Category Archives: Science

The World’s Best Research Universities

Shanghai’s Jiao Tong University produces a ranking of the top universities annually (since 2003). The methodology used focuses on research (publications) and faculty quality (Fields and Nobel awards and citations). While this seems a very simplistic ranking it still provides some interesting data: highlights from the 2006 rankings of Top 500 Universities worldwide include:

Country representation in the top schools:

location	Top 101	% of World Population	% of World GDP	% of top 500
USA	54	4.6%	28.4%	33.4%
United Kingdom	10	0.9	5.1	8.6
Japan	6	2.0	11.2	6.4
Canada	4	0.5	2.4	8.0
The rest of Europe	18			4.4
Australia	2	0.3	1.5	3.2
Israel	1	0.1	0.3	1.4

Update: see our post on 2007 best research universities results

Top 10 schools:

Harvard University
Cambridge University
Stanford University
University of California at Berkeley
Massachusetts Institute of Technology(MIT)
California Institute of Technology
Columbia University
Princeton University
University Chicago
Oxford University

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Tracking Narwhals in Greenland

photo of Narwal pod

Tracking Narwhals in Greenland:

From August 2006 to March 2007, scientists from the University of Washington and the Greenland Institute of Natural Resources will instrument 8-10 narwhals with satellite-linked time-depth-temperature recorders to track whale movements, diving behavior, and ocean temperature structure in Baffin Bay. The instruments will collect water column temperature profiles in the pack ice to more than 1500 meters in depth when narwhals make a fall migration from north Greenland to their wintering grounds in Baffin Bay. Narwhals have never been observed or studied in their winter habitat in central Baffin Bay due to dense ice cover, offshore location, and logistics, so this is a very exciting opportunity for all participants.

A collection of inquiry-and National Science Education Standards-based lessons plans for grades 5-12 that have been specifically designed for this expedition..

Narwhal whales (Monodon monoceros) have been called the unicorn whale due to the tooth that grows strait out from their head up to 8 feet. More information via NOAA also see: A Whale’s Amazing Tooth.

photo: A pod of narwhals from northern Canada, August 2005 – larger

Student Design Competition for Sustainability

The United States Environmental Protection Agency has opened the P3: People, Prosperity and the Planet Student Design Competition for Sustainability. This competition provides grants to teams of college students to research, develop, and design solutions to challenges to sustainability. See the application and more information for details on eligibility and criteria.

Approximately 50 awards for Phase I; Approximately 10 awards for Phase II with approximately $1,250,000 total for all awards.
Up to $10,000 per Phase I grant for one year including direct and indirect costs. Proposals for Phase I grants with budgets exceeding $10,000 will not be considered. Upon the successful completion of Phase I, Phase I grant recipients will have the opportunity to apply for Phase II funding of up to $75,000 for one additional year including direct and indirect costs.

Applications are due by 21 December 2006.

Science Education in India

Science panic in India by Bruce Einhorn:

Mayank Vahia, professor of Astrophysics at the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, the other day came out with a story in DNA India that tried to be upbeat about India’s potential. But Vahia also couldn’t help but point out that “What is of immediate concern is the status of education and research in Indian universities. They are riddled with mediocrity and excessive bureaucratic stranglehold. Unwarranted political interference and endemic corruption in the system are other serious problems.”

Read Mayank Vahia’s article.

Also check out a Google tech webcast of Leveraging India As India Stands Up by Ashok Jhunjhunwala

Many countries are striving for science and technology improvements. Each country has its own challenges to those desires. How well each country does in this area will have a large impact on how well they do economically. The Future is Engineering.

Math and Science Teacher Shortage

Lack of math, science teachers prompts U.S. alarm by Ledyard King:

The lack of certified science and math teachers is a growing quandary for schools around the nation, particularly those in poor neighborhoods. Lawmakers in Washington are proposing to spend billions over the next several years to encourage more teachers to enter those subject fields.
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Government money could help replicate programs like the University of Pennsylvania Science Teachers Institute, which — at no cost — gives current science teachers an intensive, 26-month course to give them a deeper understanding of science and improve their delivery to students.

This article (from January of this year) is not new information – the shortage of qualified teachers has been a problem for quite some time.

