'National Medals of Science'

President Names Eight Elite Scientists and Engineers to Receive National Medals of Science

President Bush on Oct. 22 named eight of the nation's leading scientists and engineers to receive the 2002 National Medal of Science for work that spawned many advances in scientific theory and developments leading to new technologies. The presidential medal is the nation’s highest honor for researchers who make major impacts in fields of science and engineering through career-long, ground-breaking achievements and on the individual disciplines for which the awards are given. The medal also recognizes contributions to innovation, industry or education. "The ideas and breakthroughs in fundamental science and engineering by these extraordinary pioneers have influenced thousands of other researchers," NSF director Rita Colwell said. "These amazing people represent overall close to four centuries worth of experience in research, teaching and leadership inside their fields and extending across many other disciplines as well."
More... (posted October 24, 2003)

NSF Grantees Awarded 2003 Nobel Prizes in Economics, Physics, and Physiology or Medicine

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences on Oct. 7 announced Anthony Leggett, physics professor at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, was awarded the 2003 Nobel Prize in Physics for groundbreaking work in explaining the behavior of atoms in superfluids. NSF “is proud to have supported his research over the past 20 years," said NSF Director Rita R. Colwell in a statement shortly after the award was announced. On Oct. 8, Colwell congratulated Dr. Robert F. Engle, of New York University, and Dr. Clive W. Granger, of University of California-San Diego, for their selection as co-winners of the 2003 Nobel Prize for Economics, noting NSF "has supported the research of both of these distinguished economists for the past quarter century." On Oct. 6, Colwell and NSF Deputy Director Joseph Bordogna congratulated the 2003 Nobel Laureate in physiology or medicine, Professor Paul Lauterbur, on the faculty of the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign and also a recipient of NSF support.
(posted October 20, 2003)

Statement on Drs. Engle and Granger
Statement on Dr. Leggett
Statement on Dr. Lauterbur

EarthScope will drill directly into the earthquake zone of the San Andreas Fault to measure changes in rock properties before, during, and after earthquakes. Linked to other EarthScope measurements at the surface, these direct observations will, for the first time, monitor how an active fault and responds to regional and local changes in stress. Credit: EarthScope

NSF Awards $219 Million Over Five Years for Earthscope Project: Far-Reaching Geosciences Effort to Understand the North American Continent

When President Thomas Jefferson sent Lewis and Clark across the nation to explore the American West in 1803, the world knew little about western America. The discoveries the expedition made, many unprecedented, led us to appreciate our nation's natural resources, settle the West, and eventually, to establish national parks. Now, exactly two centuries later, NSF has funded a latter-day Lewis and Clark expedition: EarthScope, a scientific exploration of the structure and evolution of the North American continent, and the physical processes controlling its earthquakes and volcanic eruptions. This time, however, instead of toting sextants and compasses to map the surface, scientists will bring seismometers, state-of-the-art drilling equipment, satellites and GPS receivers to map Earth's interior.
More... (posted October 20, 2003)

NSF Grants Establish New Centers For Learning and Teaching at Missouri, Rutgers, Berkeley
NSF recently announced the award of 5-year, $2 million annual grants to the University of Missouri, Rutgers, and the University of California- Berkeley to establish new K-12 Centers for Learning and Teaching. The grants are to build current and future leaders in science, technology, engineering and mathematics education through the schools' graduate programs; improve elementary and secondary education practice, and provide opportunities for research. The foundation supports Centers for Learning and Teaching that specialize in one of three categories: Issues in Elementary and Secondary Education, Issues in Higher Education and Nanotechnology Education. Today's awards raise to 13 the number of centers focused on elementary and secondary issues.
More... (posted October 20, 2003)

The eSkeletons digital library lets students examine and compare the skeletons of a human, gorilla, baboon and other species through high-resolution annotated photos and 3-D digital models. The collection will soon provide data in a format that will allow users to build replicas of the bones. This image shows a baboon skull with the frontal bone highlighted and a 3-D model of the skull. Credit: eSkeletons Project, University of Texas, Austin

Discover the Physical World Through the National Science Digital Library
The National Science Digital Library (NSDL) is building the collections and services of an online digital library for science, technology, engineering and mathematics education for all ages. Supported by NSF, the NSDL provides access to materials and methods that reveal the nature of the physical universe and a way for humans to discover and understand it. Among the collections currently accessible or being brought online through the main NSDL portal:

• The eSkeletons project at The University of Texas at Austin lets students and teachers view and compare the bones of a human, gorilla, baboon as well as other species and gather information about them from the Texas anthropology department’s osteology database.
  
• The sounds of Psittacidae, the parrot family, are among the thousands of animals whose sounds have been recorded and stored in the Macaulay Library at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. The Macaulay Library houses the world's largest collection of video and sound recordings of animal behavior, and a new NSDL project is supporting the library in its efforts to make its archive available online for research, education and conservation uses.
  More... (October 20, 2003)