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.

Saving Fermilab

Fermilab was once the premiere particle physics research lab. It is still a very important research lab. But, I have said before, other countries are the ones making the larger efforts lately to invest in science and technology centers of excellence that the US was making in the 1960’s and 1970’s: Economic Strength Through Technology Leadership, Investing in Technology Excellence, etc..

I have also said that the past success of the US has left it in a still very strong position. For example, the anonymous donor that saved Fermilab with a $5 million donation likely benefited from the successful investments in science centers of excellence in the past (few countries – maybe 30, can rely on large donations from wealthy individuals, to sustain centers of excellence and I don’t think any approach what the USA has now – Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Standford, MIT…).

Excellent post on the the saving of Fermilab, To the person who saved Fermilab: Thank You.:

The facility has recently seen financial difficulties which have resulted in the layoffs of research staff and dramatic cuts in experiments. The world class research facility has been left to scrape together funds to pay the bills and has even had to auction off equipment and ask staff members to take pay cuts just to keep the lights on in the laboratories.
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Fermilab also has an illustrious history of achievements in the field of supercomputer development and parallel processing. Fermilab has been on the forefront of applying supercomputing to physics research and is one of the top supercomputing centers of the world. Fermilab has claimed the world’s most powerful supercomputer on multiple occasions – although the title is rarely held long by any system due to the continuous advancements in computing. In recent years, Fermilab has been a leader in the development of “lattice” supercomputing systems and has developed methods for efficiently utilizing the power of multiple supercomputers in different locations through more [efficient] distribution practices.

To some, the construction of the Large Hadron Collider at CERN may seem to reduce the importance of Fermilab’s capabilities, but this is not at all the case. Although the LHC may take the title for the overall size and energy levels of a particle accelerator, Fermilab remains a uniquely capable particle physics research institution. Though less powerful, the Tevatron is able to operate for longer periods of time than the LHC and will likely require less downtime for maintenance, allowing for greater access and numerous types of research activities.

11 Science Journalist Fellows at MIT

The Knight Fellowship at MIT has a class of eleven science journalists from six countries this year. All are mid-career journalists who work for general interest news media to improve the public understanding of science. They will take a sabbatical year from their jobs to improve their knowledge by taking courses at MIT and Harvard, interviewing scientists and attending various seminars and lectures during the 2008–2009 academic year. They take up residence in Cambridge in August 2008.

The fellows include: Kimani Chege, editor of TechNews Africa, from Kenya; Sabin Russell, medical writer at The San Francisco Chronicle, from the USA; Teresa Firmino, science and technology reporter for PÃºblico, from Portugal; Jonathan Fildes, science and technology reporter for BBC News, from England; and Rachel Zimmerman, health and medicine reporter for The Wall Street Journal, from the USA.

This is a great program to help some excellent science journalist to get even better. We need more excellent science journalism.

We list the Knight Science Journalism Tracker on the list of our favorite science and engineering blogs.

Bacteria “Feed” on Earth’s Ocean-Bottom Crust

Once considered a barren plain dotted with hydrothermal vents, the seafloor’s rocky regions appear to be teeming with microbial life, say scientists
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“Initial research predicted that life could in fact exist in such a cold, dark, rocky environment,” said Santelli. “But we really didn’t expect to find it thriving at the levels we observed.” Surprised by this diversity, the scientists tested more than one site and arrived at consistent results, making it likely, according to Santelli and Edwards, that rich microbial life extends across the ocean floor. “This may represent the largest surface area on Earth for microbes to colonize,” said Edwards.
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Santelli and Edwards also found that the higher microbial diversity on ocean-bottom rocks compared favorably with other life-rich places in the oceans, such as hydrothermal vents. These findings raise the question of where these bacteria find their energy, Santelli said.

“We scratched our heads about what was supporting this high level of growth,” Edwards said. With evidence that the oceanic crust supports more bacteria than overlying water, the scientists hypothesized that reactions with the rocks themselves might offer fuel for life.

Why doesn’t this stuff make the news over what some celebrity did or politician said… (well I must admit I am just guessing since I don’t actually watch the news or read the mass media much – other than some science, investing or economics content). Oh well, at least you get to read the Curious Cat Science blog and find out about some of the cool stuff being learned every day.

