AScribe Science News Service articles from August 2005

AScribe Science News Service archives from August 2005

Happy, Passive Means More Productive Animals.
August 2, 2005... Byline: Purdue University WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind., Aug. 2 (AScribe Newswire) -- Breaking up families can be sad, but in a new method for selecting passive livestock animals, that's a main ingredient for better long-term productivity,...

NASA's Planet Hunt Website En Espanol.
August 2, 2005... Byline: Jet Propulsion Laboratory PASADENA, Calif., Aug. 2 (AScribe Newswire) -- Spanish-speaking space aficionados can track the latest news in the hunt for planets around other stars, thanks to a new NASA website. The Spanish...

Got a Question Nobody Can Answer? Ask a Scientist! Innovative Rochester Institute of Technology Project Brings Expertise in Color Science to the Community.
August 3, 2005... Byline: Rochester Institute of Technology ROCHESTER, N.Y., Aug. 3 (AScribe Newswire) -- Do blue and yellow really make green? What color reflects the least amount of heat? What is the best color to paint walls in a factory? These and other...

Iowa State University Engineers Protect Bridges of Madison County.
August 4, 2005... Byline: Iowa State University AMES, Iowa, Aug. 4 (AScribe Newswire) -- Iowa State University engineers are developing round-the-clock monitoring technology to help protect the bridges of Madison County. That same technology could be...

Cassini Flies by Saturn's Tortured Moon Mimas.
August 5, 2005... Byline: Jet Propulsion Laboratory PASADENA, Calif., Aug. 5 (AScribe Newswire) -- On its recent close flyby of Mimas, the Cassini spacecraft found the Saturnian moon looking battered and bruised, with a surface that may be the most heavily...

James Collins of Arizona State University to Become National Science Foundation Head of Biological Sciences.
August 8, 2005... Byline: National Science Foundation ARLINGTON, Va., Aug. 8 (AScribe Newswire) -- National Science Foundation Director Arden L. Bement, Jr., has named James Collins of Arizona State University to head the Foundation's Directorate for...

On the Horizon: A 'Rinse' for Washing Machines That Dries Clothes.
August 9, 2005... Byline: University of Florida GAINESVILLE, Fla., Aug. 9 (AScribe Newswire) -- Think of it as a kind of chemical clothes wringer. University of Florida engineers have developed a compound that forces clothes in the washer to shed 20...

NIH Selects Burnham Institute for Exploratory Center for Human Embryonic Stem Cell Research; $3 Million Grant Will Support Pilot Projects, Core Facilities, Training.
August 9, 2005... Byline: The Burnham Institute LA JOLLA, Calif., Aug. 9 (AScribe Newswire) -- The Burnham Institute will receive $3 M over the next three years from the National Institutes of Health ("NIH") to develop an "Exploratory Center for Human...

NASA's Next Leap in Mars Exploration Ready for Launch.
August 9, 2005... Byline: Jet Propulsion Laboratory PASADENA, Calif., Aug. 9 (AScribe Newswire) -- NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter is ready for a morning launch on Thursday, Aug. 11. The spacecraft will arrive at Mars in March 2006 for a mission to...

Feeding the World: Researchers Report Complete, High Quality Rice Genome Sequence.
August 10, 2005... Byline: Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory COLD SPRING HARBOR, N.Y., Aug. 10 (AScribe Newswire) -- Rice feeds more than half of the world's human population. Estimates indicate that the agricultural yield of rice will need to be increased by...

Harnessing Wind Energy in Eritrea.
August 10, 2005... Byline: Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory BERKELEY, Calif., Aug. 10 (AScribe Newswire) -- At the southern tip of the Red Sea, a constriction formed between two mountain ranges funnels wind onto the shores of Eritrea, a small African...

NASA's Mars Orbiter Launch Delayed 24 Hours.
August 11, 2005... Byline: Jet Propulsion Laboratory PASADENA, Calif., Aug. 11 (AScribe Newswire) -- The launch of NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has been postponed. The new launch window is 4:43 to 6:43 a.m. PDT (7:43 to 9:43 a.m. EDT) on Friday, Aug....

NSF Announces Three New Chemical Bonding Centers; Thinking Outside the Box, Teams Will Tackle 'Big' Problems in Chemistry.
August 11, 2005... Byline: National Science Foundation ARLINGTON, Va., Aug. 11 (AScribe Newswire) -- The National Science Foundation (NSF) has announced that it will fund a new group of Chemical Bonding Centers (CBC) -- multi-faceted research teams each...

American Chemical Society Supports Teaching Evolution in K-12.
August 15, 2005... Byline: American Chemical Society WASHINGTON, Aug. 15 (AScribe Newswire) -- The American Chemical Society, the world's largest scientific society, is reiterating its call for evolution to be included in the K-12 science curricula at an...

Tropical Rain Forest Tree Canopy Contributes to Global, Local Environmental Change.
August 15, 2005... Byline: National Science Foundation ARLINGTON, Va., Aug. 15 (AScribe Newswire) -- Dangling from a handy branch in her technical rock-climbing gear, ecologist Nancy Harris of the State University of New York at Syracuse is demonstrating a...

Native California Oaks Losing Leaves Early.
August 15, 2005... Byline: University of California Division of Agriculture OAKLAND, Calif., Aug. 15 (AScribe Newswire) -- In spite of abundant rainfall this past winter and spring, the leaves of many oak trees in the Sierra Nevada and Coast Ranges have been...

