Volume III Issue 1
January 2007 |
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 The
Evolution of Immunity
 Researchers
from the University of Pennsylvania School of Veterinary Medicine have
discovered a unique evolutionary link between the most primitive innate
form of immune defense, which has survived in fish, to the more
advanced, adaptive immune response present in humans and other mammals.
In the adaptive immune system in mammals, B cells produce antibodies to
fight infection. In the more-primitive innate immunity in fish, the
scientists found that B cells take part in a process known as
phagocytosis, by which immune system cells ingest foreign particles and
microbes.
In modern mammals, the B cell is a highly adapted part of the immune
system chiefly responsible for, among other things, the creation of
antibodies that tag foreign particles and microbes for destruction.
The findings are important for not only understanding the evolution and
function of immune cells in fish but also may point to novel roles of B
cells in mammals. The finding also offers a potential new strategy for
developing much-needed fish vaccines.
Find out
more...
Uncle
Sam is Hiring
 A
study by the Partnership for Public Service, which surveyed Federal
department and agency hiring needs, found that most of the new hires in
the Federal Government will come in 5 major areas. They are: security,
enforcement, and compliance (37,515 new hires); medical and public
health fields (25,756 new hires); engineering and the sciences,
including microbiologists, botanists, physicists, chemists, and
veterinarians (23,806 new hires); program management and administration
(17,373 new hires); and accounting, budget, and business, which includes
revenue agents and tax examiners needed mainly by the Internal Revenue
Service (12,959 new hires). The Department of Health and Human Services
will need health insurance specialists and claims and customer service
representatives to implement the Medicare Prescription Drug benefit. The
government will be competing with private sector firms for engineers,
doctors, and other skilled workers.
Find out more about working in the
federal or
state/local government
sectors.
Frontiers
in Integrative Biological Research
 How
do environmental changes cause organisms to evolve, and how, in turn, do
evolving organisms change an ecosystem? How does the brain control
complex behaviors? What are nature's rules for encoding a protein
structure by its DNA sequence? To tackle these major questions in
biology, the National Science Foundation has awarded new grants in its
Frontiers in Integrative Biology (FIBR) program.
The goal of the FIBR program is to encourage investigators to identify
major understudied or unanswered questions in biology, and to use
innovative approaches to address these questions by integrating
scientific concepts and research tools across disciplines that include
biology, mathematics and the physical sciences, engineering, social
sciences and the information sciences.
Through one of the
awards, a team of researchers led by David Reznick, an evolutionary
biologist at the University of California at Riverside, will study of
how ecology and evolution interact. The findings will help explain how
environmental changes influence an organism's evolution as well as how
the evolving organism, in turn, changes the ecosystem in which it lives.
Find
out more...
Degree
Profile: Actuarial Science
 One
of the main functions of actuaries is to help businesses assess the risk
of certain events occurring and to formulate policies that minimize the
cost of that risk. Actuaries assemble and analyze data to estimate the
probability and likely cost of the occurrence of an event such as death,
sickness, injury, disability, or loss of property. Actuaries also
address financial questions, including those involving the level of
pension contributions required to produce a certain retirement income
and the way in which a company should invest resources to maximize its
return on investments in light of potential risk.
 Most
actuaries are employed in the insurance industry, specializing in life
and health insurance or property and casualty insurance. They produce
probability tables which determine the likelihood that a potential
future event will generate a claim. From these tables, they estimate the
amount a company can expect to pay in claims. Actuaries ensure that the
price, or premium, charged for such insurance will enable the company to
cover claims and other expenses. Within the life and health insurance
fields, actuaries are helping to develop long-term-care insurance and
annuity policies, the latter a growing investment tool for many
individuals.
Actuaries in other
financial services industries manage credit and price corporate security
offerings. They also devise new investment tools to help their firms
compete with other financial services companies. Actuaries working in
government help manage social programs such as Social Security and
Medicare.
Find out more about
careers in
actuarial science.
Engineering
the Future
 Addressing
the need for a high school engineering curriculum for all Massachusetts
students, the Museum of Science, Boston has created a year-long
freshman-level course that develops technological literacy and expands
the pool of students interested in pursuing technical careers.
