Florida

Studying zebrafish to understand cardiac disease

Chavely Valdes Sanchez, a senior majoring in biology, was one of 44 undergraduate students around the country accepted into the 2013 Harvard Stem Cell Institute Internship Program, which provides participants with a challenging summer research experience in a cutting-edge stem cell science laboratory.

This year, I was selected to be a 2013 Howard Hughes Medical Institute EXROP recipient – which meant that I would have the chance to conduct research with highly recognized scientists in their respective fields. Since at FIU I am part of Irina Agoulnik’s cancer research lab (in the Department of Cellular Biology and Pharmacology at the Herbert Wertheim College of Medicine), I wanted to spend my summer conducting research in a different field. Thus, I chose stem cell research specific to cardiac development at the Harvard Stem Cell Institute which is affiliated with Harvard Medical School.

See more at

http://news.fiu.edu/2013/08/studying-zebrafish-to-understand-cardiac-disease/66311?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=studying-zebrafish-to-understand-cardiac-disease

Florida

Which came first, hermits or kings?

Heather Bracken-Grissom, marine sciences professor in the FIU Department of Biological Sciences, has helped answer one of the most debated questions among evolutionary biologists: Did the hermit crab evolve into the king crab, or did the king crab evolve into the hermit crab?

Since the 19th century, science has suggested hermit crabs and king crabs are close relatives, despite their strikingly different appearance. Hermit crabs are small and depend on a shell for protection. King crabs are one of the largest crustaceans and do not have a shell, since they use their external skeleton to defend themselves. Both species belong to the infraorder Anomura – with more than 2,500 species within the infraorder, they are all very diverse in structure and ecological adaptations. For years, molecular data has suggested hermits evolved into kings. As DNA would have it, that is the case.

See more at

http://news.fiu.edu/2013/08/which-came-first-hermits-or-kings/66198

 Alabama

ASU students retrace History during 50th anniversary March on Washington

ASU students led a re-creation of the March on Washington during the national 50th anniversary commemoration of the historic event held on Aug. 28, 1963.
Cherise Peters was overcome with emotion as she boarded a subway train in the nation’s capital with 23 students from ASU’s Student Orientation Services.
The group was headed to the starting point of the re-creation of 50th anniversary of the historic March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom.

See more at

http://www.alasu.edu/news/news-details/index.aspx?nid=1325

Utah State University : a new observational tool developed for use with parents

A new observational tool, developed by researchers at Utah State University’s Center for Persons with Disabilities, has been published by Brookes Publishing and will be available in mid-october.

Parenting Interactions with Children: Checklist of Observations Linked to Outcomes (PICCOLO™), which was designed to assess and monitor the quality of parent-child interactions, provides home visiting, parent education and early childhood programs with valuable information for strengthening parenting practices. Lori Roggman, Gina Cook, Mark Innocenti, Vonda Jump, Katie Christiansen and Sheila Anderson developed the tool.

Developed for use with parents of children 10-47 months, PICCOLO™ measures 29 developmentally supportive parenting behaviors proven to promote school readiness in four  domains — Affection, responsiveness, encouragement and teaching. The tool was developed after extensive research with more than 2,000 diverse families. Results from PICCOLO™ will help programs provide positive feedback to parents, plan individualized family interventions and measure program effectiveness.

See more at http://www.cpdusu.org/blog/2013/08/cpd-researchers-publish-piccolo-tool/

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Grand Valley State University, Allendale, Michigan

AWRI awarded grant to study bacteria in Silver Lake

Grand Valley State University's Annis Water Resources Institute has been awarded more than $32,000 to assess the presence of a specific bacteria in Silver Lake.

See more at

http://gvsu.edu/gvnow/index.htm?articleId=C15E1ECC-01AA-AFF3-1951E1B65D4A686F

University of Alabama

Albert de Roeck, a senior research scientist at CERN, Leader in Higgs Boson Discovery to Speak at UA Aug. 28

A scientist who had a leading role in last year’s discovery of the Higgs boson – touted as one of the top findings of this generation – will discuss the particle’s detection during an Aug. 28 public talk at The University of Alabama.

