Category Archives: Science

“Fluid” State of Matter

photos of granular jets forming

Physicists Describe a New “Fluid” State of Matter, photo – granular jets forming at atmospheric pressure (top) and in a vacuum (bottom), see larger photo.

Using nothing more than a container of loosely packed sand and a falling marble, a research team led by University of Chicago physicist Heinrich Jaeger has discovered a new state of fluid matter.
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Why doesn’t air pressure just blow the sand grains apart? “One of the biggest questions that we have still not solved is why this jet is so sharply delineated,” says Jaeger. “Why are there these beautiful boundaries?”

Physicists describe strange new fluid-like state of matter, University of Chicago news release.

See more science and engineering research related posts.

$71 Million for Texas STEM Initiative

$71 Million Committed to Launch the Texas Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (TSTEM) Initiative:

The $71 million public-private partnership, a new effort of the THSP, will establish 35 small schools that offer focused teaching and learning opportunities in STEM subject areas and five to six STEM Centers to develop high-quality teachers and schools. The highest-quality education in these subjects is critical to workforce development in Texas and to ensuring that the United States keeps its competitive edge as a world leader in scientific and technological innovation.

Joint Singapore MIT Degree Programs

The Singapore–MIT Alliance offers joint degrees from Singapore’s Nanyang Technical University (NTU), National University of Singapore (NUS) (where my father taught for a year and a half when I was a kid) and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Programs are offered in:

  • Advanced Materials for Micro- and Nano-Systems (AMM&NS)
  • Chemical and Pharmaceutical Engineering (CPE)
  • Computational Engineering (CE)
  • Manufacturing Systems and Technology (MST)

Students study in Singapore and while in residence at MIT and distance coursework from MIT while in Singapore. The students earn masters degrees from MIT and a masters from NUS/NTU and possibly a doctorate from NUS/NTU. As an example, An MIT Masters and an NTU Masters details:

The Dual Masters will comprise a Master of Engineering Degree in Manufacturing from MIT and a Master of Science Degree from NTU. This programme combines a broad based approach with independent research and concentrate on problems of emerging industries. Students will combine industry-based project experience with a university-based research derived from that experience. Depending upon the student’s progress the programme may be completed in 1.5 years, but no more than 2.0 years. The MIT degree will be taken partly in residence at MIT and by distance at NTU, and will be primarily coursework-based with a group project in industry supervised by MIT. The NTU degree will include coursework and independent research with NTU faculty supervision.

USA Science and Engineering Doctorates Hold Steady

Statistics from NSF

1995 2000 2004
Total S&E Doctorates 29,533 26,536 26,275

NSF also indicates 33% of all doctorates (including those outside science and engineering) went to non-USA citizens in 2004 compared to 32% in 1995. It is not surprising that the percentage of non-USA-citizen doctorate degrees, awarded in the USA, is much higher for many science and engineering fields (65% in engineering, 56% in mathematics, 55% in physics). It might be surprising to many people that 56% of computer science doctorates were awarded to non-USA citizens.

More detailed data on Science and Engineering Doctorate Awards is available from NSF.

Massive Project Will Reveal How Humans Continue to Evolve

Massive Project Will Reveal How Humans Continue to Evolve by Gregory Mone

By comparing differences among those groups’ DNA, HapMap gives scientists a better shot at distinguishing the genetic factors involved in disease from the environmental ones. Ultimately, it will help them explain why, for instance, some people have a higher or lower risk of certain illnesses. And once scientists understand how deleterious genes affect various populations, they’ll be better equipped to develop more-effective, targeted drugs to combat them.

What Are Viruses?

What Are Viruses?, from the excellent Science In Action blog:

Viruses are small, from about 20 nanometers to about 400 nanometers in size. (A bacterial cell is generally in the range of 0.5 to 5.0 micrometers in size. A micrometer is one thousand times bigger than a nanometer, so bacteria are hundreds of times larger than viruses.)
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Viruses cannot be killed by antibiotics. Antibiotics kill or stop the growth of bacteria, not viruses. Using antibiotics to try to control viral diseases like colds and flu just hastens the day those antibiotics will be useless against dangerous bacteria, because exposing populations of bacteria to antibiotics gives them a chance to evolve defenses against the drugs.

Siemens Westinghouse Competition Winners

Siemens Westinghouse Competition press release:

Michael Viscardi, a senior who is home schooled, won the $100,000 Grand Prize scholarship in the individual category for mathematics research with real-world engineering implications. Anne Lee, a senior at Phoenix Country Day School in Paradise Valley, Arizona, and Albert Shieh, a junior at Chaparral High School in Scottsdale, Arizona, won the $100,000 prize in the team category, which they will share equally, for developing new software that more accurately analyzes genetic data.

Articles on the competition (I like the local focus of the headlines):

Siemens Westinghouse Competition in Math, Science and Technology web site. Their web site, and the articles above, provide interesting details on the highly advanced work of the participating high school students.

The Siemens Foundation provides more than $2 million in college scholarships and awards each year for talented high school students in the United States.

Adventures in Synthetic Biology

cover graphic of Adventures in Synthetic Biology Nature offers its first ever comic: Adventures in Synthetic Biology (via easternblot). Learn more about the creation of the comic. The graphics are nice, though honestly the interface to view the comic could be better. The pdf version is larger and easier to read.

I think it is great to experiment with using different ways to present scientific ideas. This comic is a good example of one of those ways. Also see several books that use cartoons to present ideas: Cartoon Guide to Genetics, Cartoon Guide to Physics and Cartoon Guide to Chemistry (all by Larry Gonick).

More comic presentations from howtoons.

Related links:

2005 intercollegiate Genetically Engineered Machine competition

Davidson College: Kristen DeCelle 2006 and Andrew Drysdale 2007

2005 Intercollegiate Genetically Engineered Machine Competition. Thirteen schools participated in the 2005 Intercollegiate Genetically Engineered Machine competition (iGEM 2005): Berkeley, Caltech, Cambridge, Davidson, ETH Zurich, Harvard, MIT, Oklahoma, Penn State, Princeton, Toronto, UCSF, and UT Austin. Learn about and sign up for the 2006 competition.

Photo of Davidson College students: Kristen DeCelle ’06 and Andrew Drysdale ’07. Davidson Students “Ace” Presentation at MIT Synthetic Biology Competition.

The Davidson team-“The Synth-Aces,” a word play on enzymes called synthases-presented their design of a genetically-engineered, E. coli-based “digital decoder.” The device detects which combination of three common chemicals (with eight combinations possible) is present, and then displays a human-readable number that glows in the dark. The number is produced by genetically customized bacteria that grow in a familiar pattern of a digital numeric display. The resulting readouts of “0” through “7” correspond to the specific chemical combination detected in solution. One real world application of a decoder device might be to monitor water for contaminants or toxins.