Science Foundation investments promote brain diagnostics, solar technology

Science Foundation Arizona selected eight research proposals out of 44 submissions to receive $2 million designed to advance the technologies to the point of commercialization.

Researchers receiving funding are:

• Nasser Peyhgambarian, a professor in the College of Optical Sciences at the University of Arizona, who is working to introduce ultra-low voltage hybrid polymer/sol-gel electro-optic modulators and switches as the next-generation of broadband.
• Peyghambarian also is working to commercialize a miniaturized fiber-optic sensor used in non-invasive real time monitoring of brain activity.
• David Lynch of UA's Department of Materials Science and Engineering is developing technology to reduce the cost of manufacturing solar-grade silicon while reducing pollution.
• Dominic McGrath, professor in the Department of Chemistry at UA, is developing a disposable infusion pump for pain management IV therapy, drug and fluid delivery and insulin therapy for Medipacs, a Tucson biotech facility.
• Qiang Hu, professor in the Department of Applied Biological Sciences at Arizona State University Polytechnic, is working on a project to increase the productivity and reduce production costs of Astaxanthin, an antioxidant for humans and color additive in foods like meat and fish -- a project that could lead to creation of a manufacturing plant in Arizona.
• John Kouvetakis, professor in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at ASU is looking to find an improved, cost-effective and sustainable method for producing high-brightness and energy-efficient lighting and solar applications.
• Wayne Frasch, a professor in the School of Life Sciences at ASU is working on molecular detection technology that rapidly tests and diagnoses pathogens such as anthrax, E-coli, cancer, forensics, STDs, avian flu and hospital-acquired infections.
• Trevor Thornton, director of ASU's Center for Solid State Electronics Research, plans to introduce a cost-effective option for companies that require high-voltage, high-speed integrated circuits in partnership with Honeywell.

The investments are part of the 2007 Small Business Catalytic program, designed to create a catalyst for technology development, company formation and high-tech job creation in Arizona.

"The research funded by our Small Business Catalytic program has great commercialization potential, a key component in Arizona's efforts to grow an economy rooted in knowledge and innovation," said William C. Harris, president and CEO of SFAz. "These projects will bring new patents to Arizona researchers with the ultimate goal of forming spin-off companies that create new jobs for Arizonans."

Human genome further unravelled

A close-up view of the human genome has revealed its innermost workings to be far more complex than first thought.

The study, which was carried out on just 1% of our DNA code, challenges the view that genes are the main players in driving our biochemistry.

Instead, it suggests genes, so called junk DNA and other elements, together weave an intricate control network.

The work, published in the journals Nature and Genome Research, is to be scaled up to the rest of the genome.

Views transformed

The Encyclopaedia of DNA Elements (Encode) study was a collaborative effort between 80 organisations from around the world.

It has been described as the next step on from the Human Genome Project, which provided the sequence for all of the DNA that makes up the human species' biochemical "book of life".

We are now seeing the majority of the rest of the genome is active to some extent Tim Hubbard, Sanger Institute

Ewan Birney, from the European Molecular Biology Laboratory's European Bioinformatics Institute, led Encode's analysis effort. He told the BBC: "The Human Genome Project gave us the letters of the genome, but not a great deal of understanding. The Encode project tries to understand the genome."

The researchers focussed on 1% of the human genome sequence, carrying out 80 different types of experiments that generated more than 600 million data points.

The surprising results, explained Tim Hubbard from the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, "transform our view of the genome fabric".

THE DNA MOLECULE The double-stranded DNA molecule - wound in a helix - is held together by four chemical components called bases Adenine (A) bonds with thymine (T); cytosine(C) bonds with guanine (G) Groupings of these "letters" form the "code of life"; a code that is very nearly universal to all Earth's organisms Written in the DNA are genes which cells use as starting templates to make proteins; these sophisticated molecules build and maintain our bodies

Previously, genome activity was thought of in terms of the 22,000 genes that make proteins - the functional building blocks in our cells - along with patches of DNA that control, or regulate, the genes.

The other 97% or so of the genome was said to be made up of "junk" DNA - so called because it had no known biological function.

However, junk DNA may soon need a new moniker.

Dr Hubbard said: "We are now seeing the majority of the rest of the genome is active to some extent."

He explained that the study had found junk DNA was being transcribed, or copied, into RNA - an active molecule that relays information from DNA to the cellular machinery.

He added: "This is a remarkable finding, since most prior research suggested only a fraction of the genome was transcribed."

'Complex picture'

Dr Birney added that many of the RNA molecules were copying overlapping sequences of DNA.

He said: "The genome looks like it is far more of a network of RNA transcripts that are all collaborating together. Some go off and make proteins; [and] quite a few, although we know they are there, we really do not have a good understanding of what they do.

