Tag Archives: georgia

From Mentee to Mentor, Berkeley Lab’s Education Programs Inspire Scientists

By Guest PostSeptember 9, 2013Education, Scienceadvanced light source, austin, bacteriaphage virology, bay area, berkeley lab, bioprospecting project, csee program, cxro, earth sciences division, education programs, environmental sample, fusion research division, georgia, mary singer, mentee, mentor, microbiology, seno rekawa, sri lanka, tamas torok, university of texas, university of wisconsin

Question: “What did you do this summer?” Answer: “I built the Advanced Light Source.”

It’s the rare undergraduate who can say they spent their vacation building a third-generation synchrotron, but that’s exactly what Seno Rekawa did in the summer of 1991 as an intern at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. It was an auspicious start to his career. Less than five years later, he was working as a full-time engineer at Berkeley Lab and now is a regular mentor to budding high school and college engineers.

Berkeley Lab’s Center for Science and Engineering Education (CSEE), with its range of internship offerings, helps to fulfill one of the Lab’s mandates, which is to inspire and prepare this country’s next generation of scientists, engineers and technicians. This year more than 70 current and recent college students and almost 20 high school and college instructors participated in a CSEE program, working with Berkeley Lab researchers on science projects spanning from cancer research to cosmology to biofuels. (more…)

Research Finds Invasive Kudzu Bugs May Pose Greater Threat Than Previously Thought

By Guest PostApril 29, 2013Natureagricultural pest, alejandro, asia, crop damage, del pozo valdivia, dominic reisig, entomology, generation a, georgia, invasive kudzu bug, megacopta cribraria, nc state, north Carolina, soybean crops, state university, united states, virginia

The invasive kudzu bug has the potential to be a major agricultural pest, causing significant damage to economically important soybean crops. Conventional wisdom has held that the insect pests will be limited to areas in the southern United States, but new research from North Carolina State University shows that they may be able to expand into other parts of the country.

Kudzu bugs (Megacopta cribraria) are native to Asia, and were first detected in the U.S. in Georgia in 2009. They have since expanded their territory as far north as Virginia. The bugs have an interesting life cycle, which has been thought to be a limiting factor on far they can spread. (more…)

New Study Reveals How Sensitive U.S. East Coast Regions May Be to Ocean Acidification

By Guest PostApril 1, 2013Environmentacidic, acidic environment, bicarbonate, buffer capacity, carbon dioxide, carbon in ocean, carbonate, carbonic acid, changes in acidity, chemical survey, CO2, co2 levels, coastal ocean acidification, continental scale, coral, corpus christi, dic, dissolved co2, dissolved inorganic carbon, florida strait, galveston, georgia, glaciers, gulf of maine, gulf of mexico, influx of co2, labrador sea, melting sea ice, middle atlantic bight, Mississippi, ocean acidification, offshore, oysters, pteropods, rik wanninkhof, robert h byrne, ronald h brown, snails, texas, total alkalinity, tsung hung peng, university of georgia, us east coast, water ph, whoi, wie jen huang, wie jun cai, xinping hu, zhaohui aleck wang

A continental-scale chemical survey in the waters of the eastern U.S. and Gulf of Mexico is helping researchers determine how distinct bodies of water will resist changes in acidity. The study, which measures varying levels of carbon dioxide (CO₂) and other forms of carbon in the ocean, was conducted by scientists from 11 institutions across the U.S. and was published in the journal Limnology and Oceanography.

“Before now, we haven’t had a very clear picture of acidification status on the east coast of the U.S.,” says Zhaohui ‘Aleck’ Wang, the study’s lead author and a chemical oceanographer at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI). “It’s important that we start to understand it, because increase in ocean acidity could deeply affect marine life along the coast and has important implications for people who rely on aquaculture and fisheries both commercially and recreationally.” (more…)

Caching In: How Some Organizations Are Using Big Data to Change the Way They Do Business

By Guest PostFebruary 12, 2013Technologyanalytics tools, article on forbes, atlanta, bank, bi, big data, big data strategies, bnz, bryson koehler, business, business intelligence, cloud platform, columns of data, crossmark, david selinger, fossils, generate big data, georgia, global scale, Microsoft, microsoft data warehouse, microsoft solutions, microsoft sql server, nctn, nhi, organization, parallel data warehouse, pdw, point of sale, pos data, quantities of data, real-time, risk populations, super 8 worldwide, susan hauser, Technology, therapy, united states, university advancement, va, weather channel, what and why, windows azure

As big data access shifts to the masses, The Weather Company and other top global companies are showing the world how it’s done.

REDMOND, Wash. — Feb. 12, 2012 —Big data is changing the way organizations do business, make discoveries, and interact with each other. In fact, pundits are predicting that 2013 will be the year organizations across a range of industries begin implementing big data strategies, or face obsolescence. As David Selinger wrote in a recent article on Forbes online: “If executives don’t find a way to trap, tame, and train their data monsters, they’ll be extinct in two years—fossils who’ve missed the new world order.”

