January 11, 2007, 5:05 AM CT

High school physics enrollment record high

More U.S. high-school students are taking physics than ever before, and the number of physics bachelor's degree recipients in the nation has increased 31 percent since 2000, according to new data presented today by the American Institute of Physics (AIP). In addition, physics bachelor's degree recipients are eight times more likely to go on to earn any kind of PhD than those with non-physics bachelor's, the new data show. Michael Neuschatz, senior research associate at AIP's Statistical Research Center, will present these new data in a physics education symposium entitled --"Overcoming Gravity"-- at this week's joint meeting of the American Association of Physics Teachers (AAPT) and the American Astronomical Society in Seattle.

"Good physics education is the backbone of a first-class workforce in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics," said Toufiq Hakim, AAPT's Executive Director, who organized the "Overcoming Gravity" session. "The future of U.S. economic competitiveness hinges on strong science education in our country".

Presenting new data that encourage this outlook, Neuschatz will show that enrollment in high school physics classes is up and likely to continue increasing. The data show more than 30 percent of high school seniors have taken physics classes, more than ever before. This percentage has been rising steadily since the mid-1980s.........

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January 10, 2007, 9:31 PM CT

But Now You Can Touch It

Engineers have developed a system that uses a simple water purification technique that can eliminate 100 percent of the microbes in New Orleans water samples left from Hurricane Katrina. The technique makes use of specialized resins, copper and hydrogen peroxide to purify tainted water.

The system--safer, cheaper and simpler to use than many other methods--breaks down a range of toxic chemicals. While the method cleans the water, it doesn't yet make the water drinkable. However, the method may eventually prove critical for limiting the spread of disease at disaster sites around the world.

National Science Foundation-funded researchers Vishal Shah and Shreya Shah of Dowling College in Long Island, New York, collaborated with Boris Dzikovski of Cornell University and Jose Pinto of New York's Polytechnic University in Brooklyn to develop the technique. They will publish their findings in Environmental Pollution.

"After the disaster of Hurricane Katrina, scientists have had their backs against the wall trying to develop safeguards," said Shah. "No one knows when a similar situation may arise. We need to develop a treatment for decontaminating flood water before it either comes in contact with humans or is pumped into natural reservoirs".

The treatment system that the researchers are developing is simple: a polymer sheet of resins containing copper is immersed in the contaminated flood water. The addition of hydrogen peroxide generates free radicals on the polymer. The free radicals remain bound to the sheet, where they come in contact with bacteria and kill them.........

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January 7, 2007, 8:43 AM CT

Quality And Usefulness, Not User Satisfaction

A study focusing on information systems says that quality and usefulness trump user satisfaction in the quest for success. The findings are the subject of a paper in the Management Insights section of the current issue of Management Science, the flagship journal of the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS®).

Management Insights, a regular feature of the journal, is a digest of important research in business, management, operations research, and management science. It appears in every issue of the monthly journal.

"Information System Success: Individual and Organizational Determinants" is by Rajiv Sabherwal, Anand Jeyaraj, and Charles Chowa of the University of Missouri-St. Louis.

Based on empirical research conducted between 1980 and 2004, the study examines four aspects of information systems (IS) success: system quality, perceived usefulness, user satisfaction, and system use. The authors highlight the importance of system quality, which affects all other aspects of IS success. They also observe that system quality and perceived usefulness but, curiously, not user satisfaction, influence the extent to which the system is used.

The study's results suggest that system developers and managers should concentrate on developing better systems rather than focusing on increased user satisfaction with the system.........

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December 31, 2006, 7:47 PM CT

Adults Living With Children Eat More Fat

Adults living with children eat more saturated fat -- the equivalent of nearly an entire frozen pepperoni pizza each week -- than do adults who do not live with children, according to a University of Iowa and University of Michigan Health System study.

The finding was based on data from the federal government's National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey III. The UI-led study was made public today, and the paper will appear in the Jan. 4, 2007, online edition of the Journal of the American Board of Family Medicine.

Most family diet studies have examined how adults influence children's eating habits, but few studies have considered how children or their habits may be associated with adults' food intake, said Helena Laroche, M.D., an associate in internal medicine and pediatrics at the University of Iowa Roy J. and Lucille A. Carver College of Medicine and the study's primary author.

"The analysis shows that adults' fat intake, particularly saturated fat, is higher for those who live with children compared to adults who don't live with children," Laroche said.

"The study doesn't prove that the presence of children causes adults to eat more fat; people living with children may have different eating habits for many reasons. However, an important implication of the study is that healthy changes in eating need to focus on the entire household, not just individuals. Health care professionals must also help families find ways to fit healthy foods into their busy lifestyles," she added.........

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December 31, 2006, 7:38 PM CT

Scarlett Johansson: Most Stunning Beauty Of All Times

According to a poll, Scarlett Johansson is the most stunning beauty of all times. What made her that are her youthful looks. Scarlett came ahead of the likes of Kylie Minogue and Liv Tailor in the poll. However, all three of them won accolades for their natural looks without the aid of heavy cosmetics or surgery.

The spokesperson for the site that had the poll conducted, Tina Reichards, said:

These celebrities are so beautiful they don't need to resort to heavy make-up or surgery.

Good going, Johansson. It pays to keeping away from those cosmetics, which are not healthy anyway.........

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December 28, 2006, 9:45 PM CT

Triggering Reactions In Supply Chain

When good fortune smiles on a company, the stock market responds by valuing the firm more favorably. It's well known that good news for one firm means other companies in the same industry will be affected as well. But as per new research from a business professor at Washington University in St. Louis, we can anticipate something else that isn't as obvious: there's also a predictable correlation between news announcements of a company and its suppliers or customers.

