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Top Science and Math Teachers Receive Presidential Award
Each winner receives a $10,000 award from NSF, as well as a trip for two to Washington, D.C., for a week of celebratory events and professional development activities.
Among the activities during that week are a day with scientists and science educators at NSF; meetings with members of Congress and federal agency leadership; and a reception and dinner at the U.S. Department of State featuring guest speaker Dorothy Metcalf-Lindenburger, a NASA Astronaut-Mission Specialist.
Related: Presidential Award for Excellence in Mathematics and Science Teaching - Einstein Fellowship for Teachers - NSF Graduate Teaching Fellows in K-12 Education - The Importance of Science Education - Education Resources Directory for Science and Engineering
On May 17th, in The Plains, Virginia, the Team America Rocketry Challenge finals will be held. After a full day of launches, held at the Great Meadows facility, the winners will be crowned and $60,000 in scholarships will be divided up among the top finishers.
Related: Goldwater Science Scholarships - Siemens Competition in Math, Science and Technology - Student Algae Bio-fuel Project
False Teeth For Cats! What Next?
False teeth for cats may sound ridiculous, but they could be a solution to a serious problem for cats. Cats have notoriously bad dental problems. Cat owners seldom brush their cats’ teeth or scrape the surfaces of the teeth to remove plaque. By the time a cat is 3 or 4 years old, she may already have periodontal disease that can lead to tooth loss. Tooth loss may also come about as a result of tooth breakage, particularly in the canine teeth.
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Related: Engineering Students Design Innovative Hand Dryer - UK Young Engineers Competitions - La Vida Robot - Eco-Vehicle Student Competition - Genetically Engineered Machines Competition
2000 Rolex award to Mohammed Bah Abba of Nigeria for the Pot in Pot Cooling System:
The pot-in-pot consists of two earthenware pots of different diameters, one placed inside the other. The space between the two pots is filled with wet sand that is kept constantly moist, thereby keeping both pots damp. Fruit, vegetables and other items such as soft drinks are put in the smaller inner pot, which is covered with a damp cloth. The phenomenon that occurs is based on a simple principle of physics: the water contained in the sand between the two pots evaporates towards the outer surface of the larger pot where the drier outside air is circulating. By virtue of the laws of thermodynamics, the evaporation process automatically causes a drop in temperature of several degrees, cooling the inner container, destroying harmful micro-organisms and preserving the perishable foods inside.
He also received the 2001 Shell Award for Sustainable Development. Great stuff:
Related: Appropriate Technology (Kick Start) - appropriate technology tagged posts - Smokeless Stove Uses 80% Less Fuel - Water and Electricity for All - The Importance of Science Education - Engineering a Better World
Thompson and Tits share the Abel Prize for 2008
In 1963, Thompson and Walter Feit proved that all nonabelian finite simple groups were of even order, work for which they both won the Frank Nelson Cole Prize in Algebra from the AMS in 1965. Thompson also won a Fields Medal in 1970. In the Abel citation for Tits, the committee writes that “Tits created a new and highly influential vision of groups as geometric objects. He introduced what is now known as a Tits building, which encodes in geometric terms the algebraic structure of linear groups.” The committee noted the link between the two winners’ work: “Tits’s geometric approach was essential in the study and realization of the sporadic groups, including the Monster.” Tits received the Grand Prix of the French Academy of Sciences in 1976, and the Wolf Prize in Mathematics in 1993.
The Abel Prize is awarded by the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters for outstanding scientific work in the field of mathematics. The prize amount is 6,000,000 Norwegian kroner (over US$1,000,000).
Related: Professor Marcus du Sautoy on Thompson and Tits - Math’s Architect of Beauty - 2007 Nobel Prize in Physics - Poincaré Conjecture
Innovation propels students’ careers
Most propellers have a body encasing the motor. There’s air inside, which can cause the body to collapse when submerged in oceanic depths. The casing also creates drag, slowing the machine down and making it difficult to move backward.
But Shea, along with Brian Claus, Peter Crocker and Toren Gustafson, devised a way to build the motor in the casing that surrounds the propeller blades. The parts are assembled in a ring shape then encased in epoxy, making the motor waterproof. The propeller is fastened inside the ring, allowing it to easily move forward or backward.
Related: PhD Student Speeds up Broadband by 200 times - Singapore Students Engineer New Products - Concentrating Solar Collector wins UW-Madison Engineering Innovation Award
2008 Intel Science Talent Search
Fast forward to Intel STS 2008, where the 17-year-old senior from Durham, North Carolina, presented research focused on identifying stage II colon cancer patients at high risk for recurrence and the best therapeutic agents for treating their tumors. Whereas the standard method of characterizing tumors relies on visual information (such as size, degree
of metastasis, and microscopic structure), Shivani developed a “50-gene model” which uses gene expression to link multiple genetic events that characterize various tumor types to more accurately predict the recurrence of colon cancer. Additionally, Shivani’s model can be used to identify drugs that may be most effective in treating each patient.
