Category Archives: Science

New Fulbright Science Awards

The State Department plans to award 25 extended Fulbright scholarships to foreign graduate students in science and engineering, who will be chosen by “a blue-ribbon panel of experts in a global competition rather than through the traditional bilateral agreements,” writes Science Now.

I would imagine they will eventually put up some information about this program on the State Department Fulbright website. The list of the regular 2005-6 awardees shows their fields of study.

Science and Engineering Indicators – Workforce

The National Science Board has release the comprehensive Science and Engineering Indicators 2006. The report contains a great deal of interesting information. Some highlights

The science and engineering workforce in the United States has grown rapidly, both over the last half century and the last decade.

From 1950 to 2000, employment in S&E occupations grew from fewer than 200,000 to more than 4 million workers, an average annual growth rate of 6.4%.
Between the 1990 and 2000 censuses, S&E occupations continued to grow at an average annual rate of 3.6%, more than triple the rate of growth of other occupations.
Between 1980 and 2000, the total number of S&E degrees earned grew at an average annual rate of 1.5%, which was faster than labor force growth, but less than the 4.2% growth of S&E occupations. S&E bachelor’s degrees grew at a 1.4% average annual rate, and S&E doctorates at 1.9%.
Approximately 12.9 million workers say they need at least a bachelor’s degree level of knowledge in S&E fields in their jobs. However, only 4.9 million were in occupations formally defined as S&E.
Twelve million workers have an S&E degree as their highest degree and 15.7 million have at least one degree in an S&E field.
Increases in median real salary for recent S&E graduates between 1993 and 2003 indicate relatively high demand for S&E skills during the past decade.

For all broad S&E fields, median real salaries grew faster over the decade for master’s degree recipients than for bachelor’s in the same field. This ranged from a 31.8% increase in median real earnings for recipients of physical science master’s degrees to a 54.8% increase for recipients of master’s degrees in computer and mathematical sciences. At the master’s level, however, non-S&E degrees also enjoy large increases in real median salary, growing by 52.7%.

Twenty-nine percent of all S&E degree holders in the labor force are age 50 or over. Among S&E doctorate holders in the labor force, 44% are age 50 or over.

By age 62, half of S&E bachelor’s degree holders had left full-time employment. Doctorate degree holders work slightly longer, with half leaving full-time employment by age 66.

Twenty-five percent of all college-educated workers in S&E occupations in 2003 were foreign born.

Forty percent of doctorate degree holders in S&E occupations in 2003 were foreign born.

Among all doctorate holders resident in the United States in 2003, a majority in computer science (57%), electrical engineering (57%), civil engineering (54%), and mechanical engineering (52%) were foreign born.

Women were 12% of those in S&E occupations in 1980 and 25% in 2000. However, the growth in representation between 1990 and 2000 was only 3 percentage points.

The representation of blacks in S&E occupations increased from 2.6% in 1980 to 6.9% in 2000. The representation of Hispanics increased from 2.0% to 3.2%. However, for Hispanics, this is proportionally less than their increase in the population.

Saturday Morning Science from NASA

photo of Don Petit

Saturday Morning Science from NASA:

Pettit prepared a solution of water, soap, and glycerin, and fashioned a bubble-wand from thin wire–a loop that could be re-sized from 3.5 cm (about 1.5 inches) to more than 15 cm (6 inches) in diameter. The experiment was ready. “But first,” recalls Petit, “I decided to try a ‘dry run’ with water only, no soap.”

He inserted the wand into a zero-g beaker and pulled it out again. “To my amazement,” he says, “when the 2-inch loop was withdrawn, a thin film of water clung tenaciously to the loop. I’ve never before witnessed such a large-scale film of water.”

See two videos and more information on the experiment on the International Space Station.

An explanation of surface tension

Previous post: Colored Bubbles

Algae as Hydrogen Factory

Mutant Algae Is Hydrogen Factory by Sam Jaffe, Wired:

Researchers at the University of California at Berkeley have engineered a strain of pond scum that could, with further refinements, produce vast amounts of hydrogen through photosynthesis.

