News From the Field

More NSF research news--links to what institutions, organizations and others are reporting about NSF-supported research and education.

		July 2, 2007 Mother-of-Pearl: Classic Beauty and Remarkable Strength Researchers from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the Institute for the Physics of Complex Matter in Switzerland describe unexpected properties of one of nature's super-tough materials: mother-of-pearl. The researchers uncovered clues to how the material forms and why it is exceptionally strong. Full story Source: University of Wisconsin-Madison

		July 1, 2007 What Happened Before the Big Bang? New discoveries about another universe whose collapse appears to have given birth to the one we have today are in a research paper to be published on July 1, 2007. The paper introduces a new mathematical model that gives new details about the beginning of our universe, which now appears to have been a Big Bounce, according to a new theory of quantum gravity, and not a Big Bang, as described by Einstein's Theory of General Relativity. Full story Source: Penn State

		June 28, 2007 Earliest-known Evidence of peanut, Cotton and Squash Farming Found Anthropologists working on the slopes of the Andes in northern Peru have discovered the earliest-known evidence of peanut, cotton and squash farming, dating back 5,000 to 9,000 years. Their findings provide long-sought-after evidence that some of the earliest development of agriculture in the New World took place at farming settlements in the Andes. Full story Source: Vanderbilt University

		June 28, 2007 New, Invisible Nano-fibers Conduct Electricity, Repel Dirt Tiny plastic fibers could be the key to some diverse technologies in the future--including self-cleaning surfaces, transparent electronics, and biomedical tools that manipulate strands of DNA. Researchers created surfaces that, when seen with the naked eye, look as flat and transparent as a sheet of glass, but seen up close, the surfaces are actually carpeted with tiny fibers. Full story Source: Ohio State University

		June 28, 2007 New Undersea Images Challenge Prevailing Ideas About the Antarctic Ice Sheet Using echo-sounding equipment to create images and maps of areas below the ocean floor, researchers have begun to unravel a new story about the Antarctic Ice Sheet. Images of areas below the Eastern Ross Sea, next to West Antarctica, provide evidence that the subcontinent was involved in the general growth of the Antarctic Ice Sheet as it formed many millions of years ago, according to scientists at the University of California, Santa Barbara. The National Science Foundation provided funding for the project. Full story Source: University of California, Santa Barbara

		June 27, 2007 'CARS' Imaging Reveals Clues to Myelin Damage Researchers have discovered that calcium ions could play a crucial role in multiple sclerosis by activating enzymes that degrade the fatty sheath that insulates nerve fibers. Full story Source: Purdue University See also: NSF press release

		June 27, 2007 Carnegie Mellon University-led Team Conducts Most Detailed Cosmological Simulation to Date Using a new computer model of galaxy formation, researchers have shown that growing black holes release a blast of energy that fundamentally regulates galaxy evolution and black hole growth itself. The model explains for the first time, observed phenomena and promises to deliver deeper insights into our understanding of galaxy formation, and the role of black holes throughout cosmic history. The results were generated by an international team of investigators. Full story Source: Carnegie Mellon University

		June 26, 2007 Carnegie Mellon University Chemists Advance Organic Semiconductor Processing Any machinist will tell you that a little grease goes a long way toward making a tool work better. And that may soon hold true for plastic electronics as well. Carnegie Mellon University chemists have found that grease can make some innovative plastics vastly better electrical conductors. This discovery, published June 25 in Advanced Materials, outlines a process that could become widely adopted to produce the next generation of tiny transistor switches. Full story Source: Carnegie Mellon University

		June 25, 2007 March of the Giant Penguins Two heretofore undiscovered penguin species--one of which was over 5 feet tall--reached equatorial regions tens of millions of years earlier than expected and during a period when the earth was much warmer than it is now. Full story Source: North Carolina State University

		June 25, 2007 University of Colorado Study Shows Desert Droughts Lead to Earlier Annual Mountain Snow Loss A new study spearheaded by the University of Colorado at Boulder's National Snow and Ice Data Center indicates wind-blown dust from drought-stricken and disturbed lands in the Southwest can shorten the duration of mountain snow cover hundreds of miles away in the Colorado mountains by roughly a month. Full story Source: University of Colorado at Boulder

