Volume V Issue 6
June 2009 |
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 Students
Head to Science Camps
 This
summer, Exxon Mobil, in conjunction with Dr. Bernard Harris and the
Harris Foundation, are expanding the ExxonMobil Bernard Harris Summer
Science Camp program to thirty residential camps. The two-week camps are
designed for under-privileged middle school students across the country
and provide a fun-filled setting for them to gain a deeper understanding
of science, technology, engineering and mathematics and to promote
exciting careers in these fields. Dr. Harris, a former NASA astronaut
and the first African American to walk in space, created the camps four
years ago with support from ExxonMobil. More than 1,500 students will
take part in this year's camps and explore themes such as “Mission to
Mars,” “Revolutionary Robotics,” and “Energy and Motion.” The camps are
free and all student expenses are paid for by the program. While not all
summer science camps are free, or residential, they are available all
across the country and provide great experiences for middle and high
school students to enjoy first hand experiences in science and
engineering.
 Explore
state-by-state lists of precollege
camps...
Visualization
Challenge
 Some
of science's most powerful statements are not made in words. From the
diagrams of DaVinci to Rosalind Franklin's x-rays, visualization of
research has a long and literally illustrious history. The
International
Science and Engineering Visualization Challenge is a competition
focused on communicating science, engineering and technology for
education and journalistic purposes. One first place award will be made
in each of the following five categories: Photography, Illustrations,
Informational Graphics, Interactive Media, and Non-Interactive Media. As
an example, the photography category can include film or digital
photographs and photomicrographs, as well as images obtained from
electron microscopes, STMs, AFMs, telescopes and similar instruments.
The image above/right is the 2008 photography winner, "The Glass Forest"
by Mario De Stefano of The Second University of Naples, Italy. De
Stefano used a scanning electron microscope to capture these images of
the diatom Licmophora ehrenbergii from the Mediterranean Sea off the
coast of Italy. The deadline for this year is September 15, 2009.
Find
out more about career paths in
science...
How
NASA Technologies Impact Daily Life
 NASA
has launched an interactive site that allows users to discover some of
the many NASA technologies that positively impact everyday life. "NASA
at Home" and "NASA City" take
users on an illustrated tour of the commercial technologies and products
that trace their origins to NASA's investment in space and aeronautics
research and development. Visitors can scroll more than 100 technologies
grouped by themes such as home, airport, grocery store, sports arena,
hospital, public safety and manufacturing. After entering an area, users
can experience the impact NASA has on their lives and find descriptions
of such technologies as temperature-regulated clothing from materials
designed for astronaut suits and gloves, wireless headset telephone
technology pioneered to transmit the first words from the moon,
fire-resistant paint and steel coatings from NASA's heat shield
technology, and remote-controlled ovens based on technology used aboard
the International Space Station.
NASA has documented more than 1,600 examples of how technologies have
been used to improve life on Earth in its annual "Spinoff" publication.
The technologies are available in an
online searchable database.
Find
out more about careers in
aerospace engineering and the
aerospace industry...
Degree
Profile: Physics
 Physics
is everywhere. It describes the world around us, from explaining the
workings and making possible the luxuries and conveniences inside our
homes such as energy efficient heat pumps, cel phones, microwave ovens,
and iPods - - to describing the motions of the galaxies in our universe.
Physicists find answers to almost everything. Their studies range from
the tiniest particles of matter to the largest objects in our universe.
Their research has a range of applications which includes the computers
that allow us to communicate with others across the globe, as well as
the vehicles that allow us to traverse the globe faster, more safely,
and more efficiently than would be possible without advances in physics.
Physicists of the future will move society even faster along the
information superhighway and drive further progress in the area of
transportation. It is the physics students of today who will make
contributions to improving the quality of lives in many, many areas.
Physics underlies all other
basic sciences and is the basis for much of technology because it is
concerned with the most fundamental aspects of matter and energy as well
as the laws that govern their interactions - - the interactions which
make the physical universe work. Physicists and astronomers hold about
18,000 jobs in the United States. Physicists accounted for about 17,000
of these, while astronomers accounted for only about 1,700 jobs. Where
you are likely to work will differ by the level of your highest degree.
Thus, the private sector (including large corporations, small companies
and the self-employed) employs 60% of physics bachelors and masters
compared to 30% of physics PhDs.
Find
out more about careers in physics...