The work, led by plant physiologist Tasios Melis, is so far unpublished. But if it proves correct, it would mean a major breakthrough in using algae as an industrial factory, not only for hydrogen, but for a wide range of products, from biodiesel to cosmetics.
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Melis got involved in this research when he and Michael Seibert, a scientist at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden, Colorado, figured out how to get hydrogen out of green algae by restricting sulfur from their diet. The plant cells flicked a long-dormant genetic switch to produce hydrogen instead of carbon dioxide. But the quantities of hydrogen they produced were nowhere near enough to scale up the process commercially and profitably.

“When we discovered the sulfur switch, we increased hydrogen production by a factor of 100,000,” says Seibert. “But to make it a commercial technology, we still had to increase the efficiency of the process by another factor of 100.

Phony Science Gap?

A Phony Science Gap? by Robert Samuelson:

And the American figures excluded computer science graduates. Adjusted for these differences, the U.S. degrees jump to 222,335. Per million people, the United States graduates slightly more engineers with four-year degrees than China and three times as many as India. The U.S. leads are greater for lesser degrees.

It is good to see more people using the data from the Duke study we have mentioned previously: USA Under-counting Engineering Graduates – Filling the Engineering Gap. However, I think he misses a big change. It seems to me that the absolute number of graduates each year is the bigger story than that the United States has not lost the percentage of population rate of science and engineering graduates yet. China significantly exceeds the US and that India is close to the US currently in science and engineering graduates. And the trend is dramatically in favor of those countries.

There has been a Science gap between the United States and the rest of the world. That gap has been between the USA, in the lead, and the rest. That gap has been shrinking for at least 10 years and most likely closer to 20. The rate of the decline in that gap has been increasing and seems likely to continue in that direction.

Despite an eroding manufacturing base and the threat of “offshoring” of some technical services, there’s a rising demand for science and engineering skills. That may explain higher enrollments and why this “crisis” — like the missile gap — may be phony.

I wonder what eroding manufacturing base he is referring to? The United States is the world’s largest manufacturer. The United States continues to increase its share of the world manufacturing and increase, incrementally year over year. Yes manufacturing employment has been declining (though manufacturing employment has declined far less in the United States than in China). Granted China has been growing tremendously quickly, but they are still far behind the United States in manufacturing output.
Continue reading →

Computer Science Revolution

The Computer Science Conundrum: Why the revolution is yet to come:

At the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Bernard Chazelle, professor of computer science at Princeton University, plans to issue a call to arms for his profession, challenging his colleagues to grab society by the lapels and evangelize the importance of studying computer science. According to the most recent data available, the top 36 computer science departments in the United States saw enrollments drop nearly 20 percent between 2000 and 2004.

“The big paradox is that the computer science revolution is just unfolding,” Chazelle said. “Why, then, are students are running away from it; why is there this decline when the field has never been more exciting?”

First, computer science is integral to all of the sciences. Biology, for example, is very quantitatively driven, so a computer science background is imperative.

At Princeton I am part of a pioneering course developed by the eminent geneticist David Botstein and others. The course simultaneously incorporates physics, molecular biology, chemistry, mathematics, and computer science. Mathematics has long been the lingua franca, the Esperanto, of science. But I would argue that science now has two Esperantos: math and computer science. Science magazine recently ran an article listing all of the interesting scientific problems of the 21st century. Not once did the article use the term “computer science”; yet many of the problems listed were fundamentally about computer science.

Second, for those of an entrepreneurial bent, the Internet is paramount; if you don’t understand computer science you are lost. I don’t think it is just coincidence that two of the biggest Internet visionaries — Jeff Bezos of Amazon and Eric Schmidt of Google — are products of the computer science and electrical engineering departments at Princeton.

Third, and (since I am a theorist) most important, are careers in the field of theoretical computer science. Theoretical computer science would exist even if there were no computers. Computer science is not bound by the laws of physics; it is inspired by them but, like mathematics, it is something that is completely invented by man.