20 Scientists Who Have Helped Shape Our World

20 Scientists Who Have Helped Shape Our World (pdf document) from the National Science Resources Center

Norman Borlaug, Plant Scientist”–Father of the Green Revolution”
…
The results of Dr. Borlaug’s work are encouraging: India, for example, harvests six times more wheat today than it did only 40 years ago. This increase in wheat production in poor countries has been called the “Green Revolution.” It has been written about Dr. Borlaug that he has saved more lives than anyone else who ever lived.

For his scientific achievements, Dr. Borlaug was awarded the 1970 Nobel Peace Prize. Today, at age 90, Dr. Borlaug remains active in science as a distinguished professor of international agriculture at Texas A&M University

Others include:

Tim Berners-Lee, Computer Scientist—Inventor of the World Wide Web

George Washington Carver, Inventor/Chemist (1861âˆ’1943)—Saving Agriculture in the South

Ayanna Howard, Engineer—Robotics Pioneer, and

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Brain Development Gene is Evolving the Fastest

Fastest-evolving human gene linked to brain boost by Gaia Vince

A study of differences between the human and chimp genomes has identified a gene associated with neural growth in the cerebral cortex – the part of the brain involved in processing thoughts and learning – as having undergone “accelerated evolutionary change”.

Katherine Pollard and colleagues at the University of California Santa Cruz, US, suggest that the fast-changing gene may help explain the dramatic expansion of this part of the brain during the evolution of humans.
…
There are only two changes in the 118 letters of DNA code that make up HAR1 between the genomes of chimps and chickens. But chimps and humans are 18 letter-changes apart. And those mutations occurred in just five million years, as we evolved from our shared ancestor.

Science Opportunities for Students

Girls in Science camping trip photo

The Girls In Science blog documents a program for Roosevelt Middle School students in San Diego. It provides a great example of what can been done:

Wow, what a year it’s been for our Girls In Science (GIS) program! In the span of one short school year, we met with 30 different presenters, covering topics from veterinary pathology to behavioral research to visual communication in primates to cytogenetics… We met sea lions, nearly extinct golden frogs, carnivorous plants, marsh birds, Mei Sheng the giant panda, Mexican gray wolves, and a black tarantula named Vivica. We dabbled in exotic animal nutrition, GPS mapping, and poop sampling. And we spent a glorious day at the La Brea Tar Pits learning about Southern California as it was during the last Ice Age!

Virtually all of the scientists we met with were women, but we tossed a couple of males into the mix just for variety’s sake. One of them, Michael Puzzo, is a field biologist who tracks mountain lions throughout Southern California.

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USA Governors Promote the Value of Science Education

National Governors Association – Science Education. On their web site the associates pledges to:

host regional learning labs and workshops to help states improve education in the areas of science, technology, engineering and math; and
create new science and math academies to improve student achievement and grow a workforce in emerging occupations.

This is a very small step but at least they are discussing the topic. And some action is being taken, for example: Excellence in K-12 Mathematics and Science Teaching – Texas Invests in Science Higher Education – R&D Spending in USA Universities. More, could, and should, be done.

Feed your Newborn Neurons

New Neurons Need Signals to Survive:

The human brain continues to produce new nerve cells throughout its life and these neurons may be key to learning new information. But many of these novice neurons wither and die before joining the vast signaling network of their mature peers. Now new research seems to show that the presence or absence of new information–represented by the neurotransmitter glutamate–may determine a young neuron’s survive.

So save your new neuron’s and read the Curious Cat Science and Engineering blog every day 🙂

The Reinvention of the Self by Jonah Lehrer (on neurogenesis – the creation of new brain cells):

Beginning in 1962, a researcher at MIT named Joseph Altman published several papers claiming that adult rats, cats, and guinea pigs all formed new neurons. Although Altman used the same technique that Rakic would later use in monkey brains—the injection of radioactive thymidine—his results were at first ridiculed, then ignored, and soon forgotten.

As a result, the field of neurogenesis vanished before it began. It would be another decade before Michael Kaplan, at the University of New Mexico, would use an electron microscope to image neurons giving birth. Kaplan discovered new neurons everywhere in the mammalian brain, including the cortex. Yet even with this visual evidence, science remained stubbornly devoted to its doctrine. Kaplan remembers Rakic telling him that “Those [cells] may look like neurons in New Mexico, but they don’t in New Haven.” Faced with this debilitating criticism, Kaplan, like Altman before him, abandoned the field of neurogenesis.

An example of the difficulty getting new scientific ideas accepted.