Lab works to make nuclear 'gunk' environmentally safe
Mississippi State UniversityA "drum-thunker" and a high-temperature electric torch are helping a Mississippi State University lab develop ways to reduce and safely store nuclear wastes.
A "drum-thunker" and a high-temperature electric torch are helping a Mississippi State University lab develop ways to reduce and safely store nuclear wastes.
ENVIRONMENTAL CHEMISTRY TIP SHEET - January 1998 1. Pure as the Driven Snow? Tracking Pollutants on Snowflakes 2. Getting the Lead out May Mean Cleaning up the Outdoors 3. What Is the Source of Atmospheric Mercury Contamination in Remote Areas?
Nuclear Industry comment on DOE Energy Information Administration report, " Annual Energy Outlook 1998."
Cornell University astronomer Joseph Veverka and a team of scientists are releasing humanity's first close-up images of a little-known c-class asteroid 253 Mathilde to be published exclusively in the journal Science on Friday, Dec. 19. Scientists didn't expect to find the minor planet so densely pocked with craters and so porous. It is made mostly of carbonaceous chondrite.
Los Alamos metallurgists adapting technology for spraying molten metal to national security applications have also found a use for the technology as a new tool for sculptors.
Imagine if your old chemistry textbook could suddenly come to life. You could see chemical reactions or an interactive representation of the periodic table.
Leptin, a hormone that appears to play an important role in body metabolism and obesity, has been found for the first time in human breast milk.
New Scientist Tip Sheet for 12-16-97
Astronomers will release today (Dec. 17) the clearest Hubble Space Telescope images yet of zesty and mysterious cosmic spouts - known as FLIERs -- emanating from distant objects that once were stars like our sun.
The renovation of Vassar College's Carol and James Kautz Admission House has garnered awards for renovation and design from leading construction and architectural organizations.
Rolla, Mo. -- Recent tests of steel from the Titanic reveal that the metal was much more brittle than modern steel but the best available at the time, a metallurgical engineering professor at the University of Missouri-Rolla says in a paper to be published in the January 1998 issue of Journal of Metals.
If you have a phobia about "Friday the 13th" then 1998 isn't going to be a good year for you. There are three "Friday the 13ths" in the upcoming year: February 13, March 13 and November 13. Thomas Fernsler can discuss triskaidekaphobia--fear of the number 13.
Science tips for December include ISU research on: 1.) Shuttle bus to space; 2.) Satellite sticky tape; 3.) Homegrown plastics; 4.) ISU physicists help build 'discovery engine'; 5.) Pure cooling power.
Between January 2 and 9, 1998, Louise Hose, the country's leading female cave explorer and a geology professor from Westminster College in Missouri, will lead a team of scientists into an almost unknown worldówhere they will study living creatures so bizarre that for centuries no one realized they were alive. Hose's team will travel to southern Mexico to delve into the Cueva de Villa Luz, or "The Cave of the Lighted House" and the rare sulfur-based life there.
Scientists have discovered a bacterium with the same insect-thwarting properties as the widely-used Bacillus thurengensis. The bacterium, Photorhabdus luminescens, contains a toxin proven effective against a broad array of insects, and promises to become a potent, safe and environmentally benign weapon in the war against insect pests.
As winter finches move south across the Canada-U.S. border in what may be record numbers, ornithological scientists are getting their best-ever look at a massive bird 'irruption,' thanks to thousands of citizen scientists using BirdSource, the interactive World Wide Web database for bird information operated by the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology and the National Audubon Society. The online database records bird sightings -- by casual backyard bird-watchers as well as serious bird enthusiasts.
Researchers at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle and the James A. Baker Institute for Animal Health at Cornell's College of Veterinary Medicine are reporting the development of a framework reference map of the canine genome. The map covers most of the canine genome. It was constructed from 150 microsatellite markers developed by the Seattle group and typed on pedigrees developed by the Cornell team.
A 'dispatcher' gene--described in the Dec. 12, 1997, issue of Science--seems to juggle assignments for many `sentry' genes in a model plant system and may ultimately help researchers design hardier, more disease-resistant food plants, a University of Delaware scientist says.
Food Chemistry Tip Sheet: 1. Soy-Based Infant Formulas Contain Beneficial Isoflavones 2. Sunflower Pectin Can Be Used for Low-Calorie Jellies 3. Epoxy from Can Copatings Found in Infant Formula Liquid Concentrates 4. Canadian Cured Meat Shows Little Decline in Nitrite Levels
President Clinton will present the nation's highest science and engineering honor, the National Medal of Science, to Marshall N. Rosenbluth, a nuclear physicist at the University of California, San Diego. Rosenbluth is one of fourteen oustanding scientists, inventors and business leaders being honored by the President on December 16 at a ceremony in the Old Executive Office Building.
The Northeast Regional Climate Center at Cornell University has released this year's statistical probabilities chart for a white Christmas for major metropolitan areas and other selected cities in the Northeast. It is not a forecast.
Nashville, Tenn. - Two Vanderbilt University mechanical engineering professors are developing a tiny insect-like robot, about a third the size of a credit card, which will have applications for military and intelligence-gathering missions.
A really compact disk, the size of a penny, that packs as much information as 30 current CDs could be on the horizon if technology developed by Stephen Chou becomes commercialized. The University of Minnesota electrical engineering professor has found a way to store 400 billion bits (or 400 gigabits) of information in a square inch of CD space; this is 800 times the storage capacity of current CDs, which carry only half a gigabit per square inch.