		June 22, 2007 Ice Age Extinction Claimed Highly Carnivorous Alaskan Wolves The extinction of many large mammals at the end of the Ice Age may have packed an even bigger punch than scientists had realized. To the list of victims such as woolly mammoths and saber-toothed cats, a Smithsonian-led team of scientists has added one more: a highly carnivorous form of wolf that lived in Alaska, north of the ice sheets. Full story Source: Smithsonian

		June 22, 2007 New Nano-Method May Help Compress Computer Memory A team of chemists at Brown University has devised a simple way to control both the size and the composition of iron-platinum nanorods and nanowires. Nanorods with uniform shape and magnetic alignment are one key to the next generation of high-density information storage. Full story Source: Brown University

		June 21, 2007 Dead on Target Researchers at the University of Michigan have devised dendrimer nanoparticle systems which are able to seek out and specifically bind to cancer cells. Full story Source: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

		June 21, 2007 Ancient Retrovirus Sheds Light on Modern Pandemic Human resistance to a retrovirus that infected chimpanzees and other nonhuman primates four million years ago, ironically, may be at least partially responsible for the susceptibility of humans to HIV infection today. Full story Source: Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center

		June 21, 2007 Scientists Close in on Missing Carbon Sink Forests in the United States and other northern mid- and upper-latitude regions are playing a smaller role in offsetting global warming than previously thought, according to a study appearing in the journal Science this week. The study sheds light on the so-called missing carbon sink. Full story Source: National Center for Atmospheric Research/University Corporation for Atmospheric Research See also: NSF press release

		June 21, 2007 Catching Waves: Measuring Self-Assembly in Action By making careful observations of the growth of a layer of molecules as they gradually cover the surface of a small silicon rectangle, researchers from NIST and North Carolina State University have produced the first experimental verification of recently improved theoretical models of self-assembled systems. Full story Source: National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST)

		June 21, 2007 Explorers to Use New Robotic Vehicles to Hunt for Life and Hydrothermal Vents on Arctic Seafloor Scientists and engineers from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution have just completed a successful test of new robotic vehicles designed for use beneath the ice of the Arctic Ocean. The multidisciplinary research team will now use those vehicles to conduct the first search for life on the seafloor of the world's most isolated ocean. Full story Source: Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution

		June 20, 2007 UW-Madison Engineers Develop Higher-energy Liquid-Transportation Fuel from Sugar Reporting in the June 21 issue of the journal Nature, University of Wisconsin-Madison chemical and biological engineering professor James Dumesic and his research team, describe a two-stage process for turning biomass-derived sugar into 2,5-dimethylfuran (DMF), a liquid transportation fuel with 40 percent greater energy density than ethanol. Full story Source: University of Wisconsin-Madison

		June 20, 2007 Arctic Ocean History is Deciphered by Ocean-drilling Research Team Sediment cores retrieved from the Arctic's deep-sea floor by the Integrated Ocean Drilling Program's Arctic Coring Expedition, have provided long-absent data to scientists who report new findings in the June 21 issue of the journal Nature. Full story Source: Integrated Ocean Drilling Program Management International

		June 18, 2007 A New Technique for Building Nanodevices in the Lab Physicists at the University of Pennsylvania are using transmission electron beam ablation lithography, or TEBAL, to craft some of the tiniest metal nanostructures ever created, none larger than 10 nanometers, or 10,000 times smaller than the width of a single human hair. Full story Source: University of Pennsylvania

		June 18, 2007 Reconstructing the Biology of Extinct Species: A New Approach Scientists now have a new way to reconstruct how extinct species moved--that is completely independent of analyses of limb structure--as a result of the first large-scale study of the relationship between modes of locomotion and the dimensions of an important part of the organ of balance. The study used high-resolution CT scans plus field observations to study 91 primate species and 119 additional species ranging in size from a mouse to an elephant. Full story Source: Penn State

