the last few decades as the overuse of antibiotics and other factors have caused bacteria to become resistant to common drugs. Chuanwu Xi‘s group chose to study Acinetobacter because it is a growing cause of hospital-acquired infections and because of its ability to acquire antibiotic resistance.

Xi said the problem isn’t that treatment plants don’t do a good job of cleaning the water—it’s that they simply aren’t equipped to remove all antibiotics and other pharmaceuticals entering the treatment plants.

The treatment process is fertile ground for the creation of superbugs because it encourages bacteria to grow and break down the organic matter. However, the good bacteria grow and replicate along with the bad. In the confined space, bacteria share resistant genetic materials, and remaining antibiotics and other stressors may select multi-drug resistant bacteria.

While scientists learn more about so-called superbugs, patients can do their part by not insisting on antibiotics for ailments that antibiotics don’t treat, such as a common cold or the flu, Xi said. Also, instead of flushing unused drugs, they should be saved and disposed of at designated collection sites so they don’t enter the sewer system.

The next step, said Xi, is to see how far downstream the superbugs survive and try to understand the link between aquatic and human superbugs. This study did not look past 100 yards.

Xi’s colleagues include visiting scholar Yongli Zhang; Carl Marrs, associate professor of public health; and Carl Simon, professor of mathematics.

Xi and colleagues found that while the total number of bacteria left in the final discharge effluent declined dramatically after treatment, the remaining bacteria was significantly more likely to resist multiple antibiotics than bacteria in water samples upstream. Some strains resisted as many as seven of eight antibiotics tested. The bacteria in samples taken 100 yards downstream also were more likely to resist multiple drugs than bacteria upstream.

Full press release

The Great Sunflower Project

photo of sunflower (Helianthus Annuus Taiyo)

Sunflower photo from WikiMedia – Helianthus Annuus ‘Taiyo’

The Great Sunflower Project provides a way for you to engage in the ongoing study of bees and colony collapse disorder. The study uses the annual Lemon Queen sunflowers (Helianthus annuus), that can be grown in a pot on a deck or patio or in a garden (and they will send you seeds).

How do bees make fruits and vegetables?

Bees help flowers make seeds and fruits. Bees go to flowers in your garden to find pollen (the powder on the flower) and nectar which is a sweet liquid. Flowers are really just big signs advertising to bees that there is pollen or nectar available – though sometimes a flower will cheat and have nothing! The markings on a flower guide the bee right into where the pollen or nectar is.

All flowers have pollen. Bees gather pollen to feed their babies which start as eggs and then grow into larvae. It’s the larvae that eat the pollen. Bees use the nectar for energy. When a bee goes to a flower in your garden to get nectar or pollen, they usually pick up pollen from the male part of the flower which is called an anther. When they travel to the next flower looking for food, they move some of that pollen to the female part of the next plant which is called a stigma. Most flowers need pollen to make seeds and fruits.

After landing on the female part, the stigma, the pollen grows down the stigma until it finds an unfertilized seed which is called an ovary. Inside the ovary, a cell from the pollen joins up with cells from the ovary and a seed is born! For many of our garden plants, the only way for them to start a new plant is by growing from a seed Fruits are just the parts of the plants that have the seeds. Some fruits are what we think of as fruits when we are in the grocery store like apples and oranges. Other fruits are vegetables like tomatoes and cucumbers and peppers.

Sun Missing It’s Spots

Image courtesy of SOHO, shows an image of the sun on July 19th 2000 and March 18th 2009.

Sun Oddly Quiet

The sun is the least active it’s been in decades and the dimmest in a hundred years. The lull is causing some scientists to recall the Little Ice Age, an unusual cold spell in Europe and North America, which lasted from about 1300 to 1850. The coldest period of the Little Ice Age, between 1645 and 1715, has been linked to a deep dip in solar storms known as the Maunder Minimum.
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Sunspots, which can be visible without a telescope, are dark regions that indicate intense magnetic activity on the sun’s surface. Such solar storms send bursts of charged particles hurtling toward Earth that can spark auroras, disrupt satellites, and even knock out electrical grids.

Graphene: Engineered Carbon

A material for all seasons

Graphene, a form of the element carbon that is just a single atom thick, had been identified as a theoretical possibility as early as 1947.
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Its unique electrical characteristics could make graphene the successor to silicon in a whole new generation of microchips, surmounting basic physical constraints limiting the further development of ever-smaller, ever-faster silicon chips.

But that’s only one of the material’s potential applications. Because of its single-atom thickness, pure graphene is transparent, and can be used to make transparent electrodes for light-based applications such as light-emitting diodes (LEDs) or improved solar cells.
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Graphene could also substitute for copper to make the electrical connections between computer chips and other electronic devices, providing much lower resistance and thus generating less heat. And it also has potential uses in quantum-based electronic devices that could enable a new generation of computation and processing.

“The field is really in its infancy,” says Michael Strano, associate professor of chemical engineering who has been investigating the chemical properties of graphene. “I don’t think there’s any other material like this.”

The mobility of electrons in graphene — a measure of how easily electrons can flow within it — is by far the highest of any known material. So is its strength, which is, pound for pound, 200 times that of steel. Yet like its cousin diamond, it is a remarkably simple material, composed of nothing but carbon atoms arranged in a simple, regular pattern.

“It’s the most extreme material you can think of,” says Palacios. “For many years, people thought it was an impossible material that couldn’t exist in nature, but people have been studying it from a theoretical point of view for more than 60 years.”