Engineering the Future (EtF)
engages high schoolers in hands-on design and building challenges
reflecting real engineering problems.
EtF is aimed at the
seven Massachusetts K-12 technology/engineering framework strands and
the ITEA Standards for Technological Literacy, while also introducing
key physics concepts. Students develop products that solve problems
involving power systems, communications, manufacturing, and
construction.
Students also analyze the effects of technologies on society and the
environment. The course textbook is written by engineers who tell what
it is like to be an engineer -- from designing a running shoe to
building a bridge. Students become "engineers" themselves by designing,
building, and testing prototypes in teams.
Engineering the Future is part of the museum's strategy to foster
technological literacy through its
National Center for Technological Literacy (NCTL). NCTL's goal is to
introduce engineering as early as elementary school and continue it
through high school, college, and beyond. The museum has been working
with education, government, and industry leaders to integrate
engineering as a new discipline in 28 states. The NCTL's Massachusetts
efforts have involved 219 schools, 685 teachers, and 15,425 students. In
addition to Engineering the Future, the NCTL is developing both
elementary and middle school curricula, and many teacher professional
development resources.
The Sloan Career
Cornerstone Center provides links to hundreds of museums and science
centers across the United States, including the Museum of Science,
Boston. Find a
museum or science center near you...
Physicist's
Snowflake Images Get Stuck
 Physicist
Kenneth Libbrecht's snowflake images have gotten stuck -- on a stamp.
Recently, the United States Postal Service issued four new 39-cent
commemorative postage stamps based on Libbrecht's high-resolution
microscope images of snowflakes.
Snowflake crystals begin as a water droplet inside a cloud that freezes
into a tiny ice particle. As water vapor gathers on the ice particle,
the particle spreads out and becomes a small prism with six sides. As it
gathers more vapor, the prism sprouts branches and starts to look more
like a crystal. Inside the cloud, the newly born snowflake crystal is
bounced around amid temperature and humidity changes that can affect its
shape. "This is why no two snowflakes are alike," says Libbrecht.
According to Libbrecht, there are 35 different types of snowflake
crystals, but the stamps feature two specific types: stellar dendrite
snowflake crystals (upper left, upper right, and lower right stamps),
which are plate-like and have branches. These are the most popular snow
crystal type. The other stamp is a sectored plate snowflake crystal
(lower left stamp) that has broad branches with prominent, distinctive
ridges.
Ironically, Libbrecht is
based at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, CA -- a
place that almost never sees snow. Libbrecht's images were taken from
snowfalls in Michigan, Alaska, and Ontario.
Collecting the fragile
snowflake crystals to photograph is a delicate business. After gathering
the crystals, Libbrecht uses a small paintbrush to carefully transfer
the snowflake crystals onto a glass slide. Then he captures the images
using a digital camera attached to a high-resolution microscope. In
order to keep the snowflake crystals from melting, Libbrecht does most
of his work outside.
With Libbrecht's stamps, anyone can get stuck on snowflake crystals --
even if you've never seen snow.
Source: American Institute of Physics' Inside Science News Service.
Find out more...
More
Than a Meteor!
 Growing
evidence shows that the dinosaurs and their contemporaries were not
wiped out by the famed Chicxulub meteor impact alone, according to a
paleontologist who says multiple meteor impacts, massive volcanism in
India and climate changes culminated in the end of the Cretaceous
Period.
The Chicxulub impact may have been the lesser and earlier of a series of
meteor impacts and volcanic eruptions that pounded life on Earth for
more than 500,000 years, say Princeton University paleontologist Gerta
Keller and her collaborators.
A final, much larger and still unidentified impact 65.5 million years
ago appears to have been the last straw, said Keller, exterminating
two-thirds of all species in one of the largest mass extinction events
in the history of life. It's that impact - not Chicxulub - that left the
famous extraterrestrial iridium layer found in rocks worldwide that
marks the impact that finally ended the Age of Reptiles, Keller
believes.
Find out more...
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