October 31, 2006, 7:13 PM CT

Business Innovations And Creative People

American companies continue to grapple with staying competitive in the global economy. Increasingly, companies and business gurus are citing innovation as the key to sustaining American business' strength. What's not clear is what it means for a company to be innovative. How can firms foster innovation? Can organizations cope with the changes necessary to produce advancements?

"It's important for Western companies to compete on innovation since they can't successfully compete with the East on price," said Panos Kouvelis, professor of operations and manufacturing management at the Olin School of Business. "The best way to infuse innovation into your company is not by hiring creative people. That's not effective. Organizations need to manage innovation in a systematic way to get employees to think outside the box".

There are methods for inspiring non-traditional thinking, Kouvelis said. It starts with encouraging experimentation, which elicits learning. Experimentation means prototyping in product-service developments, and development systems and technologies that maximize learning.

New, Not Trendy

Glenn MacDonald, professor of economics and strategy at Washington University's business school, concurred and added that the key to successful innovation is being able to go beyond the theory.........

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October 31, 2006, 6:59 PM CT

Snake on a Galactic Plane!

Something scary appears to be slithering across the plane of our Milky Way galaxy in this new Halloween image from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope. The snake-like object is actually the core of a thick, sooty cloud large enough to swallow dozens of solar systems. In fact, astronomers say its "belly" may be harboring beastly stars in the process of forming.

"The snake is an ideal place to hunt for massive forming stars as they have not had time to heat up and destroy the cloud they are born in," said Dr. Sean Carey, also known as "Dr. Scarey," of NASA's Spitzer Science Center. Dr. Scarey, who is leading the new research, was also principal investigator of a prior Halloween image from Spitzer, showing a 'great galactic ghoul'.

Spitzer was able to spot the sinuous cloud using its heat-seeking infrared vision. The object is hiding in the dusty plane of our Milky Way galaxy, invisible to optical telescopes. Because its heat, or infrared light, can sneak through the dust, it first showed up in infrared images from past missions. The cloud is so thick with dust that if you were to somehow transport yourself into the middle of it, you would see nothing but black, not even a star in the sky. Now, that's spooky!

Spitzer's new view of the snake provides the best look at what lurks inside. The yellow and orange spots located on and around it are massive stars just beginning to take shape. The bright red spot located on its belly is a monstrous stellar embryo, with about 20 to 50 times the mass of our sun.........

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October 31, 2006, 4:57 AM CT

Grasslands To Go Native

Montana rancher and inventor Lee Arbuckle may soon change the nation's market for native grass seed, a tricky-to-harvest crop worth hundreds of millions and vital to restoring wildlands.

With the help of the Montana Manufacturing Extension Center at Montana State University, Arbuckle and his wife Maggie have spent the last five years researching and developing a native grass seed harvester. The Arbuckle Native Seedster will be manufactured in Billings, with the first one on the market in 2007.

"We're going to change the economics of the native grass seed industry," Arbuckle said. "The Seedster isn't a combine or a stripper, but a new-fangled plucker. This harvester isn't a better mousetrap; it's the first one".

Native grass seed is a growing market. Federal, state and local governments purchase large amounts of native seed, as do ranchers and landscapers. Such seed produces grasses that are prized for their drought and wildfire resistance, ability to stabilize eroding soil, desirability as forage and reseeding capacity. Much of the seed market is for the restoration of lands disturbed by mining, road construction and fires.

The Plant Materials Program of the U.S. Department of Agriculture estimated that in 2001 more than 19 million pounds of PMP released varieties of native seed species sold for $94 million, representing only a fraction of the market.........

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October 31, 2006, 4:44 AM CT

Teenage Girls' Use Of Diet Pills

A study released recently by the University of Minnesota's "Project EAT" (Eating Among Teens) shows startling results of 2,500 female teenagers studied over a five-year period. The study observed that high school-aged females' use of diet pills nearly doubled from 7.5 to 14.2 percent. By the ages of 19 and 20, 20 percent of females surveyed used diet pills.