"Efficient capital markets are sophisticated enough to uncover these types of relationships," said Tzachi Zach, assistant professor of accounting at the Olin School of Business at Washington University.

As an example, consider Intel, a manufacturer of computer chips, and one of its major customers, Dell Inc. We might observe information externalities affecting Intel when Dell makes its earnings announcements. Analysts who follow Dell probably ask questions about why the company reported lower operating income than expected. But other analysts-who don't follow Dell-would still listen carefully because they want to pick up clues about what Dell's news means to the companies they do follow.

What's remarkable isn't that humans can intuit these connections, but that the market behaves in a way that takes into account these finer relationships. Continuing the example, Zach said, consider what could happen to Intel after Dell makes its earnings statement.........

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December 27, 2006, 4:54 AM CT

Links Between African And U.S. Weather Systems

When their DC-8 flew into a tropical storm off the coast of West Africa, Aaron Pratt and Tamara Battle realized their lifelong dream--to study storms and weather systems at their source. During that flight, lightning struck their plane. The resulting storm turned into a tropical depression and ultimately became known as Hurricane Helene, one of the strongest Atlantic hurricanes in 2006.

Pratt and Battle were thrilled. They, along with Stephen Chan, Amber Reynolds, Daniel Robertson and Deanne Grant, spent a month conducting weather research in Senegal and Cape Verde, West Africa. The students worked with scientists from universities and government agencies to study how land storms become ocean storms and then make their way west to U.S. and Caribbean waters.

"African dust is very critical for hurricane formation. One of our flights allowed us to see the dust kicked up in the Sahara Desert," said Pratt, who is pursuing a doctorate in atmospheric science from Howard University in Washington, D.C. "I had never done research overseas before and didn't know what to expect. Working with scientists in both Senegal and Cape Verde helped put our research in the proper perspective".

Battle is also a doctoral candidate in atmospheric science at Howard University. "When we flew over the Sahara Desert, it was serene and beautifully simple," she said. "Africa's easterly waves and Saharan dust storms not only impact the weather in the United States and the Caribbean, but they also have implications for the inhabitants of many African countries. By sharing what we've learned, we increase the chances of helping those countries improve forecasting and predictability. That will have a positive impact on the agriculture and economy of the region".........

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December 23, 2006, 10:57 AM CT

Beaked Whales Observed

On the 17th of December, Meike Scheidat & Linn Lehnert, the whale watchers on board of Polarstern, made a remarkable cetaceans sighting: Four Arnoux's Beaked Whales (Berardius arnuxii), observed from the helicopter.

The Arnoux's Beaked Whales is one of the least known species of the Beaked Whales family (Ziphidae), itself poorly known in general. Arnoux's is one of the biggest species amongst beaked whales. The ones observed were probably 9 metre long. These deep-sea feeding whales are particularly sensitive to underwater acoustic disturbances. The pictures showed a whole array of scars on their skin, which are already under investigation. Some of these scars could have been inflicted by orcas, their potential predators, or by squids, their most common preys, as proposed by Elaina Jorgensen one of our cephalopod specialist onboard. Other scars could be caused by cookie-cutter sharks, which would imply big migration between the subtropical waters where these sharks are found and the ice-edge (64 degree 06 S) where they were observed.

Supply of German Neumayer station

After crossing the Atlantic and the sea ice of the Atka Bay Polarstern supplied the German research station Neumayer on the Ekstrom Ice Shelf with food and fuel. Helicopters brought up hoses to refill eight 20,000-liter tanks with diesel fuel. The tanks were sitting on sledges ready for later transportation to the station by Caterpillars. The cargo had to be loaded on a secure area on the sea ice as ice conditions did not allow Polarstern to enter the "ice port" right next to the shelf edge.........

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December 20, 2006, 6:53 PM CT

How To Measure Holiday Spirit

The holidays just wouldn't be the same without the decorations. From a single wreath or child's picture of Santa taped to a window, to displays so elaborate that they can almost be seen from outer space, the festive season seems to spur the need to express the holiday spirit to our neighbors in addition to our closest kin. But neighborhoods also vary in the vigor of their holiday displays, as anyone who tours the streets of their town or city can attest.

Researchers at Binghamton University, State University of New York, have decided to measure the holiday spirit. A simple scoring system was developed that ranged from zero (no decorations whatsoever) to four (representing different categories of decorations). A high score does not require wealth; even the humble residents of a trailer can score a four if they have the holiday spirit. A special category was even created for the kind of "over the top" display.

Armed with clipboards and pencils, volunteers spread throughout the Binghamton, NY, community city to score the houses on randomly assigned streets during a five-day period, December 16-20. Then they converged on the Cyber Cafe, a popular local watering hole, to enter and collate the data. On December 21, the data will be relayed to Binghamton University's Geographical Information Systems (GIS) Center and used to produce a topographic map of the city, in which the "hills" and "valleys" represent neighborhoods with high and low average values of decoration scores and the points represent the "over the top" houses.........

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December 20, 2006, 4:55 AM CT

Tropical Glaciers Vanishing Dramatically!

Not just the poles, the Equator is having its turn now! The global warming seems to be having its impact on the Equator now. Rivers of ice at the Equator are found to be melting away in this new century.

The great glaciers of Mount Kenya are found to have retreated through years, shrinking to white stains on the rocky landscapes of the 16,897-foot peak.

With the tropical glaciers, some 200 miles due south of the Mount Kilimanjaro are found to be disappearing astonishingly, to the west, in the heart of equatorial Africa, the ice caps atop Uganda's Rwenzoris are shrinking fast.

Almost every glacier of more than 300 of those studied worldwide is retreating dramatically! This is reported in the journal Geophysical Research Letters' October issue by international glaciologists.

They believe that this worldwide phenomenon is 'essentially a response to post-1970 global warming!'.........

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