Genetics Achievement

Neurospora asci. The asci are from a cross of histone H1-GFP x wild type. Four of the eight ascospores in each ascus show glowing hH1-GFP nuclei. The remaining four ascospores contain non-glowing wild type nuclei. Photo Credit: Dr. Namboori B. Raju of Stanford University

Bread Mold Yields a Genome First for Filamentous Fungi
With more than 10,000 genes amid DNA strands of nearly 40 million base pairs, the first genome of a filamentous fungus has been sequenced through the cooperative efforts of a community of more than 70 scientists, culminating a two-year, $5 million effort supported by NSF. The work is reported in the April 24 issue of Nature, which celebrates the 50th anniversary of that journal's publication of the structure of DNA. At the center of this latest genetics achievement is a filamentous fungus, a bread mold, a life form easily overlooked in the shadow of the Human Genome Project. To biologists, however, it is Neurospora crassa, an organism of historic and enduring value as a model organism.
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NSF Director Names 2003's Distinguished Teaching Scholars
National Science Foundation (NSF) Director Rita Colwell recently awarded a total of $1.8 million to six university and college faculty members selected to receive the 2003 Director's Award for Distinguished Teaching Scholars. The awards, which recognize the recipients' past efforts at connecting scientific research and education and their proposals for continuing their work, will be presented at a ceremony at the National Academy of Sciences June 3. The individual grants of $300,000, to be used over four years, will enable the recipients to improve how science, technology, engineering and mathematics research translates into undergraduate instruction of students, including those not majoring in these fields.
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Game Theorist Sandler Describes Unintended Consequences of U.S. Counter-Terrorism Policies
Current world events would not suggest that a decline in terrorism incidents has taken place during the post-Cold War era. Yet, that is what Todd Sandler, a University of Southern California (USC) professor, has found in studies conducted with colleague Walter Enders of the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa. In a distinguished lecture at NSF recently, Sandler said he and his colleague have also found that despite the declining number of terror incidents, the likelihood of death or injury from terrorism has increased. High on the list of reasons for this trend are the changing face of terrorism involving more religious groups and amateurs, and the way governments respond to terrorist threats.
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Screen shot of the Mosaic Web browser interface, circa late 1993. Today’s Web browsers are still based on this interface, designed at NCSA. Credit:National Center for Supercomputing Applications/University of Illinois Board of Trustees.

Mosaic Web Browser Celebrates 10th Birthday
Ten years ago, the world's first freely available Web browser to allow Web pages to include both graphics and text was developed by students and staff working at the NSF-supported National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. The Mosaic Web browser spurred a revolution in communications, business, education, and entertainment that has had a trillion-dollar impact on the global economy. "Without Mosaic, Web browsers might not have happened or be what they are today," said Peter Freeman, NSF assistant director for Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE). "The growth of the Web and its impact on daily life shows the kind of dramatic payoff that NSF investments in computer science research can have for all areas of science and engineering, education and society as a whole."
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