Volume IV Issue 3
March 2008 |
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 2008
NASA Antarctica Quest Challenge
 The
Landsat Image Mosaic of Antarctica (LIMA) is the first-ever true-color
high-resolution satellite view of the Antarctic continent enabling
everyone to see Antarctica as it appears in real life. This new view of
Antarctica will revolutionize Antarctica research. A
website has also been developed to
celebrate the International Polar Year,
and to familiarize people with Antarctica. The site explores the
richness of its features and demonstrates how scientists use satellite
imagery to study the continent. A new NASA Quest program begins this
month that challenges precollege students to study the features of
Antarctica. Participating students will develop a research question and
argue the value of studying a specific feature based on the new views of
Antarctica that are available. NASA Quest Challenges are free,
web-based, and interactive explorations designed to engage students in
authentic scientific and engineering processes. The solutions relate to
issues encountered daily by NASA personnel.
National programs and
projects such as NASA Quest are great opportunities for precollege
students to network with other students, meet professionals in the
field, and gain hands-on experience solving real science and engineering
challenges. There are dozens of mathematics, science, and engineering
competitions to choose from.
 Find
out more about other precollege programs and projects...
First
Synthetic Bacterial Genome
 A
team of 17 researchers at the J. Craig Venter Institute (JCVI) has
created the largest man-made DNA structure by synthesizing and
assembling the 582,970 base pair genome of a bacterium, Mycoplasma
genitalium JCVI-1.0. This work is the second of three key steps toward
the team's goal of creating a fully synthetic organism. In the next
step, which is ongoing at the JCVI, the team will attempt to create a
living bacterial cell based entirely on the synthetically made genome.
The team achieved this technical feat by chemically making DNA fragments
in the lab and developing new methods for the assembly and reproduction
of the DNA segments.
After several years of work
perfecting chemical assembly, the team found they could use homologous
recombination (a process that cells use to repair damage to their
chromosomes) in the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae to rapidly build the
entire bacterial chromosome from large subassemblies.
Find
out more...
1/3
of Young Women Have Bachelor's Degrees
 About
33 percent of young women 25 to 29 had a bachelor's degree or more
education in 2007, compared with 26 percent of their male counterparts,
according to tabulations recently released by the U.S. Census Bureau.
The report showed that among adults 25 and older, men remain slightly
more likely than women to hold at least a bachelor's degree (30 percent
compared with 28 percent). However, as the percentage for women rose
between 2006 and 2007 (from 27 percent), it remained statistically
unchanged for men.
The tables also showed that more education continues to pay off in a big
way: Adults with advanced degrees earn four times more than those with
less than a high school diploma. Workers 18 and older with a master's,
professional or doctoral degree earned an average of $82,320 in 2006,
while those with less than a high school diploma earned $20,873.
Workers 18 and older with a
bachelor's degree earned an average of $56,788 in 2006, while those with
a high school diploma earned $31,071.
In addition, the report showed that more than half of Asians 25 and
older had a bachelor's degree or more (52 percent), compared with 32
percent of non-Hispanic whites, 19 percent of blacks and 13 percent of
Hispanics.
Find
out more about different types of academic degrees...
Degree
Profile: Pharmacist
 Pharmacists
distribute drugs prescribed by physicians and other health practitioners
and provide information to patients about medications and their use.
They advise physicians and other health practitioners on the selection,
dosages, interactions, and side effects of medications. Pharmacists also
monitor the health and progress of patients in response to drug therapy
to ensure the safe and effective use of medication.
Pharmacists must understand the use, clinical effects, and composition
of drugs, including their chemical, biological, and physical properties.
Compounding -- the actual mixing of ingredients to form powders,
tablets, capsules, ointments, and solutions -- is a small part of a
pharmacist's practice, because most medicines are produced by
pharmaceutical companies in a standard dosage and drug delivery form.
Some pharmacists specialize in specific drug therapy areas, such as
intravenous nutrition support, oncology (cancer), nuclear pharmacy (used
for chemotherapy), geriatric pharmacy, and psychopharmacotherapy (the
treatment of mental disorders by means of drugs).
 Courses
offered at colleges of pharmacy are designed to teach students about all
aspects of drug therapy. The Pharm.D. is a 4-year program that requires
at least 2 years of college study prior to admittance, although most
applicants have completed 3 years. Prospective pharmacists should have
scientific aptitude, good communication skills, and a desire to help
others. They also must be conscientious and pay close attention to
detail, because the decisions they make affect human lives.