In 2006 she attended the Davidson Institute, summer program at Davidson College and received the Davidson Fellows Scholarship.
And now I can segue to the Davidson Wildcats victories in the NCAA basketball tournament last weekend (I graduated from Davidson, by the way, and grew up in Madison). Davidson will play the Wisconsin Badgers on Friday. My picks are doing pretty well.
Related: 2006 Intel Science Talent Search - Intel International Science and Engineering Fair 2007 - NPR report on 2008
Progressive Automotive X PRIZE
Related: Lunar Landers X-Prize - $10 Million for Science Solutions - Engineering More Sustainable Vehicles (Challenge X)
Right now we are the number one rated engineering blog on blogged (with a 9.1 excellent rating). We are also the first Google result for engineering blog - #1 on Yahoo too, but not on MSN. Well, it seems to me, MSN needs to improve their search results :-).
See our directory of science and engineering blogs.
Related: Best Web Site Name of the Week - The First Blogger - Viewing Unpersonalized Google Search Results
2008 Charles Stark Draper Prize will be awarded to Rudolf Kalman for the development and dissemination of the optimal digital technique known as the Kalman Filter. The award recipient receives a $500,000 cash award. 2007 Draper Prize to Berners-Lee - 2006 Draper Prize for Engineering
Administered by the National Academy of Engineering, the Draper Prize is endowed by The Charles Stark Draper Laboratory, Inc., and was established in 1988. The Prize is awarded for outstanding achievement, particularly innovation and reduction to practice, in engineering and technology contributing to the advancement of the welfare and freedom of humanity.
Related: 2006 Gordon Engineering Education Prize - 2006 MacArthur Fellows - 2005 and 2006 National Science and Technology Medals - Shaw Laureates 2007
A novel way to treat cancer has won the top honor at the 2007 Collegiate Inventors Competition, an annual program of the National Inventors Hall of Fame Foundation. Ian Cheong of Johns Hopkins University was announced as the grand prize winner, receiving a $25,000 prize, during a ceremony last night on the campus of the California Institute of Technology.
This year’s winners also include John Dolan of the University of California, San Francisco in the graduate category for his work on the Dolognawmeter, a device to measure the effectiveness of painkillers, and Corey Centen and Nilesh Patel of McMaster University in the undergraduate category for their work on creating a CPR assist device. The McMaster team and Dolan each received a $15,000 prize from the competition, which is sponsored by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) and the Abbott Fund.
The Collegiate Inventors Competition has recognized and encouraged undergraduate and graduate students on their quest to change the world around them for 17 years. Entries for 2008 are due by 16 May 2008 and must be the original idea and work product of the student/advisor team, and must not have been (1) made available to the public as a commercial product or process or (2) patented or published more than 1 year prior to the date of submission to the competition. The entry submitted must be written in English.
The invention, a reduced-to-practice idea or workable model, must be the work of a student or team of students with his or her university advisor. If it is a machine, it must be operable. If it is a chemical, it must be complete with evidence of successful application of the idea. If it is a new plant, color photographs or slides must be included in the submission. If a new or original ornamental design for an article of manufacture is submitted, the entire design must be included in the application. In addition, the invention should be reproducible.
Related: Inventor TV Shows - Engineering a Better Blood Alcohol Sensor - Modern Marvels Invent Now Challenge - Schoofs Prize for Creativity
Ian Cheong, 33, arrived at Johns Hopkins University from his native Singapore prepared to focus on cancer therapy. Drugs used in cancer treatment routinely kill the healthy cells as well as the cancer cells because they are potent but nonspecific. Cheong took on the task of finding a way to make the cancer drugs more specific. He injected bacterial spores into the subject which made their way to oxygen-poor areas within cancerous tumors. Then, Cheong put a cancerfighting drug in lipid particles and injected those liposomes into a subject. The germinated bacterial spores also secrete a protein that makes liposomes fall apart when the drug-containing liposomes are in the proximity of the tumors, and the drug is released only in those specific areas. Cheong, originally educated as a lawyer, received his Ph.D. in cell and molecular medicine from Johns Hopkins and is currently working on postdoctoral research. His advisor, Bert Vogelstein, receives a $15,000 prize.