Quake Lake Danger

Quakes lakes risk ‘slurry tsunami’

This month’s 7.9 magnitude tremor spawned 34 so-called quake lakes, according to the International Association of Hydraulic Engineering and Research expert. The vast pools of water were created when the earthquake triggered landslides down plunging valleys, clogging rivers and turning them into fast-rising lakes. Twenty-eight quake lakes are at risk of bursting, according to Chinese state media agency Xinhua. But the one at Tangjiashan – on the Jianjiang river above the town of Beichuan – is the most precarious.
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The delicate, tortuous work involves heavy machinery gingerly shifting debris from the dam, and engineers blasting dynamite to carefully punch holes in the mountain of rubble and soil – although experts warn this risks further destabilising the structure. Nearly 160,000 people in the disaster zone have already been evacuated in case the Tangjiashan quake lake bursts.
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Troops and engineers are racing to carve a 500 metre (1,640 ft) channel out of the landscape and divert the water towards the Fujiang river. They aim to complete the giant sluice and begin draining the 300 million cubic metre capacity lake within 10 days. “Once the water begins to flow over the top of the dam there’s nothing you can do to stop it,” said Dr Alex Densmore, of Durham University’s Institute of Hazard and Risk Research.
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Little wonder then that Premier Wen Jiabao says he regards draining the swelling quake lakes at China’s ground zero as the nation’s most urgent task.

Learning from Leprosy Diagnosis

A Scary Diagnosis Hits Home

The diagnosis that ultimately resulted — leprosy — turned the Blanchards’ world upside down and rippled through the lives of many people they knew or had contact with. It also raised issues that are often confronted when any contagious disease is diagnosed, particularly one with scary connotations: What precautions should be taken to protect the rights of the affected individual as well as the health of the community?
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For the Blanchards, some of the answers lay almost literally in their back yard. Baton Rouge is home to the National Hansen’s Disease (Leprosy) Clinical Center, part of the U.S. Public Health Service.
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About 300,000 new cases of leprosy are diagnosed annually, according to the World Health Organization. Now known as Hansen’s disease, after the Norwegian scientist who discovered the mycobacterium that causes the illness, it affects about 2 million to 3 million people worldwide.

Where it is left untreated, Hansen’s disease is a leading cause of disability and devastating deformity. It remains endemic in Bangladesh, India, Brazil and elsewhere. In the United States, roughly 6,000 people have the disease. One hundred to two hundred new cases are reported annually, and, like BB Blanchard, about two dozen of those new patients have never been beyond U.S. borders.
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How transmission occurs is a mystery. Humans and the armadillo are the only two creatures known to get the disease. No one knows where the microbe hides in nature, although the suspicion is that the leprosy mycobacterium may be airborne like its bacterial cousin, tuberculosis.

Most people think of leprosy as a skin disease. But the rash that BB Blanchard had and the disfiguring lesions often associated with it are just a symptom. The mycobacteria burrow into nerves, where they often remain undetected for years or even decades.

Women Choosing Other Fields Over Engineering and Math

graph of science and engineering degrees by gender in the USA 1966-2005

The graph shows college degrees granted in the USA. This topic sets up one for criticism, but I believe it is more important to examine the data and explore the possible ideas than to avoid anything that might be questioned by the politically correct police. An import factor, to me anyway, is that women are now graduating from college in far higher numbers than men. And in many science fields female baccalaureate graduates outnumber male graduates (psychology [67,000 to 19,000], biology[42,000 to 26,000], anthropology, sociology [20,000 to 8,000]) while men outnumber women in others (math [7,000 to 6,000], engineering [53,000 to 13,000], computer science [39,000 to 11,000], physics [3,000 to 900]).

Data on degrees awarded men and women in the USA in 2005, from NSF*:

Field	Bachelors		Master’s		Doctorate
	Women	Men	Women	Men	Women	Men
Biology	42,283	25,699	4,870	3,229	3,105	3,257
Computer Science	11,235	39,329	5,078	12,742	225	909
Economics	8,141	17,023	1,391	2,113	355	827
Engineering	13,197	52,936	7,607	26,492	1,174	5,215
Geosciences	1,660	2,299	712	973	243	470
Physics	903	3,307	427	1,419	200	1,132
Psychology	66,833	19,103	12,632	3,444	2,264	211
Sociology	20,138	8,438	920	485	343	211
All S&E	235,197	230,806	53,051	66,974	10,533	17,405

What does this all mean? It is debatable, but I think it is very good news for the efforts many have made over the last few decades to open up opportunities for women. I still support efforts to provide opportunities for girls to get started in science and engineering but I think we have reached the day when the biggest concern is giving all kids better math and science primary education (and related extracurricular activities). Also continued focus and effort on the doctorate and professional opportunities for women is warranted.
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NASA’s Phoenix Mars Lander

