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  February 26, 1999: Highlights

This Just In...

Updated Poll Finds Americans' Fear of Possible "Y2K" Problems Falls as Awareness Level Rises; Concern Voiced Over Air Travel, Banking
While a growing number of Americans appear to have less overall concern from possible Year 2000 problems than those polled three months ago, concern remains high over air travel and financial account accuracy, according to a new Gallup poll conducted this past weekend. The nationwide telephone poll, done in partnership with the National Science Foundation and USA Today, surveyed 1,021 adults between March 5 and 7. The poll has a margin of error of plus or minus three percentage points.    More...

Earthquake and computer

NSF To Establish "Cybersystem" For Earthquake Engineering Simulation
Testifying before a House Science subcommittee on February 23, NSF Acting Deputy Director Joseph Bordogna described the Foundation's plans to use information technology [IT] to establish a cyber Network for Earthquake Engineering Simulation [NEES]. Bordogna said that NEES "will change the face of earthquake engineering." NSF is seeking $7.7 million in its fiscal 2000 budget request for the first year of a planned five-year, $81.9 million program for NEES. NEES "will use IT to serve a critical national need (reducing and mitigating effects of earthquakes): to help save lives and money; and to make more efficient use of government's investment in science and engineering," Bordogna said.    More...

Molecular Control Mechanism Of Embryonic Development Unraveled
National Science Foundation (NSF)-funded researchers at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine in Baltimore, Maryland, and at California's Stanford University have shed new light on the molecular switches that control the complex process by which a single fertilized egg develops into a mature organism. Their paper is published in the February 19, 1999, issue of the journal Cell. "Failure of the molecular systems that control development prevents normal embryonic growth, and alterations in these control systems can lead to a wide variety of cancers," explains Kamal Shukla, program director in NSF's division of cellular and molecular biosciences, which funds the research. "Understanding the molecular mechanisms that control normal embryonic development is the first step in developing strategies to prevent these errors, or to repair them when they have gone wrong."    More...

Science students

Graduate Science, Math, Engineering & Technology Students Can Become K-12 Teaching Fellows
The National Science Foundation (NSF) is unveiling an innovative $7.5-million educational program that will enable talented graduate students and advanced undergraduates to serve as teaching fellows in K-12 science, mathematics and technology-based education. "We cannot expect the task of science and math education to be the responsibility solely of K-12 teachers while scientists, engineers and graduate students remain busy in their universities and laboratories. There is no group of people that should feel more responsible for science and math education in this nation than our scientists and engineers and scientists- and engineers-to-be," NSF Director Rita Colwell said in announcing the program.    More...

Kauai

A color-infrared Spot Image mosaic covering the Island of Kauai that has been contrast enhanced by Steven Adams, JPL and Oliver Chadwick, UC Santa Barbara.

Ecosystems on Hawaiian Islands Sustained by Distant Dust--From Asia
As soils develop, rock-derived elements gradually leach out. In the absence of erosion, ecosystems should reach a state of profound and irreversible nutrient depletion that would limit rates of plant production, scientists once believed. Researcher Oliver Chadwick of the University of California at Santa Barbara selected sites in Hawaii at which to study the sources and fates of ecosystem nutrients. Funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF), he used locations on Hawaii's islands to look at most environmental influences on ecosystem development, except for the passage of time. Investigations in ecology, geochemistry and atmospheric chemistry have documented that drastic nutrient depletion does not occur as predicted. Says Chadwick, "Ecosystems on highly weathered lava on older Hawaiian islands, in particular, are sustained at productive levels by nutrients dissolved in rainwater--and added as phosphorus in atmospheric dust transported from Asia, more than 6,000 kilometers away."    More...


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