Microsoft believes that big data has the power to drive practical and theoretical insights that have eluded people to date. In the past, high costs and technology limitations have constrained access to data storage infrastructure and the tools needed to manage and analyze large quantities of data. This is finally starting to change. (more…)

Monitoring Hurricanes: Georgia Tech Engineers Assist NASA with Instrument for Remotely Measuring Storm Intensity

By Guest PostDecember 14, 2012Environment, Scienceairborne system, analog beam former, aperture, array antenna, data, electromagnetic energy, electromagnetic radiation, fan beams, flight center, georgia, gigahertz range, glenn hopkins, global hawk, gtri, high winds, hirad, hurricane imaging radiometer, in the system, innovation research, jim maloney, knowledge, marshall, massachusetts, michigan, microwave, microwave radiation, minimizing noise, NASA, next generation system, noaa, numerical modeling, ocean waves, orbit, pacific frontal system, polarized array, project, prosensing, radiometer, rain rate, research institute, satellite, sbir, sea foam, sensitivity, small business, Space, spatial resolution, storm, surface wind speeds, synthetic, tech, timothy miller, university, wind direction

A device designed by engineers at the Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI) is part of the Hurricane Imaging Radiometer (HIRAD), an experimental airborne system developed by the Earth Science Office at the NASA Marshall Space Flight Center in Alabama.

Known as an analog beam-former, the GTRI device is part of the radiometer, which is being tested by NASA on a Global Hawk unmanned aerial vehicle. The radiometer measures microwave radiation emitted by the sea foam that is produced when high winds blow across ocean waves. By measuring the electromagnetic radiation, scientists can remotely assess surface wind speeds at multiple locations within the hurricanes. (more…)

Driver’s ed for Robots

By Guest PostOctober 31, 2012Scienceadvance, advanced institute, area, bio contaminated, christopher rasmussen, columbia university, cyber, delaware, disaster relief, drexel university, drive, earthquake, energy plant, georgia, herbert tanner, hybrid, indiana university, institute, ioannis poulakakis, japanese, korean, navigate environment, nuclear, ohio, phase 1, physical, polytechnic institute, purdue university, radioactive, robot, robotics technology, sensor network, state university, swarthmore college, system modeling, teach, Technology, tsunami, university, vehicle, worcester

UD joins research team teaching robots to respond in disaster emergencies

How do you teach a robot to get into vehicle and drive it? Three University of Delaware professors plan to figure it out by the end of next year.

Christopher Rasmussen, Ioannis Poulakakis and Herbert Tanner are part of a team competing in a new U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Challenge. The team, with members from 10 schools, led by Drexel University, is one of several groups worldwide working to advance robotics technology for disaster relief. (more…)

Innovation Served on a Napkin: How GTRI Moved a Simple Idea From Inspiration to Fabrication

By Guest PostSeptember 3, 2011Science3 d cell, adrenaline, air-conditioning, bloo solar of west sacramento, boeing, boston in 2003, dna replicating process, georgia, georgia tech research institute, gtri, horizon, ip2biz, jack flicker, jud ready, kevlar, larry bawden, micro scale manhattan, microelectronics, nanotechnologies, napkin, octagonal, pcr, polymerase chain reaction, powerpoint presentation, prototypes, solar energy, xcor, yellow jacket flying club

A ground-breaking innovation, birthed in a sudden flash of insight, is the stuff of legend. Air conditioning, Kevlar, the DNA-replicating process known as PCR (polymerase chain reaction) — each was the product of a Eureka! moment. The list may soon be longer by one, thanks to a wandering mind and a napkin.

When Jud Ready attended an academic conference on materials science in Boston in 2003, he didn’t plan on coming home with the idea for a three-dimensional solar cell, but that’s what happened. (more…)

Aspiring Journalist Also Sets Her Sights on Winning A National Pageant

By Guest PostJune 24, 2011Cultureafrican-american women, alpha phi alpha fraternity, atlanta, CNN, connecticut, dwight hall, ebony magazine, georgia, gold pageant, journalism, liane membis, miss black, miss black america pageant, miss congeniality, miss gold, new york, nigeria, ruth whitney scholarship, women in communications foundation, world cup soccer, yale daily news, zeta chapter

In the spring of last year, Yale junior Liane Membis acted on a whim and found it opened up opportunities she never before considered.

That was when she made a spontaneous decision to take part in the Miss Black and Gold pageant sponsored by the Yale-based Zeta chapter of the Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity. She was completely surprised when she won the runner-up distinction of Miss Gold — as well as the title of Miss Congeniality — in the contest, which celebrates the achievements of African-American women. (more…)