		June 18, 2007 Nanotube Adhesive Sticks Better Than a Gecko's Foot Mimicking the agile gecko, with its uncanny ability to run up walls and across ceilings, has long been a goal of materials scientists. Researchers at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and the University of Akron have taken one sticky step in the right direction, creating synthetic "gecko tape" with four times the sticking power of the real thing. Full story Source: Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute

		June 18, 2007 Research Could Help Advance 'Spintronics' Qubits might very well be the vehicle for the next revolution in computing. Silicon technology has made our computers faster and faster, but now it seems that we are reaching the limits of what is possible with ones and zeros. One of the answers could be the transition from the "good-old" bit to the flashy qubit. The "qu" in qubit stands for quantum, and one way to realize such a qubit is to use the tiny magnetic fields (called spins) that are associated with the nucleus and the electrons of atoms. However, in order to build a quantum computer from these spin-qubits, scientists first need to learn how to effectively manipulate these spins. Full story Source: Florida State University, National High Magnetic Field Laboratory

		June 15, 2007 Marine Phytoplankton Changes Form to Protect Itself From Different Predators A tiny, single-celled organism that plays a key role in the carbon cycle of cold-water oceans may be a lot smarter than scientists had suspected. Full story Source: Georgia Institute of Technology

		June 14, 2007 University of Colorado Invention May Allow Thirsty Crops to Signal Farmers Corn and potato crops may soon provide information to farmers about when they need water and how much should be delivered, thanks to a University of Colorado at Boulder invention optioned to AgriHouse Inc., a Berthoud, Colo., high-tech company. Full story Source: University of Colorado at Boulder

		June 14, 2007 Reduced Greenhouse Gas Emissions Required to Avoid Dangerous Increases in Heat Stress A study projects a 200 percent to 500 percent increase in the number of dangerously hot days in the Mediterranean by the end of the 21st century if the current rate of greenhouse gas emissions continues. The study found France would be subjected to the largest projected increase of high-temperature extremes. A reduction in greenhouse gas emissions could reduce the dangerously hot days projected in the scenario by up to 50 percent. Full story Source: Purdue University

		June 12, 2007 Guessing Robots Predict Their Environments, Navigate Better Engineers are developing robots able to make "educated guesses" about what lies ahead as they traverse unfamiliar surroundings, reducing the amount of time it takes to successfully navigate those environments. Full story Source: Purdue University

		June 12, 2007 Mother Mice More Attuned to Pup Sounds Than Others Researchers have shown for the first time that the behavioral context in which communication sounds are heard affects the brain's ability to detect, discriminate, and ultimately respond to them. Specifically, researchers found that the auditory neurons of female mice that had given birth were better at detecting and discriminating vocalizations from mouse pups than the auditory neurons in virgin females. Full story Source: Emory University

		June 12, 2007 UCR Biologists Unravel the Genetic Secrets of Black Widow Spider Silk Biologists at the University of California, Riverside, have identified the genes and determined the DNA sequences for two key proteins in the "dragline silk" of the black widow spider--an advance that may lead to a variety of new materials for industrial, medical and military uses. Full story Source: Penn State

		June 12, 2007 CT Scan Reveals Ancient Long-necked Gliding Reptile The fossilized bones of a previously unknown, 220 million-year-old long-necked, gliding reptile may remain forever embedded in stone, but thanks to an industrial-size CT scanner at Penn State's Center for Quantitative Imaging, the bone structure and behavior of these small creatures are now known. Full story Source: Penn State

		June 12, 2007 Study Shows Lizard Moms Dress Their Children for Success Mothers know best when it comes to dressing their children, at least among side-blotched lizards, a common species in the Western United States. Researchers at the University of California, Santa Cruz, have found that female side-blotched lizards are able to induce different color patterns in their offspring in response to social cues, "dressing" their progeny in patterns they will wear for the rest of their lives. Full story Source: University of California, Santa Cruz

		June 11, 2007 UGA Study Finds That Weaker Nations Prevail in 39 Percent of Military Conflicts Despite overwhelming military superiority, the world's most powerful nations failed to achieve their objectives in 39 percent of their military operations since World War II, according to a new University of Georgia (UGA) study. The study, by assistant professor Patricia L. Sullivan in the UGA School of Public and International Affairs, explains the circumstances under which more powerful nations are likely to fail, and creates a model that allows policymakers to calculate the probability of success in current and future conflicts. Full story Source: University of Georgia