Albert de Roeck, a senior research scientist at CERN, is also a professor at the University of Antwerp, in Belgium, and a visiting professor at the Institute of Particle Physics and Phenomenology in Durham, United Kingdom, and at the University of California Davis.

The newly discovered subatomic particle, for which scientists had searched for decades, gives other particles their mass and confirms what’s known as the standard model, a theory of physics that describes how the universe works.

CERN, located near Geneva, Switzerland, is the home of the Large Hadron Collider, the particle accelerator used during research that led to the July 2012 discovery announcement that made headlines in main-stream media markets around the world.

See more at

http://events.ua.edu/events/index.php?com=detail&eID=14264

University of Tampa

Colorlight Therapist to Present at UT Friday, Sept. 6

Jan van der Est, a Samassati Colorlight therapist, will give a presentation on Colorlight therapy at The University of Tampa on Friday, Sept. 6, at 4 p.m.

The presentation is free and open to the public.

Colorlight therapy, a form of energy medicine, uses color light to heal the physical body and clear psychological difficulties. Used by both individuals and professionals, it penetrates the body’s DNA, changing hard-to-address energy fields.

At the presentation, van der Est will explain the energy and wisdom of spectral colors as well as complementary colors and patterns. He will also present:

a generic model of the human system to explain how light works on all levels: physical, emotional, mental and spiritual;

another model of the human system to show the role of photons in our entire being;

what causes an individual cell to fall into imbalance and how light can restore balance.

See more at

https://www.ut.edu/Colorlight-Therapist-to-Present-at-UT.aspx

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 EAU : UNE INITIATIVE DE LA MICHIGAN STATE UNIVERSITY

Seize nouveaux scientifiques vont rejoindre l'équipe, composée de plus de cent membres, qui mène des recherches sur l'eau à la Michigan State University.

L'eau recouvre quelque 70 pour cent de la surface du globe terrestre, mais plus de 97 pour cent de cette eau est salée.

En savoir plus/ See more at http://msutoday.msu.edu/news/2013/h2o-sos/

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GREFFES DU REIN : L'UTILITE D'UNE ANALYSE D'URINE

Le taux d'une protéine, appelée CXCL9, dans les urines d'un greffé du rein permettrait de distinguer les greffés qui présentent un faible risque de développer des lésions rénales de ceux dont le risque est élevé. Cette étude est publiée par American journal of transplantation. Pour en savoir plus : http://www.nih.gov/news/health/aug2013/niaid-22.htm?utm_medium=email&utm_source=govdelivery

GEOTHERMIE : EXPLOITER LA CHALEUR NATURELLE DE LA TERRE

Des chercheurs de l'université de l'Alberta, au Canada, étudient la possibilité d'utiliser la géothermie pour fournir l'énergie nécessaire à la région nord de l'Alberta pour exploiter les sables bitumineux. Actuellement, en effet,on utilise une grande quantité de gaz naturel pour chauffer l'eau servant au traitement de ces sables bitumineux, ce qui représente environ 6 pour cent de la consommation canadienne. Ces chercheurs proposent de fracturer la roche et d'en pomper l'eau pour en exploiter la chaleur. Pour en savoir plus :

http://news.ualberta.ca/newsarticles/2013/august/tapping-the-natural-heat-of-earths-core?utm_source=Daily%20News%20Email&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Daily%20News:%20August%2022,%202013&utm_content=792472

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Huit étudiants de l'Université de Sherbrooke, au Canada, ont trouvé une solution : exploiter la force du mouvement des vagues pour fournir l’énergie nécessaire au dessalement de l’eau. Les membres du projet Odyssée travaillent à concevoir et à fabriquer un prototype autonome qui sera mis à l’épreuve l’an prochain au large des Îles-de-la-Madeleine.

