Computer science professor Stefanie Tellex is helping schools across Rhode Island implement a new curriculum in which students learn basic robotics by building their own autonomous drones.
PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — Thanks to a grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to a Brown University professor, a high-flying new robotics curriculum is coming to high schools across Rhode Island. (more…)
The Calaveras County Jumping Frog Jubilee has entered the scientific record via a new paper in the Journal of Experimental Biology. Experienced bullfrog ‘jockeys’ at the event routinely get their frogs to jump much farther than researchers had ever measured in the lab. How? Decades of refined technique, uncommonly motivated humans and herps, and good old-fashioned large sample size.
PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — One day, amid his decades-long study of how animals move, including how frogs jump, Brown University biologist Thomas Roberts found himself and colleague Richard Marsh puzzling over the Guinness Book of World Records. A bullfrog named Rosie the Ribiter reportedly had jumped more than 2.1 meters in a single hop at the Calaveras County Jumping Frog Jubilee in 1986, but scientific studies had never reported a bullfrog jump beyond 1.3 meters. (more…)
Combined research efforts by scientists involved in the Gulf of Maine Toxicity (GOMTOX) project, funded by NOAA’s Ecology and Oceanography of Harmful Algal Blooms (ECOHAB) program, and administered by the National Centers for Coastal Ocean Science (NCCOS), have led to enhanced understanding of toxic algal blooms on Georges Bank. This new information, coupled with an at-sea and dockside testing protocol developed through collaboration between GOMTOX and U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) investigators, has allowed fishermen to harvest ocean quahogs and surf clams in these offshore waters for the first time in more than two decades.
The shellfish industry estimates the Georges Bank fishery can produce up to 1 million bushels of surf clams and ocean quahogs a year, valued $10 – 15 million annually. “There is a billion dollars’ worth of shellfish product on Georges Bank that is property of the United States but that can’t be harvested because of the threat of toxicity, and 99.9% of the time, it is good wholesome product,” says Dave Wallace of North Atlantic Clam Association and a GOMTOX participant. “In an unusual and unique partnership, we worked with GOMTOX scientists, the FDA, and the states of Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New Jersey and Delaware and now that huge resource can go into commerce, which helps the entire country.” (more…)
The Isabella anomaly — indications of a large mass of cool, dehydrated material about 100 kilometers beneath central California — is in fact a surviving slab of the Farallon oceanic plate. Most of the Farallon plate was driven deep into the Earth’s mantle as the Pacific and North American plates began converging about 100 million years ago, eventually coming together to form the San Andreas fault.
PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — Large chunks of an ancient tectonic plate that slid under North America millions of years ago are still present under parts of central California and Mexico, according to new research led by Brown University geophysicists. (more…)
Rick Benjamin, adjunct assistant professor of environmental studies and public humanities, was recently appointed state poet of Rhode Island by Gov. Lincoln D. Chafee. A five-year position, the state poet serves as principal advocate for poetry in Rhode Island. Benjamin has dedicated much of his career to the intersection of poetry and community service, a relationship he incorporates into “Poetry and Community Service,” a course he teaches at Brown and other schools. Courtney Coelho spoke with Benjamin about his poetry, his mission of service, and how he intends to incorporate the two in his new position.
Describe your poetry. What is your style? What are your influences?
I have a wide range of influences. I tend to learn everything through the ear. My early influences were always oral and musical, starting with poetry I probably didn’t really understand by Eliot that my mom was reading me. So she would say things like, “So intimate, this Chopin, that I think his soul should be resurrected only among friends some two or three, who will not touch the bloom that is rubbed and questioned in the concert room.” There’s not a lot of that that I would have understood when she said it, but I did hear it and I really loved the sound of it. And Langston Hughes is a poet I became acquainted with really early on and again it was the sound and the rhythm and the music in the poetry that I responded to first. In terms of poets that I read now: Lucille Clifton, Adrienne Rich, Ruth Stone, Robert Hass, Kevin Young. (more…)
A new Brown University poll of Rhode Island voters finds strong support for state-operated casino gaming at Twin River and Newport Grand. In the hotly contested Congressional District One race, Rep. David Cicilline retains a small lead. The survey, conducted Sept. 26 to Oct. 5 2012, is based on a sample of 496 registered voters in Rhode Island.
PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — A new public opinion survey by Brown University researchers finds that Rhode Island voters appear poised to approve questions one and two on the state ballot, which would allow casino gaming in Lincoln and Newport. Despite an approval rating of just 29.7 percent, Rep. David Cicilline appears to have an edge over Republican challenger Brendan Doherty among voters in 1st Congressional District.
Researchers at the A. Alfred Taubman Center for Public Policy and American Institutions and the John Hazen White Public Opinion Laboratory at Brown University surveyed a random sample of 496 Rhode Island voters from Sept. 26 to Oct. 5, 2012. The poll has an overall margin of error of plus or minus 4.4 percent. (more…)
In his recently published book, Family Consequences of Children’s Disabilities, Dennis Hogan offers the first comprehensive account of families of children with disabilities. He talked with Courtney Coelho about his findings, including some of the more surprising ways having a child with a disability can affect the family structure.
Families of children with disabilities often face a plethora of challenges, ranging from the financial to the emotional. Still, little research has been done to document exactly how families are affected by a child with a disablity. Dennis Hogan’s recently published book, Family Consequences of Children’s Disabilities (Russell Sage Foundation), is the first comprehensive account of these experiences. Motivated by his own experience of growing up with a brother with Down syndrome, Hogan, the Robert E. Turner Distinguished Professor of Population Studies, merged existing data with interviews with more than two dozen family members of disabled children. He talked with Courtney Coelho about his findings, including some of the more surprising ways having a child with a disability can affect the family structure. (more…)
The 168 rectangular panels on the roof of the Katherine Moran Coleman Aquatic Center will generate enough power to keep the lights on and enough thermal energy to heat the million-gallon pool. The center, due to open April 13, will be Rhode Island’s first hybrid (heat and power) solar installation — also the largest in the nation and the first on a college campus.
Brown is diving into solar energy. (more…)