The
Promise of Carbon Nanotubes
 Carbon
is the fourth most abundant element in the universe by weight, and
without it, there would be no life on Earth. Depending on its crystal
structure--how its atoms bond together--carbon can form several
different substances, ranging from sooty coal to glittering diamonds to
slippery-smooth graphite. Slice a chunk of graphite into a flat,
single-atom thick sheet, and you get another form of carbon: graphene.
Take a sheet of graphene and roll it up like a newspaper, and you get a
carbon nanotube (CNT).
CNTs are nanoscale
molecules made up of large numbers of carbon atoms, each bonded to three
other atoms in a hexagonal (six-sided) pattern, resembling a roll of
chicken wire. The pattern can be aligned with the tube's central axis,
or it can be twisted. Although a CNT may reach a few centimeters in
length, the entire tube is only a few nanometers across, or about
100,000 times thinner than a human hair. At this size, it behaves as if
it were one-dimensional. But why are CNTs making headlines in fields as
diverse as aerospace, opto-electronics and bio-medicine? In a word,
properties. Because of their superior structural, chemical, optical and
electrical properties, carbon nanotubes are among the most promising
candidates for use in tomorrow's ever-shrinking technology.
Mechanically, CNTs are five to 50 times stronger than steel, even though
they are incredibly small and light. They also conduct heat extremely
well.
But it's their optical and electrical characteristics that have many
scientists and engineers proposing applications ranging from flexible
electronics and photovoltaics, to sensing and fluorescent markers in
life sciences.
"CNTs have potential for complementing or replacing many current
technologies," said Oscar O. Bernal, NSF program director for condensed
matter physics. "For instance, they could one day become the main
components in lighting devices and consumer electronics. They could
represent savings in energy usage and would have the advantage of being
very small, allowing miniaturization beyond current limits."
Find
out more about careers in engineering
and science...
Bioengineering
Students Win Design Award
 It
would be terrible if the first humans to reach Mars stepped onto the
surface to discover their legs could no longer hold them. A team of Rice
University students is working to make sure that doesn't happen. Five
senior bioengineering students have designed a device to help astronauts
keep their skeletons strong and healthy by measuring bone mineral
density loss, literally on the fly. Their design of a bone-remodeling
monitor for use in microgravity shared the top prize in NASA's third
annual Systems Engineering Competition. Charlie Foucar, Shannon Moore,
Evan Williams, Bodin Hon and Leslie Goldberg came up with a noninvasive
device that measures the concentration of deoxypyridinoline, a bone
marker found in urine. For nearly a half-century of spaceflight,
astronauts have been found to lose bone mass at a rate of up to 2
percent per month while in space. That's not a big deal on an orbital
jaunt of a week or two, but future travelers to Mars face a six-month
trip -- and that's just one-way. When it comes to strong bones, humans
are built to use them or lose them. Moore said even though bone-density
markers can be found in blood, sweat and saliva, the team decided on
urine because of their experience and because it can be collected
noninvasively.
The team's working prototype has three stages: a collection unit that
ties into the spacecraft's waste-disposal system, an immunoassay process
that combines the urine with nanoshells and antibodies, and a photometer
that reads the absorbance spectra of the combined solution and feeds a
PDA running an analysis program personalized for each astronaut.
Resulting data can be downloaded to NASA or analyzed on the spot. The
team received cash prizes and an invitation to a future space shuttle
launch.
Find
out more about careers in bioengineering...
Salary
Offers to College Class of 2009
 Starting
salary offers to the college Class of 2009 have fallen slightly compared
to offers received by the Class of 2008, according to new report from
the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE). According to
the group's current Salary Survey report, the overall average offer to a
2009 bachelor's degree graduate stands at $48,515 -- down 2.2% from the
average of $49,624 posted in Spring 2008. More disciplines are seeing
their starting salary average fall compared to last year at this time --
but the engineering disciplines fared best, as a group, posting a 2.3%
increase in their overall average offer, which now stands at $58,438. By
specific engineering discipline, chemical engineering graduates posted
the largest increase among the engineering fields. Their average offer
rose 2.8% to $65,403. Computer engineering graduates posted a 1.8%
increase, pushing their average salary offer to $61,017. Experiencing
similar increases were civil engineering grads (up 1.7% for an average
of $51,793) and mechanical engineering graduates (up 1.6% for an average
of $58,749).
Find
out about salaries...
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