		June 11, 2007 Carnegie Mellon Scientists Devise Method to Increase Kidney Transplants Computer scientists at Carnegie Mellon University have developed a new computerized method for matching living kidney donors with kidney disease patients that can increase the number of kidney transplants--and save lives. Full story Source: Carnegie Mellon University

		June 8, 2007 Scientists Propose the Kind of Chemistry that Led to Life Scientists have developed a model explaining how simple chemical and physical processes may have laid the foundation for life. Based on simple, well-known chemical and physical laws, this model can be tested and they have now described how this can be done. The basic idea is that simple principles of chemical interactions allow for a kind of natural selection on a micro scale: enzymes can cooperate and compete with each other in simple ways, leading to arrangements that can become stable, or "locked in." Full story Source: University of California, San Francisco

		June 7, 2007 MIT Demonstrates Wireless Power Transfer Imagine a future in which wireless power transfer is feasible: cell phones, household robots, mp3 players, laptop computers, and other portable electronics capable of charging themselves without ever being plugged in, freeing us from that final, ubiquitous power wire. Some of these devices might not even need their bulky batteries to operate. Now an MIT team has experimentally demonstrated an important step toward accomplishing this vision of the future. Full story Source: Massachusetts Institute of Technology

		June 7, 2007 Nanotube Flickering Reveals Single-Molecule Rendezvous In this week's issue of the journal Science, French and U.S. researchers describe a new technique that allowed them to zoom in and observe quantum quasiparticles called excitons on individual carbon nanotubes. The team, which was led by Rice University chemist Bruce Weisman and University of Bordeaux physicist Laurent Cognet, found that each exciton travels about 90 nanometers and visits around 10,000 carbon atoms during its 100-trillionth-of-a-second lifespan. Full story Source: Rice University

		June 7, 2007 Research Brightens Prospects for Using the World's Smallest Candles in Medical Applications In a way, nanotubes are nature's smallest candles. These tiny tubes are constructed from carbon atoms and they are so small that it takes about 100,000 laid side-by-side to span the width of a single human hair. In the last five years, scientists have discovered that some individual nanotubes are fluorescent. That is, they glow when they are bathed in light. Some glow brightly, others glow dimly. Some glow in spots, others glow all over. Until now, this property has been largely academic, but researchers from the Vanderbilt Institute of Nanoscale Science and Engineering have removed a major obstacle that has restricted fluorescent nanotubes from a variety of medical applications, including anti-cancer treatments. Full story Source: Vanderbilt University

		June 6, 2007 Scientists Discover Unique, New T Cell Receptor in Marsupial Research Opossums are soft and furry, cute and cuddly looking and they could open up a new way in which critical cell types in the immune system, called T cells, may be seeing pathogens based on new genome sequencing research involving scientists in the University of New Mexico's biology department. The research, which is funded largely by the National Science Foundation, is set to be released in the June issue of the magazine PNAS, the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Full story Source: University of New Mexico

		June 6, 2007 UCF Researchers Hope Virtual Reality Can Help to Prevent Wildfires A University of Central Florida research team is developing an hour-long interactive simulation of a wildfire. Participants will decide whether or not to invest in prescribed burns and fire insurance over a 30-year span. Each decision leads to different consequences, and researchers hope seeing the impact of wildfires will encourage participants to support prescribed burning and other fire prevention methods. This technology could be used later for other topics, such as hurricanes. Full story Source: University of Central Florida

		June 6, 2007 Dirty Snow May Warm Arctic as Much as Greenhouse Gases The global warming debate has focused on carbon dioxide emissions, but scientists at the University of California, Irvine, have determined that a lesser-known mechanism--dirty snow--can explain one-third or more of the Arctic warming primarily attributed to greenhouse gases. Full story Source: University of California, Irvine

