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In the Eye of the Storm
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Researcher Uses "Doppler on Wheels" to Stare Hurricane
Georges in the Eye
When a hurricane's spinning mass of rain,
lightning and wind reaches shore, the last thing you
want to do is drive a truck directly into its path.
Unless you are atmospheric scientist Joshua Wurman,
that is, and you have mounted a large Doppler radar
unit on the back of your truck. For the second time
this summer, Wurman and a research team from the University
of Oklahoma planned to drive two such "Doppler on
Wheels" units into the face of a hurricane reaching
landfall--Hurricane Georges. With funding from the
National Science Foundation (NSF), Wurman studies
patterns in hurricane winds that may help in forecasting
the evolution of these storms once they hit land.
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NSF Awards
Knowledge and Distributed Intelligence Grants
The National
Science Foundation (NSF) is awarding a series of 40
new grants worth more than $51.5 million in cross-cutting
research through its agency-wide Knowledge and Distributed
Intelligence (KDI) initiative. Nearly 50 institutions
will be part of this very broad scientific enterprise
that could lead to rapid and radical interdisciplinary
advances. "NSF's cultivation of this highly multidisciplinary
research arena," said NSF Director Rita Colwell, "will
change the way scientists collaborate and the way
they prepare to examine the world as they seek new
frontiers for discovery."
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Cosmic
Flasher Reveals All
Astronomers have found
evidence of the most powerful magnetic field ever
seen in the universe. They found it by observing a
long-sought, short-lived "afterglow" of subatomic
particles ejected from a magnetar -- a neutron star
with a magnetic field billions of times stronger than
any on Earth and 100 times stronger than any other
previously known in the Universe. The afterglow is
believed to be the aftermath of a massive starquake
on the neutron star's surface. "Where there's smoke,
there's fire, and we've seen the 'smoke' that tells
us there's a magnetar out there," says Dale Frail,
who used the National Science Foundation's (NSF) Very
Large Array (VLA) radio telescope to make the discovery.
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NSF Launches E-Bulletin
The National Science
Foundation has launched E-Bulletin, a website publication
that provides up-to-date information on deadlines
and target dates for NSF programs. The E-Bulletin
replaces the NSF Bulletin, a printed publication.
The web publication, available beginning in September
1998, provides information about key dates on which
grant proposals are due at NSF for the current four-month
period. Users can take advantage of the search feature
to request lists of deadlines covering different periods
of time. In making the transition from print to a
web publication, the E-Bulletin demonstrates NSF's
commitment to using the web to better serve its customer
communities. For people who do not have access to
the web, a print-on-demand monthly version can be
requested by sending an email to "paperbulletin@nsf.gov"
or by calling the NSF Information Center (703/306-1234);
persons with hearing impairments can call NSF's Telephonic
Device for the Deaf (TDD): 703/306-0090). The web
address for the E-Bulletin is http://www.nsf.gov/home/ebulletin/.
A monthly version is available for downloading at
http://www.nsf.gov/home/ebulletin/past.htm.
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