"These numbers are startling, and they tell us we need to do a better job of helping our daughters feel better about themselves and avoid unhealthy weight control behaviors," U of M professor and study researcher Dianne Neumark-Sztainer said.

Other results from the study include:

62.7 percent of teenage females use "unhealthy weight control behaviors"

21.9 percent of teenage females use "very unhealthy weight control behaviors"

Very unhealthy weight control behaviors include the use of diet pills, laxatives, vomiting or skipping meals. Of the 2,500 teenage males studied, their rates were half of the females'.

"We have observed that teenage females who diet and use unhealthy weight control behaviors are at three times the risk of being overweight," said Neumark-Sztainer. "Teens who feel good about their bodies eat better and have less risk of being overweight. Parents can play a key role in helping their children to build a positive body image and engage in healthy eating and physical activity behaviors".........

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October 31, 2006, 4:35 AM CT

Laptops Will Link Global Learners

The real star at an Oct. 19 lecture by Nicholas Negroponte was not the Media Lab co-founder and computer-aided design pioneer himself but what he brought to the Department of Architecture classroom at MIT--a model from his One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) project.

After Negroponte finished outlining plans for creating and distributing the inexpensive computer to children in developing nations, the audience crowded the podium to examine the cheerful green-and-white 2B1 model. While Negroponte apologized for bringing a model, not a prototype, his audience still wanted a closer look. They turned and twisted the screen and the wi-fi antennas. They pressed fingers to the kid-size keypad. They weighed it in their hands.

"It's adorable," exclaimed Diane Sloan, a 1980 graduate of MIT's Sloan School. "It doesn't feel cheap," said Francois Proulx, a student visiting from Montreal. "It has something about it," agreed Yasmine Abbas, a 2001 graduate of MIT's architecture program. She added, thoughtfully, "If it touches the children, it's going to change a lot of things as well".

That is Negroponte's goal. Negroponte, who began his association with MIT as an architecture student in the 1960s, sees computers and technology as a way to help children educate themselves. OLPC, launched as a non-profit organization in 2005, aims to sell the laptops inexpensively to governments, which will then distribute them for free to children.........

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October 31, 2006, 4:27 AM CT

Technique Harnesses 3-D Game Engines

Student researchers working with Beth Coleman, assistant professor in comparative media studies and in the Program in Writing and Humanistic Studies, are exploring machinima, one branch of the rapidly evolving world of computer animation. As members of the Machinima Work Group, they are experimenting in the medium to find new modes of cinematic expression.

Machinima (pronounced "machine-ima," the word is coined from "machine" and "cinema") is animation that is made by harnessing 3-D game engines, such as those used in Xbox or PlayStation games, and adding original content--dialogue, dramatic situations, and new or modified characters. Relative to traditional computer-generated imagery (CGI), in which animators must create the characters, scenes (levels) and action from scratch, machinima is fast and cheap--though still enormously time-consuming. The most well-known work of machinima to date is "Red vs. Blue," a comic sci-fi series based on the popular Xbox games Halo and Marathon. But many, including Coleman's group, are working to expand the medium above and beyond the genre of parody and to gauge its potential for artistic and cinematic expression.

Coleman explained in a recent interview that the medium has really exploded in the past five years, to the point where you now see ads on television that are made in machinima.........

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October 31, 2006, 4:09 AM CT

Microwave Your French Fries Before You Fry Them

Microwaving your French fries before you fry them reduces the levels of a cancer-causing substance, reveals findings published recently in the SCI's Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture.

The discovery of acrylamide - a possible carcinogenic in humans - has led to much research being done to investigate the benefits of alternative cooking methods. Acrylamide forms during processes such as frying, baking and roasting where high-temperature and low-moisture conditions exist.

Although numerous studies have been conducted to explore the possibilities of reducing acrylamide levels in French fries, a team of researchers from Turkey has shown that by reducing the frying time and hence the acrylamide formation by microwave pre-cooking of potato strips prior to frying.