		June 6, 2007 Caribbean Frogs Started With a Single, Ancient Voyage on a Raft From South America Nearly all of the 162 land-breeding frog species on Caribbean islands originated from a single species that rafted on a sea voyage from South America about 30-to-50-million years ago, according to a DNA-sequence-analysis study. The discovery is surprising because no previous theories of how the frogs arrived had predicted a single origin and because groups of close relatives rarely dominate the fauna of an entire continent or major geographic region. Full story Source: Penn State See also: NSF press release

		June 5, 2007 Scientists Help to Create "Trail of Time" at Grand Canyon National Park An interpretive walking timeline trail that focuses on Grand Canyon vistas and rocks is being created with the help of scientists at the University of New Mexico, the National Park Service, and a $2.1 million grant from the National Science Foundation. This "Trail of Time" will help visitors explore, ponder and understand the magnitude of geologic time and its stories encoded by Grand Canyon rock layers and landscapes. Full story Source: University of New Mexico

		June 5, 2007 Ports Could Hasten Freight Traffic by Doubling Up on Crane Trips Ports could use their cranes to move goods more quickly without investing in any new equipment. A system called double cycling would minimize empty return trips--what taxi drivers and long-haul truckers refer to as "deadheading" by the massive cranes. Full story Source: University of Washington

		June 4, 2007 Fire and Structural Safety a Hot Topic for Engineers -- and the Nation Earthquakes and explosions grab the headlines when structures are toppled, but often the Achilles' heel of engineering is fire. Fire is the follow-up act in disasters. Yet in a research world awash in data keeping skyscrapers, bridges and buildings upright and safe in disaster, fire remains largely unstudied. A Michigan State professor says bringing the United States up to speed in integrating fire and structural engineering is crucial to homeland security. Full story Source: Michigan State University

		June 1, 2007 Mouse Model Points to Possible New Strategy for Treating Rare Muscle Disease, Kidney Disorders Based on clues provided by a study with transgenic mice, a research group at the National Human Genome Research Institute, part of the National Institutes of Health, has developed a strategy that will be tested as the first treatment for people with hereditary inclusion body myopathy (HIBM), a rare, degenerative muscle disease. In an unexpected finding, the research indicates that the approach also might benefit patients with certain kidney disorders. Full story Source: NIH/National Human Genome Research Institute

		June 1, 2007 Journal Sleep: Longer CPAP Use at Night Can Normalize One's Daytime Functioning A study published in the June 1 issue of the journal Sleep finds that longer nightly duration of continuous positive airway pressure use can help those suffering from obstructive sleep apnea achieve normal daytime functioning. Full story Source: American Academy of Sleep Medicine

		June 1, 2007 Wide Range of Sleep-related Disorders Associated with Abnormal Sexual Behaviors, Experiences A paper published in the June 1 issue of the journal Sleep is the first literature review and formal classification of a wide range of documented sleep-related disorders associated with abnormal sexual behaviors and experiences. Full story Source: American Academy of Sleep Medicine

		June 1, 2007 Journal Sleep: Advanced Cancer Patients Have Less Quality Sleep Patients with stage four cancer are more prone to disturbed sleeping patterns due to factors such as pain, treatment side effects, and psychological causes, according to a study published in the June 1 issue of the journal Sleep. Full story Source: American Academy of Sleep Medicine

		June 1, 2007 UC Santa Cruz Researchers Achieve Atomic Spectroscopy on a Chip Researchers at the University of California, Santa Cruz, have performed atomic spectroscopy with integrated optics on a chip for the first time, guiding a beam of light through a rubidium vapor cell integrated into a semiconductor chip. Full story Source: University of California, Santa Cruz

		June 1, 2007 How to Rip and Tear a Fluid In a simple experiment on a mixture of water, soap and a salt, researchers have shown that a rigid object like a knife will pass through the mixture as if it were a liquid when speeds are slow, but when careening through at speed, the knife rips the mixture as if it were a rubbery solid. The experiment sheds light into the properties of many everyday materials, like toothpaste, that do not fall into the standard textbook case of solid, liquid or gas. Full story Source: Penn State

