Cancer Detection Goes Digital

New Hope in Fight Against Breast Cancer
Almost 179,000 American women will be diagnosed with invasive breast cancer in 1998, according to American Cancer Society statistics. During that same period, more than 43,000 women will die from the disease. Since their introduction in the 1960s, mammograms have become a powerful weapon in the fight against breast cancer. When used by experienced radiologists, the special x-ray technique can catch cancer during its early stages -- when it is most treatable. Yet, despite the advances in cancer detection made possible by mammography, current methods have their limitations. With funding from NSF and other agencies, hope is on the horizon. Digital mammography, a new technology now being evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), promises to locate very small tumors using lower doses of radiation.    More...

Schoolchildren Joining Forces
With a Biologist to Track a Seabird
Biologist David Anderson normally works alone -- in his office and lab at Wake Forest University or in the wild studying seabirds. His newest project, however, connects him to thousands of elementary school students who are joining him in the satellite-tracking of two species of albatross. "This project seemed the perfect opportunity to engage school-age kids in science," says Anderson of the NSF-supported study. "And, the data will help us answer basic science questions about declining albatross populations worldwide.    More...

Federal Obligations for Academic
Science and Engineering Decline in 1996
In 1996, federal obligations for academic science and engineering (S&E;) revealed a yearly decline for only the fourth time since 1963, the year NSF first began surveying this form of government investment in S&E.; The information is based on the most recent data from NSF's annual Survey of Federal Science and Engineering Support to Universities, Colleges and Nonprofit Institutions, summarized in a new Data Brief by NSF's Division of Science Resources Studies. The government's overall $14.3 billion dollars obligated for fiscal 1996 in academic S&E; activities was $23 million lower than the previous year, a decline of two-tenths of one percent. Adjusted for inflation, the 1996 obligations were two percent lower than in 1995.    More...

Innovative Kids Use Science
to Attack Social Issues
Playground safety...backpacks and back injuries...educating homeless students. Children across America will live safer, healthier, fuller lives if solutions developed by today's winners of the Bayer/NSF Award for Community Innovation become reality. Demonstrating young people's ability to identify critical problems often overlooked by adults, three teams of middle school students created innovative solutions to issues that affect children in every community.    More...