What exactly is an algorithm?
An algorithm is not a simple mathematical formula. It is a set of rules that govern a complex operation. You can look at Google as a giant algorithm. Or you can think of an economy or an ecological system as an algorithm in action. Physics, astronomy, and chemistry are all sciences of mathematical formulae. The quantitative sciences of the 21st century such as proteomics and neurobiology, I predict, will place algorithms rather than formulas at their core. In a few decades we will have algorithms that will be considered as fundamental as, say, calculus is today.

For more see the Princeton University press release

Spray-On Solar-Power Cells

Spray-On Solar-Power Cells Are True Breakthrough by Stefan Lovgren for National Geographic News:

The plastic material uses nanotechnology and contains the first solar cells able to harness the sun’s invisible, infrared rays. The breakthrough has led theorists to predict that plastic solar cells could one day become five times more efficient than current solar cell technology.
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At a current cost of 25 to 50 cents per kilowatt-hour, solar power is significantly more expensive than conventional electrical power for residences. Average U.S. residential power prices are less than ten cents per kilowatt-hour, according to experts.

But that could change with the new material.

“Flexible, roller-processed solar cells have the potential to turn the sun’s power into a clean, green, convenient source of energy,” said John Wolfe, a nanotechnology venture capital investor at Lux Capital in New York City.

Quantum Mechanics Made Relatively Simple Podcasts

Three Lectures by Hans Bethe

In 1999, legendary theoretical physicist Hans Bethe delivered three lectures on quantum theory to his neighbors at the Kendal of Ithaca retirement community (near Cornell University).

Intended for an audience of Professor Bethe’s neighbors at Kendal, the lectures hold appeal for experts and non-experts alike. The presentation makes use of limited mathematics while focusing on the personal and historical perspectives of one of the principal architects of quantum theory whose career in physics spans 75 years.

Colorado Science Teacher of the Year

Here’s a secret that I learned years ago… constantly seek out amazing teachers. Read about them… watch them in action… study their writings… find out what makes them tick. As teachers, we all benefit when one of our own receives this type of well-deserved recognition. She’s been teaching for eight years, mostly at Grand Junction’s New Emerson. Every day is something new, usually something new a kid thought up.

“The kids make it new,” she said. “I don’t think we give kids enough credit. They can do much more than we ask of them.”

She doesn’t spend a bunch of time on student discipline. The kids want to do what she says because it’s always interesting. Her kids achieve, which leads us back to her being tabbed by the Colorado Association of Science Teachers as the Science Teacher of the Year.

Right now she’s handling a herd of kindergartners every day. They’re trying out all kinds of life with all kinds of different experiments.

It’s pretty basic stuff — predicting/hypothesis, observing and concluding — the elements of science at all levels.

Great stuff. Teaching science should be about building on students natural curiously, not in getting them to sit at their desks politely.

Feel-Bad Education, The Cult of Rigor and the Loss of Joy by Alfie Kohn
Discipline Is The Problem — Not The Solution by Alfie Kohn
Books and articles by Alfie Kohn

Mystery of High-Temperature Superconductivity

photo of magnet levitating above a superconductor

Pseudogaps Are Not The Answer: The Continuing Mystery of High-Temperature Superconductivity. Photo: Because superconductivity repels a magnetic field, this permanent magnet levitates above a cuprate high-temperature superconductor. Scientists were surprised to find the same pseudogap energy signature in both high-Tc cuprates and ferromagnetic manganites.

A phenomenon of solid state physics known as “pseudogaps,” suspected by some scientists of playing a key role in the mystery of high-temperature superconductors, has now been found to occur in materials of a completely different nature. This discovery casts new doubts on any direct link between pseudogaps and high-temperature superconductivity.
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Stanford University physicist Zhi-Xun Shen, a leader in the study of high-Tc superconductivity, says, “I think our findings will add fire to the debate over one of the great scientific mysteries of our time: what is behind the phenomenon of high-Tc superconductivity? Are many of the anomalous properties we see in the cuprates manifestations of high-Tc superconductivity and CMR? What is the underlying physics ingredient that gives rise to these two competing sibling states? These are important questions that future experiments will try to answer.”

This is one of several great articles in the latest issue of Science @ Berkeley Labs