Culture

Kansas gravel roads have varying speed limits, but a study by Kansas State University researchers shows that instead of abiding by those limits, people are more likely to use their own judgment to gauge how fast they should drive on the roads. K-State researchers Sunanda Dissanayake, associate professor of civil engineering, and Litao Liu, graduate student in civil engineering, have studied the actual speeds on Kansas gravel roads and the various factors involved. "We found that people are driving at speeds based on their perceptions and existing conditions – regardless of the speed limit,"…

COLLEGE PARK, Md. -- The ability to create tiny patterns is essential to the fabrication of computer chips and many other current and potential applications of nanotechnology. Yet, creating ever smaller features, through a widely-used process called photolithography, has required the use of ultraviolet light, which is difficult and expensive to work with. John Fourkas, Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry in the University of Maryland College of Chemical and Life Sciences, and his research group have developed a new, table-top technique called RAPID (Resolution Augmentation through Photo-…

Rockville MD — While the number of times a scientific article is cited by other articles is currently the gold standard for ranking its impact, online publishing offers another measure: the number of unique downloads. A recent analysis in the online Journal of Vision finds that downloads are a good predictor of citations — and they are available significantly faster. The analysis was published in an editorial by Journal of Vision (JOV) Editor-in-Chief Andrew Watson. (http://journalofvision.org/9/4/i/) JOV recently began publishing download counts for every published article. The journal also…

Session: Active-Source Seismic Imaging—Characterizing the Subsurface Poster: Location: Serra I, Friday, April 10, 2009, 8:30 a.m. Active-source seismology is the chief investigative tool for imaging the Earth's crust. This paper focuses on the use of active-source seismic studies to image faults, basin geometry, groundwater, geologic hazards and the local and regional tectonic setting. New details emerge about the Silver Creek Fault in downtown San Jose, California: The Silver Creek fault has been mapped in the hills south of San Jose, from east of Morgan Hill to the alluvial-covered parts…

Unprecedented dense deployment of EarthScope USArray Transportable Array, Flexible Array and Magnetotelluric instruments is providing data that are being used to develop a new generation of high-resolution Earth models and understanding of structure and processes. Fresh observations: Earthscope Gradiometry: Charles A. Langston, et al., will discuss a new tool for understanding seismic waves by taking a snapshot of how seismic waves propagate across the United States. Rather than evaluate how the ground shakes as seismic waves pass through, this tool looks directly at the seismic wave and…

Scorpions possess resistance to high temperatures and the ability to conserve water for long periods of time, and as a result thrive in hot and arid parts of the world. But is this global distribution also seen at a more local level? Reporting in the open-access, peer-reviewed journal PLoS ONE April 9, Doctoral student Shmuel Raz and colleagues at the University of Haifa, Israel now show that this is indeed the case, even when European-like and African-like habitats were separated by no more than 100 metres. Shmuel Raz and colleagues studied the communities of scorpions in a valley near…

COLUMBUS, Ohio -- Ohio State University researchers have developed a new strategy to overcome one of the major obstacles to a grand challenge in physics. What they've discovered could eventually aid high-temperature superconductivity, as well as the development of new high-tech materials. In 2008, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) chose three multi-university teams to tackle an ambitious problem: trap atoms inside a light crystal -- also called an "optical lattice" -- that can simulate exotic materials and answer fundamental questions in physics. The deadline for the first…

A study published tomorrow (10 April) in Science examines a key player in conditions such as cancer, inflammatory bowel disease, rheumatoid arthritis and asthma and has shown that cells use a sophisticated communication system to coordinate responses to infection and maintain inflammation in the body. This system is now a target for designing drugs to treat these conditions. Scientists funded by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC), the Medical Research Council (MRC) and the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) have combined biological…

DURHAM, N.C. -- Since Congress lifted a moratorium on offshore drilling last year, federal lawmakers have grappled with the issue of how best to regulate U.S. ocean waters to allow oil, wave and wind energy development, while sustainably managing critical fisheries and marine animal habitats. A new policy paper, published April 10 in Science by a team of Duke University experts, argues that establishing a public trust doctrine for federal waters could be an effective and ethical solution to this and similar conflicts. "The public trust doctrine could provide a practical legal framework…

The Seismological Society of America (SSA) is an international scientific society devoted to the advancement of seismology and its applications in understanding and mitigating earthquake hazards and in imaging the structure of the earth. The second largest earthquake swarm ever recorded in Yellowstone National Park occurred during the two weeks from 27 December 2008 and 7 January 2009 and included more than 1000 earthquakes. Analysis of the swarm suggests epicenters migrated north over the 12 day period and maximum hypocenter depths abruptly shallowed from 12 km to 3 km depth at the time of…