		May 31, 2007 NASA Pondering a Future Grapple on the James Webb Space Telescope When it launches in 2013, the James Webb Space Telescope will settle in an orbit roughly one million miles from the Earth. That distance is currently too far away for any astronaut or any other existing NASA servicing capability to reach. Therefore, NASA is doing everything necessary to design and test the telescope on the ground using techniques that will ensure that it deploys and operates reliably in space. Full story Source: NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center

		May 31, 2007 Single Spinning Nuclei in Diamond Offer a Stable Quantum Computing Building Block Surmounting several distinct hurdles to quantum computing, physicists at Harvard University have found that individual carbon-13 atoms in a diamond lattice can be manipulated with extraordinary precision to create stable quantum mechanical memory and a small quantum processor, also known as a quantum register, operating at room temperature. The finding brings the futuristic technology of quantum information systems into the realm of solid-state materials under ordinary conditions. Full story Source: Harvard University

		May 31, 2007 Northeastern University Researchers Solve Rubik's Cube in 26 Moves It's a toy that most kids have played with at one time or another, but the findings of Northeastern University computer science professor Gene Cooperman and graduate student Dan Kunkle are not child's play. The two have proven that 26 moves suffice to solve any configuration of a Rubik's cube--a new record. Historically, the best that had been proved was 27 moves. Full story Source: Northeastern University

		May 31, 2007 UCR Physicist Demonstrates How Light Can be Used to Remotely Operate Micromachines A research team led by physicist Umar Mohideen at the University of California, Riverside has demonstrated in the laboratory that the Casimir force -- the small attractive force that acts between two close parallel uncharged conducting plates -- can be changed using a beam of light, making the remote operation of micromachines a possibility. Full story Source: University of California, Riverside

		May 31, 2007 Study: Directly Observed HIV Therapy for Children is Promising The first study in the developing world of directly observed antiretroviral therapy for HIV-infected children shows this form of treatment is an inexpensive, effective way to ensure that children take life-saving medications. Researchers at the Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University, together with Maryknoll, the international Catholic charity, conducted the study. Results are published in the June issue of the American Journal of Public Health. Full story Source: Brown University

		May 31, 2007 Gazing Up at the Man in the Star? For the first time, researchers have seen the surface of Altair, a star at the same stage of life as our sun but light years away. Full story Source: University of Michigan See also: NSF press release

		May 31, 2007 Research Finds Evidence Tropical Cyclones Have Climate-control Role Purdue University researchers have found evidence that tropical cyclones and hurricanes play an important role in the ocean circulation patterns that transport heat and maintain the climate of North America and Europe. These findings suggest that there is an additional factor to be included in climate models that may change predictions of future climate scenarios. Full story Source: Purdue University

		May 30, 2007 Older Motorists Improve Driving Performance with Physical Conditioning Older people who performed a physical conditioning program developed by researchers at Yale School of Medicine, were able to maintain or enhance their driving performance, potentially leading to a safer and more independent quality of life. Full story Source: Yale University

		May 30, 2007 TV Ads May Spur More Stroke Victims to Get Help Sooner Mass-media advertising can encourage more people experiencing stroke symptoms to go to the hospital more quickly, according to a study published in Stroke: Journal of the American Heart Association. Full story Source: American Heart Association

		May 30, 2007 Nanoscale Imaging Reveals Unexpected Behaviors in High-Temperature Superconductors Recent discoveries regarding the physics of ceramic superconductors may help improve scientists' understanding of resistance-free electrical power. Tiny, isolated patches of superconductivity exist within these substances at higher temperatures than previously were known, according to a paper by Princeton scientists, who have developed new techniques to image superconducting behavior at the nanoscale. Full story Source: Princeton University

		May 30, 2007 Old Idea Spawns New Way to Study Dark Matter An international team of astronomers led by Ohio State University has examined dark matter in the outer reaches of our galaxy in a new way. For the first time, they were able to employ triangulation--a method rooted in ancient Greek geometry--to estimate the location of dark matter and calculate its mass. Full story Source: Ohio State University