The successful landing of NASA’s Phoenix Mars Lander is well documented: Soft landing on a rough Mars terrain – Mars Lander Transmits Photos of Arctic Terrain – Phoenix Mars Lander prepares to begin excavation – Scientists Excited After Safe Mars Landing

View animation showing how NASA’s Phoenix Mars Lander stays in contact with Earth

As NASA’s Mars Odyssey orbiter passes overhead approximately every two hours, Phoenix transmits images and scientific data from the surface to the orbiter, which then relays the data to NASA’s Deep Space Network of antennas on Earth. Similarly, NASA’s Deep Space Network transmits instructions from Earth to Odyssey, which then relays the information to Phoenix.

The Phoenix mission is to explore the north polar region of Mars.

Solar Thermal in Desert, to Beat Coal by 2020

Google, Chevron Build Mirrors in Desert to Beat Coal With Solar

Along a dusty two-lane highway in California’s Mojave Desert, 550,000 mirrors point skyward to make steam for electricity. Google Inc., Chevron Corp. and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. are betting this energy will become cheaper than coal.

The 1,000-acre plant uses concentrated sunlight to generate power for as many as 112,500 homes in Southern California. Rising natural gas prices and emissions limits may make solar thermal the fastest-growing energy source in the next decade, say backers including Vinod Khosla, the founder of computer maker Sun Microsystems Inc. Costs for the technology will fall below coal as soon as 2020, the U.S. government estimates.
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“Solar thermal can provide a substantial amount of our power, more than 50 percent,” says Khosla
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Nine solar thermal plants built in the California desert from 1985 to 1991 still operate, with Juno Beach, Florida-based FPL Group Inc. running seven. They have combined capacity of 354 megawatts, enough to power 230,000 Southern California homes. Development slowed when Congress eliminated tax credits for alternative energy in the early 1990s. Laws put in place in 2005 give solar investors a 30 percent tax credit.

Great progress is being made adding wind and solar capacity. And the increasing oil prices are encouraging much faster adoption of these technologies. The promise of widespread adoption is rapidly becoming a reality.

Germany Bans Chemicals Linked to Bee Deaths

Germany bans chemicals linked to honeybee devastation

Germany has banned a family of pesticides that are blamed for the deaths of millions of honeybees. The German Federal Office of Consumer Protection and Food Safety (BVL) has suspended the registration for eight pesticide seed treatment products used in rapeseed oil and sweetcorn.

The move follows reports from German beekeepers in the Baden-WÃ¼rttemberg region that two thirds of their bees died earlier this month following the application of a pesticide called clothianidin. “It’s a real bee emergency,” said Manfred Hederer, president of the German Professional Beekeepers’ Association. “50-60% of the bees have died on average and some beekeepers have lost all their hives.” Tests on dead bees showed that 99% of those examined had a build-up of clothianidin.
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The company says an application error by the seed company which failed to use the glue-like substance that sticks the pesticide to the seed, led to the chemical getting into the air.

High School Student Isolates Microbe that Eats Plastic

WCI student isolates microbe that lunches on plastic bags

Daniel Burd’s project won the top prize at the Canada-Wide Science Fair in Ottawa. He came back with a long list of awards, including a $10,000 prize, a $20,000 scholarship, and recognition that he has found a practical way to help the environment.
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First, he ground plastic bags into a powder. Next, he used ordinary household chemicals, yeast and tap water to create a solution that would encourage microbe growth. To that, he added the plastic powder and dirt. Then the solution sat in a shaker at 30 degrees.

After three months of upping the concentration of plastic-eating microbes, Burd filtered out the remaining plastic powder and put his bacterial culture into three flasks with strips of plastic cut from grocery bags. As a control, he also added plastic to flasks containing boiled and therefore dead bacterial culture.

Six weeks later, he weighed the strips of plastic. The control strips were the same. But the ones that had been in the live bacterial culture weighed an average of 17 per cent less.
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The inputs are cheap, maintaining the required temperature takes little energy because microbes produce heat as they work, and the only outputs are water and tiny levels of carbon dioxide — each microbe produces only 0.01 per cent of its own infinitesimal weight in carbon dioxide, said Burd.

“This is a huge, huge step forward . . . We’re using nature to solve a man-made problem.” Burd would like to take his project further and see it be used. He plans to study science at university, but in the meantime he’s busy with things such as student council, sports and music.