NMSU Scientists Use Satellites to Track Massive Dust Storms.
August 16, 2005... Byline: New Mexico State University LAS CRUCES, N.M., Aug. 16 (AScribe Newswire) -- For the past four years, New Mexico State University scientists have been using satellite technology to track more than 50 huge, rolling walls of dust from...

$150 Million Teragrid Award Heralds New Era for Scientific Computing; Interoperable Cyberinfrastructure Now Accessible to Entire Science and Engineering Community.
August 17, 2005... Byline: National Science Foundation ARLINGTON, Va., Aug. 17 (AScribe Newswire) -- The National Science Foundation (NSF) has made a five-year, $150 million award to operate and enhance the Extensible Terascale Facility (ETF) -- also called...

Technology of Tomorrow: Space Exploration Technology Spin-Offs.
August 17, 2005... Byline: Jet Propulsion Laboratory PASADENA, Calif., Aug. 17 (AScribe Newswire) -- The next time you pick up a cordless tool or look up at a satellite dish, will you think of NASA? Perhaps not, but chances are that you are enjoying one of...

Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Mission Status.
August 17, 2005... Byline: Jet Propulsion Laboratory PASADENA, Calif., Aug. 17 (AScribe Newswire) -- NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, launched on Aug. 12, has completed one of the first tasks of its seven-month cruise to Mars, a calibration activity for...

National Science Foundation Awards $150 Million to Operate, Enhance Teragrid; San Diego Supercomputer Center Receives $14 Million to Provide Teragrid Resources, Development, Support.
August 18, 2005... Byline: San Diego Supercomputer Center SAN DIEGO, Aug. 18 (AScribe Newswire) -- The National Science Foundation (NSF) has made a five-year, $150 million award to operate and enhance the Extensible Terascale Facility (ETF), also called...

Airborne Drones, Mimicking Gulls, Alter Wing Shape for Agility.
August 23, 2005... Byline: University of Florida GAINESVILLE, Fla., Aug. 23 (AScribe Newswire) -- The military's next generation of airborne drones won't be just small and silent - they'll also dive between buildings, zoom under overpasses and land on...

Iowa State Receives $3 Million Grant for Bioinformatics Teaching, Research.
August 24, 2005... Byline: Iowa State University AMES, Iowa, Aug. 24 (AScribe Newswire) -- The National Science Foundation has awarded Iowa State University a $3 million grant for graduate studies in computational molecular biology. The five-year Integrative...

NASA/NOAA Announce Major Weather Forecasting Advancement.
August 24, 2005... Byline: Jet Propulsion Laboratory PASADENA, Calif., Aug. 24 (AScribe Newswire) -- NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration today outlined research that has helped to improve the accuracy of medium-range weather...

Of Friction and 'The Da Vinci Code': Testing Da Vinci's Principles of Friction on the Nanoscale.
August 25, 2005... Byline: Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory BERKELEY, Calif., Aug. 25 (AScribe Newswire) -- "The Da Vinci Code," the best selling novel and soon-to-be blockbuster film, may also be linked some day to the solving of a scientific mystery as...

Road Ecology Conference Next Week in San Diego.
August 26, 2005... Byline: University of California, Davis DAVIS, Calif., Aug. 26 (AScribe Newswire) -- Reducing the impact of roads and highways on wildlife and natural habitat is the aim of an international conference in San Diego next week. The Road...

University of California at Davis Young Ecologists Honored.
August 26, 2005... Byline: University of California, Davis DAVIS, Calif., Aug. 26 (AScribe Newswire) -- Two recent University of California at Davis doctoral graduates have been honored for their publications on environmental science topics. Postdoctoral...

Abalone Studies Should Aid Conservation.
August 26, 2005... Byline: University of California, Davis DAVIS, Calif., Aug. 26 (AScribe Newswire) -- University of California at Davis marine biologist Laura Rogers-Bennett is searching for the best way to preserve California's vanishing abalone...

Penn Study Shows Genes May Affect Response to Different Quit-Smoking Medications.
August 29, 2005... Byline: University of Pennsylvania Health System PHILADELPHIA, Aug. 29 (AScribe Newswire) -- A study by researchers at the Transdisciplinary Tobacco Use Research Center (TTURC) of the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine indicates...

A Step Closer to a Malaria Vaccine.
August 29, 2005... Byline: Brookhaven National Laboratory UPTON, N.Y., Aug. 29 (AScribe Newswire) -- An international team of scientists that includes a researcher from the U.S. Department of Energy's Brookhaven National Laboratory has determined the...

Flooding Expert Warns of Inland Hazards Days After Hurricane's Landfall.
August 29, 2005... Byline: Princeton University PRINCETON, N.J., Aug. 29 (AScribe Newswire) -- While much of the attention surrounding hurricane Katrina has focused on the danger of storm surges in coastal areas, the majority of deaths from hurricanes in...

NASA's Mars Orbiter Makes Successful Course Correction.
August 30, 2005... Byline: Jet Propulsion Laboratory PASADENA, Calif., Aug. 30 (AScribe Newswire) -- NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter successfully tested its main engines by making a successful trajectory adjustment for reaching the red planet on March 10,...