Millennium Technology Prize to Dr. Shuji Nakamura

Photo of Dr. Shuji Nakamura (from UC Santa Barbara)

The Millennium Technology Prize is a bi-annual award recognizing technology innovators created by a public private partnership in Finland. Finland understands the importance of technology advances for economic gains. Winners receive 1 million Euros. Tim Berners-Lee, the father of the web, received the first prize in 2004. The 2006 prize was awarded to Dr. Shuji Nakamura:

According to Professor Nakamura, we have only just begun to explore the vast number of opportunities presented by applications using LEDs and lasers. ”I hope the award of this prize will help people to understand that this invention makes it possible to improve quality of life for many millions of people. This is not just a source of light that makes enormous energy savings possible, it is also an innovation that can be used in the sterilisation of drinking water and for storing data in much more efficient ways.”

As LEDs can be powered by solar panels, lighting can be provided in remote areas of developing countries. In his speech, Professor Nakamura said that he will be donating part of the prize money to organizations that promote the use of LED lighting in such locations.

Bacteria Power Tiny Motor

Wheel of Life: Bacteria provide horsepower for tiny motor by Peter Weiss:

To make the motors, Hiratsuka’s team, led by Taro Q.P. Uyeda of the National Institute for Advanced Industrial Science and Technology in Tsukuba, Japan, borrowed fabrication techniques from the microelectronics industry.

The machinery of each motor consists of two parts: a ring-shaped groove etched into a silicon surface, and a star-shaped, six-armed rotor fabricated from silicon dioxide that’s placed on top of the circular groove. Tabs beneath the rotor arms fit loosely into the groove.

To prepare the bacterial-propulsion units, the team used a strain of the fast-crawling bacterium Mycoplasma mobile that was genetically engineered to crawl only on a carpet of certain proteins, including one called fetuin. The researchers laid down fetuin within the circular groove and coated the rotor with a protein called streptavidin.

Student Design and Engineering Web Community

Autodesk has launched the Student Design and Engineering Community for architecture, design, civil and mechanical engineering university students. Students will be able to learn, collaborate and communicate with their peers on campuses around the world.

Students and educators from accredited colleges and universities can download free student editions of professional Autodesk software, discuss projects, ask and answer questions about projects, share work, find jobs, network with personal profiles, learn from experts and use tutorials.

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How Bacteria Nearly Destroyed All Life

How Bacteria Nearly Destroyed All Life by Alan Bellows:

About two and one-half billion years ago…
Once the oceans’ supply of iron was exhausted, oxygen began to seep from the sea into the air. With very little competition for resources, cyanobacteria continued to proliferate and pollute. The free oxygen they produced reacted with the air, gradually breaking down the methane which kept the Earth’s atmosphere warm and accommodating. It took at least a hundred thousand years– a short duration in geological terms– but the Earth was eventually stripped of her methane, and with it her ability to store the heat from the sun. Temperatures fell well below freezing worldwide, and a thick layer of ice began to encase the oxygen-saturated planet.

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Young Innovators Under 35

2006 – 35 Young Innovators Under 35 from MIT’s Technology Review:

Includes: Apostolos Argyris, disguising data as noise; Jeffrey Bode, Peptide “Legos” to make new drugs; Christopher Voigt, A vision in bacteria; Michael Wong, Cleaning up with nanoparticles

With some 300,000 hazardous-waste sites scattered across the United States, cleaning up contaminated soil and groundwater is a daunting challenge. Chemical engineer Michael Wong is taking on toxic waste with tiny particles that can break down organic pollutants more quickly, and perhaps less expensively, than existing technologies.

The Inner Life of a Cell – Animation

The Inner Life of a Cell, an eight-minute animation created for Harvard biology students… illustrates unseen molecular mechanisms and the ones they trigger, specifically how white blood cells sense and respond to their surroundings and external stimuli.

The online video is beautiful, see – Cellular Visions: The Inner Life of a Cell. Update: Unfortunately the webcast links on that page are not working but you can see a longer version than was available via: Inner Life of a Cell – Full Version.
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Wind-Powered Water Heater

University Students Build Wind-Powered Water Heater by Gregg Kleiner:

A team of engineering students from Oregon State University, inspired by a late professor’s rudimentary sketches, has designed a working prototype of a hot water heating system powered solely by the wind.

The students believe the technology, which uses magnets, a copper plate and plenty of ingenuity, has the potential to birth a new company and ultimately make an impact on the way the world heats water, especially in developing countries.
…
The prototype was the team’s senior design project, a year-long, hands-on engineering course at OSU that all senior engineering students must participate in, choosing an idea or basic design and developing it to the prototype stage. Despite having no funding, the students say the concept has now been proven to work, and several team members considered spinning off a nonprofit company that would bring the technology to developing countries.

Ford Foundation Diversity Fellowships

Ford Foundation Diversity Fellowships seek to increase the diversity of the nation’s college and university faculties by increasing their ethnic and racial diversity. To facilitate this goal the Fellowship grants awards at the Predoctoral, Dissertation and, Postdoctoral levels to students whom demonstrate excellence, a commitment to diversity and, a desire to enter the professoriate.

60 Predoctoral Awards at $20,000 per year for up to three years.
35 Dissertation Awards at $21,000 for one year
20 Postdoctoral Awards at $40,000 for one year

Eligible fields include: Anthropology, archaeology, astronomy, chemistry, computer science, earth sciences, economics, engineering, geography, life sciences, linguistics, mathematics, physics, science and psychology. Apply by November 16th.

Nanoscientists Create Biological Switch

Nanoscientists Create Biological Switch From Spinach Molecule:

The scientists used a scanning tunneling microscope to image chlorophyll-a and then injected it with a single electron to manipulate the molecule into four positions, ranging from straight to curved, at varying speeds. Though the Ohio University team and others have created two-step molecule switches using scanning tunneling microscope manipulation in the past, the new experiment yields a more complex multi-step switch on the largest organic molecule to date.

The work has immediate implications for basic science research, as the configuration of molecules and proteins impacts biological functions. The study also suggests a novel route for creating nanoscale logic circuits or mechanical switches for future medical, computer technology or green energy applications, said Hla, an associate professor of physics.

Work for Stephen Hawking

There is an opportunity to work as the Graduate Assistant to Stephen Hawking, author of A Brief History of Time and much more.

The role of ‘Graduate Assistant to Professor Hawking’ is funded as a research post at the University of Cambridge. Normally it is under a 12 month contract, although sometimes the contract is extended to up to 2 years.

The post is available to recent graduates holding a Maths, Physics or Computer Science degree and a full driving licence. Responsibilities include:
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