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Engineer Roy Choudhury wins NSF Early Career Award
“Security and privacy are additional advantages of antenna-aware protocols”, said Roy Choudhury. “By focusing your beams intelligently, you may prevent eavesdroppers form listening to your conversation, and even jam them selectively. Such capabilities have obvious implications for national security.”
Through his NSF CAREER project, named Spotlight, Roy Choudhury plans to develop the theoretical basis for antenna-aware networking, design distributed protocols, and implement them on an experimental testbed.
You can get the press releases on CAREER on nsf.gov for 1996-2000? Do they know it is 2008?
Here are some more awardees from this year: Worcester Polytechnic Institute Professor Wenjing Lou - Clarkson University Civil and Environmental Engineering Professor Narayanan Neithalath - Engineering’s Ghosh Wins NSF Award for Novel Transistor Research at the Nanoscale - Shengquan Wang is an assistant professor of computer and information science at the University of Michigan-Dearborn - Dr. Glen Jackson, Assistant Professor of Chemistry and Bio Chemistry at Ohio University - Dr. C. Heath Turner, Reichhold-Shumaker assistant professor of chemical and biological engineering at The University of Alabama
Related: Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (2006) - 2005 MacArthur Fellows - Presidential Early Career Awards for Scientists and Engineers (2007)
The third project is a team entry, “New Plywood Products”, the first prize winner in the environmental science category, developed by Pheemadej Prasitwarawej, Tanavorakit Bangkeaw and Manapas Hararak, from Montfort College, Chiang Mai.
Over 1,500 of the brightest young scientists from around the world attend the fair every year, where they share ideas, showcase cutting-edge science projects and compete for more than $3 million (94.5 million baht) in awards and scholarships.
Related: Intel International Science and Engineering Fair 2007 - Intel International Science and Engineering Fair Awards - Directory of Science Fairs
The X PRIZE Foundation and Google, Inc. today announced the first ten teams to register for the Google Lunar X PRIZE, a robotic race to the Moon to win a remarkable $30 million in prizes. This international group of teams will compete to land a privately funded robotic craft on the Moon that is capable of roaming the lunar surface for at least 500 meters and sending video, images and data back to the Earth.
“We are excited that ten teams from around the world have taken up the challenge of the Google Lunar X PRIZE,” said Megan Smith, Google’s Vice President for New Business Development. “We look forward to the exciting achievements and scientific advancements that will result from the efforts of these teams as they participate in the next great space race.”
Related: $10 Million for Science Solutions - Google Offers $10 Million in Awards for Google Phone Development - Google Lunar X Prize - Lunar Landers X-Prize
The 10 fully registered teams now:
Aeronautics and Cosmonautics Romanian Association (ARCA): Based in Valcea, Romania and led by Dumitru Popescu, ARCA was also a contender in the Ansari X PRIZE. Two of ARCA’s most innovative projects to date have been the Demonstrator 2B rocket and Stabilo, a two-stage manned suborbital air-launched vehicle. The craft they plan to enter in the Google Lunar X PRIZE will be called the “European Lunar Explorer.”
Astrobotic: Team Astrobotic, led by Dr. William “Red” Whittaker, was formed to coordinate the efforts of Carnegie Mellon University, Raytheon Company and additional institutions. One of Carnegie Mellon’s specialties is autonomous navigation through stereo vision and other technologies. This enables Carnegie Mellon’s robots to automatically avoid obstacles and select their own route across unmapped terrain. Astrobotic will compete for the prize using their “Artemis Lander” and “Red Rover.”
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Google India Women in Engineering Award 2008
The award is open to full time woman students at recognized institutions majoring computer engineering or related fields in their 2nd to final years of a bachelor’s program and all students from a master’s or PhD program. Student must have a cumulative of at least 4.0 on a 5.0 scale, 8.0 on a 10.0 scale, or equivalent. The application deadline is January 31st. Apply online for this new award.
Related: Google 2007 Anita Borg Scholarship - Google India Looking for Engineers - Google Summer of Code 2007 - Innovation at Google - Curious Cat Advice Links on Science and Engineering Scholarships and Fellowships
The 2008 Bernard M. Gordon Prize, recognizing innovation in engineering and technology education goes to Lawrence Carlson and Jacquelyn Sullivan, University of Colorado at Boulder. CU-Boulder Faculty To Receive $500,000 Prize For Innovation In Engineering Education
A second element of the program’s curriculum is the extensive development and implementation of K-12 engineering education. About 1,700 students in grades three through 12 experience the excitement of hands-on engineering in weekly classes taught by engineering graduate students — helping them realize that engineering is about making a difference in the world. The classes are a partnership between the ITL Program and six neighborhood public schools in Lafayette as well as the Denver School of Science and Technology.
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