Coalition Events & Activities
NASSMC Executive Director Presents at Tennessee Conference
NASSMC Executive Director Jim McMurtray presented to the Tennessee Mathematics and Science Education Research Conference sponsored by the Tennessee Math, Science & Technology Education Center (TMSTEC), a NASSMC member coalition. McMurtray spoke to a diverse audience on the topic "National Science Education Initiatives and the Role of Research." The event was held February 21-22, in Murfreesboro.
SciMathMN Holds Second Annual Policymaker Briefing
The briefing—A Decade of Action – Setting Priorities for STEM Education in Minnesota:
A Synthesis of Recommendations for a 21st Century Workforce—was keynoted by Dr. Rodger Bybee, Director Emeritus of Biological Sciences Curriculum Study (BSCS). BSCS commissioned the report, A Decade of Action: Sustaining Global Competitiveness - A Synthesis of Recommendations from Business, Industry and Government for a 21st Century Workforce. Topics discussed at the briefing include how conclusions and recommendations in this report can assist Minnesota policymakers in setting priorities related to STEM education. In addition, Minnesota educators who have developed and used exemplary approaches to professional development for teachers in the STEM disciplines were featured. An agenda as well as more information is available here. SciMathMN is a NASSMC member coalition.
Ohio Coalition Co-Sponsors NE Ohio STEM Conference
The Ohio Mathematics and Science Coalition (OMSC) co-sponsored the NE Ohio STEM Conference held at The Idea Center in Playhouse Square on February 27 and 28, 2008. Focused on developing NE Ohio's medical, manufacturing, engineering and knowledge innovation economy, the NE Ohio STEM Conference marked the beginning of a coordinated efforts to build strong ties between the education and business communities in the region. Learn more here. OMSC is a NASSMC Member coalition.
More information about NASSMC Member Coalitions is available here. |
Of Interest...
| Items selected for this section come from a variety of sources – including but not limited to NASA, NSF, ESA, Science (AAAS), Nature, Smithsonian, New Scientist, Live Science, Science News, and Discover Magazine – and are meant to represent the vast and ever-changing body of scientific research. Selected for their interest value, these items are neither juried nor validated by NASSMC or its member coalitions. |
+ Generate as you decorate with solar-power paint: A lick of solar-power paint could see the roofs and walls of warehouses and other buildings generate electricity from the sun, if research by UK researchers pays off. The scientists are developing a way to paint solar cells onto the steel sheets commonly used to clad large buildings. Steel sheets are painted rapidly in steel mills by passing them through rollers. A consortium led by Swansea University, UK, hopes to use that process to cover steel sheets with a photovoltaic paint at up to 40 square metres per minute. ~ via New Scientist
+ All eyes and ears on the corn genome: A consortium of researchers led by the Genome Sequencing Center (GSC) at Washington University in St. Louis, Mo., announced [February 28] the completion of a draft sequence of the corn genome. In the fall of 2005 the NSF, in partnership with the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the Department of Energy (DOE), awarded $32 million to two projects to sequence the corn genome. The goal of the project led by the Washington University GSC is to develop a map-based genome sequence for the B73 inbred line of corn. ~ via NSF
|
This is an artist concept of the ring of debris that may orbit Saturn's second-largest moon, Rhea. The suggested disk of solid material is exaggerated in density here for clarity.