L’idée de l’équipe du projet Odyssée est de créer une unité qui soit autonome en énergie en utilisant le mouvement constant des vagues de la mer. «On l’appelle l’énergie houlomotrice. Si on avance à quelques centaines de mètres du rivage, on trouve des vagues d’une hauteur d’un mètre et demi qui décrivent une courbe sinusoïdale», explique Renaud Lafortune, directeur technique. Une distance d’environ 60 mètres se forme entre le sommet de chaque vague et une nouvelle vague arrive toutes les 6 secondes. Ainsi, si une bouée flottante est ancrée à cet endroit, elle se trouvera à effectuer des mouvements verticaux de manière répétitive pour chaque nouvelle vague. C’est ce mouvement naturel qui viendra produire l’énergie nécessaire pour dessaler et filtrer l’eau puisée à même la mer. Grâce à la force des vagues, on évite le recours à une source d’énergie extérieure.

Pour en savoir plus : http://www.usherbrooke.ca/medias/nouvelles/etudiants/etudiants-details/article/22455/

Il est possible de communiquer avec les étudiants en visitant leur site :.

http://projetodyssee.com/

Tracie McMillan, an award-winning journalist and author of The American Way of Eating is the first speaker in this year’s series of free author evenings sponsored by Friends of the CSU Libraries, the Poudre River Friends of the Library, City of Fort Collins Fort Fund, KUNC radio and Hilton Fort Collins.

She will speak on Sept. 18, 7-9 p.m. at the Hilton Fort Collins, 425 W. Prospect Road. The event is free and open to the public.

In The American Way of Eating, McMillan examines the reality of this country’s food industry by chronicling her own experiences working in a California garlic field, a Walmart produce department outside Detroit, and the kitchen of a New York City Applebee’s. McMillan goes beyond the food on her plate to explore the national priorities that put it there, arguing for thinking of fresh, healthy food as a public and social good.

For more information, go to http://www.news.colostate.edu/Release/6951

and also http://www.traciemcmillan.com/

CSU Colorado State University

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Des chercheurs de l'Université de Washington ont créé un nouveau système de communication sans fil qui permet à des appareils de communiquer entre eux sans que ces derniers soient reliès à une source d'énergie comme une batterie ou un accès au réseau électrique.

Ces appareils échangent des informations par réflexion ou absorption des ondes radio préexistantes. Cette technique de communication que leurs initiateurs appellent la « rétrodiffusion ambiante » s'appuient sur les ondes de la télévision et des portables qui nous entourent en permanence.

Shyam Gollakota, a UW assistant professor of computer science and engineering, said :

« We can repurpose wireless signals that are already around us into both a source of power and a communication medium, it’s hopefully going to have applications in a number of areas including wearable computing, smart homes and self-sustaining sensor networks. »

More : http://www.washington.edu/news/2013/08/13/wireless-devices-go-battery-free-with-new-communication-technique/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=wireless-devices-go-battery-free-with-new-communication-technique

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Madeleine Rousseau-Raaphorst, Rice professor emeritus of French and a former department chair, died June 23 in Salt Lake City. She was 94. She joined the Rice faculty in 1963 after teaching at Texas Southern University and Ohio Wesleyan University. Rousseau-Raaphorst was born in Tours, France. She earned a law degree in Paris and worked as a lawyer for L’Oréal before immigrating with her husband and two small daughters to Houston in 1953.

She was cremated June 27; her ashes were transported to France for burial in the family cemetery plot.

More : http://news.rice.edu/2013/08/08/former-french-dept-chair-dies-at-age-94/

RICE University Houston Texas

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Fred Kniss is an EMU alum (BA'79) and received his Ph D at the University of Chicago in 1992 and has served as provost of Eastern Mennonite University (Virginia)

Kniss’s speech, at the ASR’s 75th annual conference in New York City on Aug. 11, 2013, marked the end of his one-year term as president of the leading professional association for sociologists of religion, which has about 700 members.

In an interview before the speech, Kniss said his call for increased academic attention to the peripheries of American religious life is also an appeal for better awareness of and relating to the growing religious diversity in American society. In his speech, Kniss noted that sociologists increasingly agree that a healthy religious diversity within a community “[produces] religious vitality and [increases] the participation of religion within the public sphere.”

More : http://emu.edu/now/news/2013/08/emu-provost-argues-for-valuing-tributaries-beyond-the-religious-mainstream/

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