Only one area of the continental U.S. has not been mapped --the Everglades. Now a team from the U.S. Park Service and the University of Georgia are in the final year of a mapping project.
It used to be a rule that a thick envelope from a college was good news and a thin envelope was bad. That's no longer the case. Smaller schools are trying to keep the process as personal as possible.
Many high schools and colleges prepare lists of books and plays that they recommend students read in order to be better prepared for a college curriculum. Here are some suggestions for a literary hot sheet from colleges and universities around the nation.
New computer modeling suggests that global warming might not be entirely a product of human activity. The research shows that carbon and sulfur emissions can have the reverse effect, serving to cool down the planet.
Got milk? Yes, you do. Those television commercials in which some poor dupe gets too little milk too late are working well. A Cornell University study to be published in December indicates that thanks to heavy doses of advertising, more and more American consumers are buying fluid milk.
East Lansing, Mich. -- Someone call Tom Cruise. Based on safety belt use in the top movies of 1996, buckling up on the silver screen seems like "Mission: Impossible."
Researchers at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute are creating and studying aerogels, substances so porous they are more air than solid material. When used as insulators on computer chips, these porous materials could more than double computing speeds.
Researchers have answered a fundamental question about how G proteins, the cell's message relay switch, coordinate and control signals that determine cell activities. By looking at the crystal structure of one type of G protein (Gs-alpha) bound to its target, an enzyme found in heart tissue, UT Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas scientists also uncovered a possible target for cardiac drugs.
A new "DNA" biochip developed at the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory could revolutionize the way the medical profession performs tests on blood.
The decline in political party loyalty and the influence of newspapers versus television are influencing political elections, making the results more volatile than in the past.
Air-pollution-related hydrocarbon emissions from vegetation are much higher than expected over the African savanna (flat tropical grasslands), while those coming from the rain forests are somewhat lower than prior estimates, according to scientists. The National Science Foundation (NSF)-funded research team is mapping natural and human-caused trace gas emissions across the African continent in a project is called EXPRESSO, the Experiment for Regional Sources and Sinks of Oxidants.
New ultra-high speed computer software can simulate the effects of solar surface eruptions on the Earth's magnetosphere. 3-D models of eruptions are created far faster than real time---meaning the simulation might some day predict the effects of space weather phenomena on Earth in ample time to prepare for them.
Cornell university abuse experts have developed programs for the Army and Marines to enhance family stability, promote personal growth and responsibility and prevent family violence.
Young lambs may not need inoculation against enterotoxemia type D -- otherwise known as "overeating disease" -- until past the age of 6 weeks, according to Cornell University animal scientists.
In the new book "Understanding Abusive Families," Cornell University professors of human development James Garbarino and John Eckenrode explore why families become abusive and what it takes to help such families care for their children or, failing that, to protect children from harm.
West Virginia University and the Federal Bureau of Investigation have signed a unique agreement that will allow the school to offer the world's first degree programs in forensic identification.
First results from a satellite launched to advance technology for nuclear weapons detection show thousands times more lightning from thunderstorms than anything previously detected.
Researchers at The New York Botanical Garden are working in a community forestry project in West Kalimantan, Indonesia to invest in the rain forest: developing sustainable ways to exploit forest resources - harvesting only the annual growth, (that is, interest), and safeguarding the basic stock of plant resources, (that is, principal), for the future.
Research Highlights from the New York Botanical Garden - In the tropics, traditional agricultural systems yield models for sustainable farming all over the world.
Tips from Oak Ridge National Laboratory: 1) Energy - What's Your R-Value? 2) Technology Transfer - The Long Arm Of ORCMT, 3) Environmental Management - Giving Waste The Cold Shoulder, 4) Computing - New 'Super'-Life For Old Computers
Leif Edvinsson, the first ever director of Intellectual Capital (at Skandia AFS in Stockholm, Sweden) and the world's leading expert on Intellectual Capital says there are applications for Intellectual Capital beyond business. He is meeting with MBA students at Fairfield University to discuss how Intellectual Capital can be used to improve the communities in which we live.
Thanks to the work of ethnobotanists who study the uses of plants by ancient cultures, the garden of the Mughal emperors near the Taj Mahal may bloom again. The Mehtab Bagh or "Moonlight Garden" is a 1000-square-foot garden built around the 17th century on the banks of the Yamuna River in Agra, India. It blossomed across the river from the Taj Mahal, the world- famous mausoleum built in 1632 by Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan for his favorite empress.
A new 300-site survey of borehole temperatures spanning four continents and five centuries has confirmed what most scientists already believe---the Earth is getting warmer and the rate of warming has been accelerating rapidly since 1900.
Last May University of Iowa space physicist Louis Frank claimed to have discovered 20- to 40-ton cosmic snowballs, the size of houses, pelting the Earth at the rate of 30,000 a day. Now University of Washington geophysicist George Parks has analyzed Frank's ultraviolet (UV) camera images and has concluded that the white snow in space is no more than black "snow" on the television screen. Parks and his collaborators are certain that Frank has been looking at "instrument noise."
Using $1.5 million in grants from the National Institutes of Health, LSU chemist Steven Soper is on the verge of saving researchers with the Human Genome Project millions of dollars and years of work.
Researchers say constellations of satellites as small as a half an ounce each be used for a variety of important new space missions. They presented their study and a satellite controller prototype at the American Geophysical Union meeting in San Francisco.
Tipsheet for the December 1997 Journals of the American Society for Microbiology: 1) New Antibody Test for Ulcer Bug, 2) Pine Cleaners Contribute to Antibiotic Resistance, 3) Naturally Occurring Antibiotic Resitance