Find
out more about careers as a
Pharmacist...
Ocean
Quakes Reveal Circulation System
Zigzagging some
60,000 kilometers across the ocean floor, Earth's system of mid-ocean
ridges plays a pivotal role in many workings of the planet: in
plate-tectonic movements, heat flow from the interior, and the chemistry
of rock, water and air. Now, a team of seismologists working in 2,500
meters of water on the East Pacific Rise, some 565 miles southwest of
Acapulco, Mexico, has made the first images of one of these systems--and
it doesn't look the way most scientists had assumed.
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Scientists have
discovered a new way in which ocean water circulates
through deep-sea vents. Credit: Zina Deretsky, National
Science Foundation |
It was not until the late
1970s that scientists discovered the existence of vast plumbing systems
under the oceans called hydrothermal vents. The systems pull in cold
water, superheat it, then spit it back out from seafloor vents--a
process that brings up not only hot water, but dissolved substances from
rocks below. Unique life forms feed off the vents' stew, and valuable
minerals including gold may pile up. The hypothetical image of a
hydrothermal-vent system shows water forced down by overlying pressure
through large faults along ridge flanks. The water is heated by shallow
volcanism, then rises toward the ridges' middles, where vents tend to
cluster. The research team's calculations suggest that water moves a lot
faster than previously thought--perhaps a billion gallons per
year--through these systems. The water appears to descend instead
through a buried 200-meter-wide chimney atop the ridge studied on the
East Pacific Rise, run below the ridge along its axis through a tunnel
just above a magma chamber, then bubble back up through a series of
vents further along the ridge. The images were created using
seismometers planted around the ridge to record tiny, shallow
earthquakes--in this study, 7,000 of them over seven months in 2003 and
2004. Find out more
online.
Find
out more about careers in science.
Teens
Confident in Their Inventiveness
 American
teens are confident they can invent solutions to some of the world's
pressing challenges, such as protecting and restoring the natural
environment, but more than half feel unprepared for careers in
technology and engineering, the Lemelson-MIT Invention Index has found
this year. The Lemelson-MIT Invention Index, which gauges Americans'
attitudes toward invention and innovation, also found there is an
important need for more project-based learning in high schools.
Nearly three out of four American teens (72 percent) believe
technological inventions or innovations can solve some of our pressing
environmental issues within the next decade, including global warming,
water pollution and fossil fuel depletion. Nearly two-thirds of teens
(64 percent) are confident they could invent some of these solutions.
This contrasts with only 38 percent of adults who believe they could
invent something to help protect and restore the natural environment. Of
those adults, more than half are 18-24 years old. The Lemelson-MIT
Invention Index found that more than half of American teens (59 percent)
do not believe their high school is preparing them adequately for a
career in technology and engineering. The disparity is more pronounced
among some groups historically under-represented in these fields. Nearly
two-thirds of African-American teens (64 percent) and teen girls (67
percent) believe they are not prepared in school for these careers.
A vast majority of teens (79 percent) believe there is value in
hands-on, project-based science, technology, engineering and math (STEM)
education and learning in high school. The same percentage of teens also
believes more funding is needed for these types of programs.
Find
out more about national and regional
programs and projects that allow pre-university students to explore
math, science, engineering, and technology.
Signing
Bonuses For College Grads?
 Competition
for new college graduate hires remains robust, and many employers expect
to offer signing bonuses to clinch the deal in 2008, according to the
National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE). Nearly 54 percent
of the employers responding to a recent survey said they will use
signing bonuses to sweeten the deal for potential hires. That's a
sizable increase over the 47 percent of respondents who reported that
they expected to offer bonuses in 2007.
Also underscoring the level
of competition employers face: The size of the average bonus has
increased. Among respondents who plan to offer a bonus to all
entry-level college hires, the average signing bonus is $4,450 -- up 25
percent from last year's average of $3,568. However, two-thirds of those
using bonuses expect to offer them to just selected candidates, and
average bonus offers vary according to a number of factors, including
the candidate's degree and degree level.
Find
more information about job hunting tips...
Career Cornerstone News is a publication of the
Sloan Career Cornerstone Center. Click here
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