Publishing their work in the Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture, the researches showed that microwave application prior to frying resulted in a marked reduction of the acrylamide level in the surface region. When the potato strips were subjected to frying after a microwave pre-cooking step, acrylamide content in the whole potato strip was reduced by 36%, 41% and 60% for frying at 150, 170 and 190oC respectively.

"Microwaving French fries before cooking takes little time and in fact, microwave pre-cooked samples fried to the same degree of cooking appeared to have a more acceptable colour, probably due to the more gentle heat treatment they experienced during frying," says lead author Koray Palazoglu, of the University of Mersin, Turkey.........

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October 30, 2006, 8:16 PM CT

Dad Or Mom?

In families with two working parents, fathers had greater impact than mothers on their children's language development between ages 2 and 3, as per a research studyby the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill's Frank Porter Graham (FPG) Child Development Institute and UNC's School of Education.

Scientists videotaped pairs of parents and their 2-year-old children in their homes during playtime. The children whose fathers used more diverse vocabularies had greater language development when they were tested one year later. However, the mothers' vocabulary did not significantly affect a child's language skills.

"Most prior studies on early language development focused on mothers," said Nadya Panscofar, a graduate research assistant and an author of the study. "These findings underscore that for two-parent, dual earner families, fathers should be included in all efforts to improve language development and school readiness".

Panscofar and Dr. Lynne Vernon-Feagans, the William C. Friday distinguished professor of Child and Family Studies in the School of Education and a faculty fellow at FPG, conducted the study in Pennsylvania as part of the Penn State Health and Development Project when both were affiliated with that university.

The study appears in the online version of the Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology. It will appear in the November print issue of that publication.........

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October 29, 2006, 7:15 PM CT

Nightmares, demons and slaves

Workplace bullying negatively impacts employees' physical and mental health, leading to higher company costs including increased employee illness, use of sick days, and medical costs, ultimately affecting productivity. Studies report that 25-30% of employees experience bullying and emotional abuse sometime during their work life.

In a recent study researching organizational conflict, emotion, wellness and work-life balance, reported in the recent issue of SAGE Publication's Management Communication Quarterly, communication scientists Sarah Tracy, Pamela Lutgen-Sandvik, and Jess Alberts used metaphor analysis to better understand the emotional pain experienced as a result of workplace bullying.

The study, which was supported by a grant from Research and Economic Affairs at Arizona State University, and is part of "The Project of Wellness and Work-Life," collected qualitative data through focus groups, narrative interviews and target drawings, allowing participants the freedom to describe their workplace harassment as "a battle," "water torture," "a nightmare," or "a noxious substance." Bullies were described as "two-faced actors" and "devils" and the workers were left feeling like "vulnerable children," "slaves," or "prisoners" in these situations. As one employee explained, "I feel like I have 'kick me' tattooed on my forehead".........

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October 29, 2006, 7:04 PM CT

Racial discrimination against African-American in Healthcare

The experience of racial discrimination may be a key factor in explaining why African Americans have higher rates of obesity and suffer at higher rates from such diseases as diabetes and cardiovascular disorders, according to UCLA researchers.

Repeated responses to such discrimination -- which include elevated blood pressure and heart rate -- can cause enormous stress on a person's mental and physical health, according to research scheduled to be published in Volume 58 of the Annual Review of Psychology.

Race-based discrimination may help explain why African Americans, despite gains in civil rights and targeted health programs, continue to have the highest rates of diabetes, cardiovascular heart disease, hypertension and stroke as compared to all other racial or ethnic groups in the United States.

"This is not to say that every African American has poor health," said Vickie Mays, the report's lead author, a UCLA professor of psychology and health services and director of the Center for Research, Education, Training and Strategic Communication on Minority Health Disparities. "However, African Americans -- as a group of people -- have not been able to gain as much ground as other ethnic groups. That's when you need to worry and look at missing factors that can explain these health disparities".........

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