Credit: NASA/JPL/JHUAPL |
+ Saturn's moon Rhea also may have rings: NASA's Cassini spacecraft has found evidence of material orbiting Rhea, Saturn's second largest moon. This is the first time rings may have been found around a moon. A broad debris disk and at least one ring appear to have been detected by a suite of six instruments on Cassini specifically designed to study the atmospheres and particles around Saturn and its moons. "Until now, only planets were known to have rings, but now Rhea seems to have some family ties to its ringed parent Saturn," said Geraint Jones, a Cassini scientist and lead author on a paper that appears in the March 7 issue of the journal Science. Jones began this work while at the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research, Katlenburg-Lindau, Germany, and is now at the Mullard Space Science Laboratory, University College, London. ~ via NASA
+ Ancient tomb found on Greek island: Road construction on the western Greek island of Lefkada has uncovered and partially destroyed an important tomb with artifacts dating back more than 3,000 years, officials said on Wednesday. The find is a miniature version of the large, opulent tombs built by the rulers of Greece during the Mycenaean era, which ended around 1100 B.C. Although dozens have been found in the mainland and on Crete, the underground, beehive-shaped monuments are very rare in the western Ionian Sea islands, and previously unknown on Lefkada. The discovery could fuel debate on a major prehistoric puzzle — where the homeland of Homer's legendary hero Odysseus was located. ~via LiveScience
+ Proteins could beef up computer memory: Proteins play a big role in the functioning of your brain, but some recent research indicates that, in a few years, proteins could also play a big role in the functioning of your computer. Tetsuro Majima at Osaka University in Japan has now shown that proteins can be used to store computer data — and exceed the capacities of today's magnetic and optical media, which are pushing their performance boundaries. The resulting data should be stable enough for a commercial product, which he hopes to see emerge in the next five years, he told LiveScience. Protein-based memory devices should be immune to magnetic interference, which can wreck data on a hard drive. ~via LiveScience
+ Heated hobbit debate takes new turn with thyroid theory: The bitter scientific squabble over the true identity of the fossil hobbit has taken another acrimonious turn. An analysis by Australian researchers suggests the diminutive creatures were not members of a new species at all, but suffered from a congenital thyroid deficiency that stunted their growth. They are not the first scientists to propose that the so-called hobbit, which was found on the Indonesian island of Flores in 2003, was a sick human. But they are the first to suggest an environmental contribution to the disease. They believe the hobbit's diet was low in iodine and selenium. "Dwarf cretinism is the result of severe iodine deficiency in pregnancy in combination with a number of other environmental factors," said Dr Peter Obendorf of RMIT University in Melbourne. "Our research suggest these fossils are not a new species but rather the remains of human hunter-gatherers that suffered from this condition." ~via The Guardian
|
A composite image of ultraviolet, green and deep red light shows the detailed structure of hot, moderate and cool stars in the spiral galaxy NGC 2770. LBT has 10 times the resolution of the Hubble Space Telescope.
|
+ Giant telescope opens both eyes: Astronomers at the Large Binocular Telescope (LBT) in Arizona have released the first images taken using its two giant 8m diameter mirrors. The detailed pictures show a spiral galaxy located 102 million light-years away from the Milky Way. ~via BBC News Science and Nature
+ Sea cucumber inspires new plastic: The skin of sea cucumbers was the inspiration for a new material that can change dramatically from rigid to floppy when soaked in water. The material could be useful for brain implants that cause less inflammation, researchers say. A version switched by electric pulses that is currently in development could find many more uses – such as clothing that morphs into armour. Sea cucumbers' skin is usually supple, allowing them to slide through narrow spaces between rocks and corals. But when touched a defensive reaction makes their skin go rigid in seconds, thanks to enzymes that binds protein fibres together. A second set of enzymes can break those bonds to make the skin soft again. ~via LiveScience
+ Mathematicians debate the hole truth: A British mathematician made headlines this week by claiming to have solved a problem that had defeated researchers for 140 years: how to make a classic formula with broad applications in physics and engineering apply to objects riddled with holes. But a team of American mathematicians say they had the key insight first, touching off a dispute about as tricky as the mathematics itself. Darren Crowdy of Imperial College London tackled a well-known equation called the Schwarz-Christoffel formula. Worked out independently in the 1860s by German mathematicians Hermann Amandus Schwarz and Elwin Bruno Christoffel, the formula can be used to morph any polygon--such as an octagonal stop sign--onto a circle in such a way that intersecting straight lines drawn on the face of the original polygon will still cross at the same angles after the transformation bends them. The whole business takes place in the "complex plane," in which real numbers run along the horizontal axis and imaginary numbers, which are real numbers multiplied by the square root of -1, run along the vertical axis. ~via ScienceNOW
+ DNA pollution may be spawning killer microbes: On a bright winter morning high in the Colorado Rockies, a slight young woman in oversize hip boots sidles up to a gap of open water in the icy Cache la Poudre River. Heather Storteboom, a 25-year-old graduate student at nearby Colorado State University, is prospecting for clues to an invisible killer. ~via Discover Magazine
|