		May 30, 2007 Children Can Perform Approximate Math Without Arithmetic Instruction In a study conducted at Harvard by researchers from the University of Nottingham and Harvard, children who had not yet received arithmetic instruction, but had mastered verbal counting, were able to perform symbolic addition and subtraction, provided that only approximate accuracy was required. Full story Source: Harvard University

		May 30, 2007 For Many Insects, Winter Survival Is in the Genes Many insects living in northern climates don't die at the first signs of cold weather. Rather, new research suggests that they use a number of specialized proteins to survive the chilly months. These so-called "heat-shock proteins" ensure that the insects will be back to bug us come spring. Full story Source: Ohio State University

		May 29, 2007 Researchers Catch Motion of a Single Electron on Video Using pulses of high-intensity sound, two Brown University physicists have succeeded in making a movie showing the motion of a single electron. Humphrey Maris, a physics professor at Brown University, and Wei Guo, a Brown doctoral student, were able to film the electron as it moved through a container of superfluid helium. Full story Source: Brown University

		May 29, 2007 Most Call Centers for U.S. Consumers Aren't Abroad, Study Finds Despite the move of many business services overseas, call centers serving U.S. consumers are still largely at home, a Cornell-led study finds. The study examined call center management and employment practices in 17 countries. Full story Source: Cornell University

		May 29, 2007 Eavesdropping Comes Naturally to Young Song Sparrows Long before the National Security Agency began eavesdropping on the phone calls of Americans, young song sparrows were listening to and learning the tunes sung by their neighbors. The discovery that the sparrows acquire many of their songs by eavesdropping, may also have implications on how human infants learn language. Full story Source: University of Washington

		May 28, 2007 28 New Planets, 7 New Brown Dwarfs Reported by California, Carnegie Team The combined California and Carnegie Planet Search team and Anglo-Australian Planet Search team announced at this week's American Astronomical Society meeting the discovery of 28 new planets outside our solar system, a 12 percent increase in the number of known exoplanets. The bounty of new planets, not to mention seven new brown dwarfs, allows the astronomers to draw conclusions about how planets form and how planet systems evolve. Full story Source: University of California, Berkeley

		May 24, 2007 Two MSU Professors Spearhead International Water Project Two Michigan State University professors are leading an international partnership of environmental engineers and scientists from two U.S. research universities, two research centers in France, and three institutions in Ukraine and Russia, to purify the world's waters. With the biggest funding of its kind--a $2.5 million grant--by the National Science Foundation, the team leaders are bringing together domestic and international expertise, as well as investing in students, to develop water purifying strategies using what are called "membrane-based" technologies. Full story Source: Michigan State University

		May 24, 2007 New Genetic Data Overturn Long-Held Theory of Limb Development Long before animals with limbs (tetrapods) came onto the scene about 365 million years ago, fish already possessed the genes associated with limb growth, scientists have found. This finding overturns a long-held theory that limb acquisition was a novel evolutionary event. Full story Source: University of Chicago

		May 24, 2007 Mapping the Past to Forecast the Future Humans are changing the ecology of the Earth in many ways. Scientists are asking: how do we know when these changes signal a dangerous acceleration of ecological change? One way to answer that question, they believe, is to look at the past to learn what changes can be considered "natural," and what changes fall outside that range. A Web-based resource called MIOMAP is helping scientists find out where mammals lived in the United States in the past 30 million years, and may shed light on this question. Full story Source: University of California Museum of Paleontology

		May 24, 2007 Stereotype-Induced Math Anxiety Undermines Girls' Ability to Perform in Other Academic Areas A popular stereotype that boys are better at mathematics than girls undermines girls' math performance because it causes worrying that erodes the mental resources needed for problem solving, new research shows. The scholars also found for the first time, that this threat to performance caused by stereotyping can also hinder success in other academic areas because mental abilities do not immediately rebound after being compromised by mathematics anxiety. Full story Source: University of Chicago

		May 23, 2007 Ancient Meteor Blast May Have Caused Extinctions New scientific findings suggest that a large, extraterrestrial rock may have exploded over North America 13,000 years ago, explaining an abrupt cooling of the atmosphere and the extinction of large mammals at that time. Full story Source: University of California, Santa Barbara