"This leads to a much more complex picture."

The researchers now hope to scale up their efforts to look at the other 99% of the genome.

By finding out more about its workings, scientists hope to have a better understanding of the mechanics of certain diseases.

Dr Birney said that in the future, they would hope to combine their findings with some of the larger studies that are currently investigating genes known to be associated with particular conditions.

He added: "As we understand these things better, we get better insight into disease, and when we get better insight into disease, we get better insight into diagnosis and the chances to create new drugs."

Robots put the cool back in computer science

The lesson plan was called "Artificial Unintelligence," but it was written more like a comic book than a syllabus for a serious computer science class.

"Singing, dancing and drawing polygons may be nifty, but any self-respecting evil roboticist needs a few more tricks in the repertoire if they are going to take over the world," read the day's instructions to a dozen or so Georgia Tech robotics students.

They had spent the last few months teaching their personal "Scribbler" robots to draw shapes and chirp on command. Now they were being asked to navigate a daunting obstacle course of Girl Scout cookie boxes scattered over a grid.

The course is aimed at re-igniting interest in computer science among undergraduates. Educators at Georgia Tech and elsewhere are turning to innovative programs like the Scribbler to draw more students to the field and reverse the tide of those leaving it.

At risk, professors say, is nothing less than U.S. technology supremacy. As interest in computer science drops in the U.S., India and China are emerging as engineering hubs with cheap labor and a skilled work force.

Schools across the country are taking steps to broaden the appeal of the major. More than a dozen universities have adopted "media computation" programs, a sort of alternate introduction to computer science with a New Media vibe. The classes, which have been launched at schools from the University of San Francisco to Virginia Tech, teach basic engineering using digital art, digital music and the Web.

Others are turning to niche fields to attract more students. The California Institute of Technology, which has seen a slight drop in undergraduate computer science majors, has more than made up for the losses by emphasizing the field of bioengineering.

"Many of our computer science faculty work on subjects related to biology, and so this new thrust works well for us," said Joel Burdick, a Caltech bioengineering professor.

At Georgia Tech, computing professor Tucker Balch says the brain drain is partly the fault of what he calls the "prime number" syndrome.

It's the traditional way to teach computer science students by asking them to write programs that spit out prime numbers, the Fibonacci sequence or other mathematical series.

It's proven a sound way to educate students dead-set on joining the ranks of computer programmers, but it's also probably scared away more than a few.

That's why Balch, who oversees the robotics class, is optimistic about the Scribbler, a scrappy blue robot cheap enough for students to buy and take home each night after class but versatile enough to handle fairly complex programs.

The key to the class is the design of the robot. It weighs about a pound and is slightly smaller than a Frisbee, sporting three light-detecting sensors and a speaker that can chirp. And at about $75, it's roughly the price of a science textbook.

The class centers on twice-weekly lectures, but the real excitement is in the weekly breakout session. That's where teaching assistants outline their cheeky lesson plans and instruct students how to use commands like turnLeft() and sense() to navigate their Scribblers around makeshift obstacle courses.

Students aren't just teaching the Scribblers how to move, they're teaching them how to dance, how to draw and how to create music -- a sort of artistic dynamo.

"It's a lot of fun," said Ami Shah, a 21-year-old senior biology major. "I've learned a lot from this class, and I think it's a really handy skill."

Professors are planning to expand the class from around 30 students to more than 200 next semester and are exporting the class to two other Georgia schools in the fall.

Georgia Tech, which has branded the robot the "new face of computing," is hoping that the class can be a new national model to teach students computing. To Microsoft Corp., which is investing $1 million to jump-start the program at Georgia Tech and Bryn Mawr, it's investment in what could become its work force.

Outside groups have applauded the effort, too.

"In fact, computing is a tool that can be used for virtually every application -- from entertainment to medicine," said Virginia Gold of the Association for Computing Machinery. "And the Scribbler helps show how pervasive computers are in everything."

The computing industry has a reason to be concerned about the future.

The number of new computer science majors has steadily declined since 2000, falling from close to 16,000 students to only 7,798 in fall 2006, according to the Computing Research Association.

And the downward trend isn't expected to reverse soon. The association says about 1 percent of incoming freshmen have indicated computer science as a probable major, a 70 percent drop from the rate in 2000.

The aftermath of the dot-com bust may have triggered the exodus, but computer scientists admit they've also been slow to adapt to the changes by reprogramming their teaching methods.

Although the Scribbler is one of several methods to lure more students to the field, its popularity has been surprising. Some 30 schools have already expressed interest in the course, said Deepak Kumar, the chair of Bryn Mawr's computer science department.

"It's fresh and new and engaging," said Kumar, who teaches a class of 24 Scribbler-wielding students. "We've got our fingers on one way to solve the problem."

Balch, who is watching the students from the corner of the classroom, is happy to agree.

"It beats prime numbers."

Astronomer Reports New Evidence of Dark Matter

A hazy ring of dark matter created by a colossal cosmic crash eons ago offers the best evidence to date that vast amounts of the mysterious material reside in the universe, a scientist at the Johns Hopkins University said Tuesday.

Images taken by the Hubble Space Telescope allowed astronomers to detect the ring of dark matter, which was created by the collision of two galaxy clusters five billion light-years from Earth.

Scientists came across the evidence while studying the distribution of dark matter within a galaxy cluster designated as Cl 0024+17. Wondering about the genesis of the ring, the researchers came across earlier work showing that the galaxy cluster had run into another cluster one billion to two billion years ago.

“The collision between the two galaxy clusters created a ripple of dark matter that left distinct footprints in the shapes of the background galaxies,” Myungkook James Jee, an astronomer at Johns Hopkins. Richard Massey, an astronomer at the California Institute of Technology, said the findings were facing skepticism within the astronomical community.

Another earth

Another planet was found

Solar storm satellites launched from Florida

CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (Reuters) - Five satellites were launched into space from Florida on Saturday aboard an unmanned Delta rocket to investigate electromagnetic storms, the dark side of the phenomenon that causes Earth's dazzling aurorae.

The $200 million mission is expected to help scientists develop better forecasting techniques for potentially dangerous solar storms, which can knock out power grids, navigation and other satellites and even force airlines to abandon polar routes due to loss of radio contact.

The satellites were carried into orbit aboard a Boeing-built Delta 2 rocket that lifted off at 6:01 p.m. (2301 GMT) from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida.

The solar storms are better known for triggering the beautiful sheets of shimmering green lights near Earth's north and south poles. The lights, known as aurorae, are caused by charged particles that have been blasted off the sun's surface toward Earth, where they can interact with the planet's magnetic field.

During storms, the magnetosphere is overloaded with energy, causing magnetic field lines to stretch until they snap back like giant rubber bands, flinging electrically charged particles at the planet. They travel into the upper atmosphere over the polar regions, where they smash into atoms and molecules, causing them to glow.

Scientists want to know where magnetic disturbances arise in hopes of being able to better predict when they will strike.

"For over 30 years, the source location of these explosive energy releases has been sought after with great fervor. It is a question almost as old as space physics itself," said Vassilis Angelopoulos, the lead scientist for the mission, which is called Time History of Events and Macroscale Interactions during Substorms, or THEMIS.

The charged particles also can damage electronic components on spacecraft, short-circuit power lines and rip through the bodies of astronauts in space, potentially causing cancer.

A network of five satellites is needed to track the storms, which start from a single point in space and progress past the moon's orbit within minutes.

The purpose of THEMIS is to identify the trigger locations and unravel the physics of the storms' progressions. Over the network's two-year lifetime, scientists hope to observe about 30 storms.

The launch was the first for NASA since Boeing and Lockheed Martin combined their commercial launch services of both the Delta and the Lockheed-built Atlas boosters into the jointly owned United Launch Alliance.

Science skills displayed at olympics

With a quick yank of a rope, the green bottle wrapped in duct tape whooshed into the air over Lakebottom Park.

As intended, the bright orange tip of Wesley Heights Elementary School's bottle rocket came off, making way for a parachute that eased the vessel back to the ground.

"It really worked out well," said Jennifer Hurtt, who led Wesley Heights' team in the countywide Elementary Science Olympics Saturday at Columbus High School.

Nearly 300 elementary school students from 18 schools built bridges with Popsicle sticks, fashioned paper airplanes and shot off bottle rockets, competing in 14 science-related activities.

Each event carried with it different lessons. Building the bottle rockets -- from deciding its shape to selecting its materials -- is an exercise in aerodynamics, said Tommie Ford, a science teacher at Arnold Magnet Academywho was running the bottle rocket event.

But the education doesn't stop there. Whether the students know it or not, they are watching scientist Isaac Newton's Third Law when their rockets are shot into the sky. For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction at work, Ford said.

Activities in the science olympics challenge students to draw on principles of math, biology, logic and other academic disciplines, said Gail Sinkule, a Columbus High teacher who has coordinated the olympics for 12 years. Next month, Sinkule will become president of the Georgia State Science Teachers Association.

"It's putting together different skills," Sinkule said.

Standing in a courtyard, Hannan Elementary teacher Elia Moran watched as her team competed in an egg drop. To soften their eggs' fall, students were allowed only two wire coat hangers, paper clips, rubber bands and masking tape.

"They don't see it as learning," Moran said. "They don't realize they are."