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For more information on these science news and feature story tips, please contact the public information officer at the end of each item at (703) 292-8070. Editor: Peter West Contents of this News Tip:
New Database to Save Endangered LanguagesThe emergence of English and Spanish as the dominant languages of global commerce is causing many other tongues to fall into disuse. This trend alarms social scientists worldwide because linguistic research not only provides cultural information, but also insight into the diverse capabilities of the human mind. To combat the decrease in the number and diversity of languages and to capitalize on a growing store of digitized linguistic data, a team of National Science Foundation (NSF)-funded researchers led by Anthony Aristar at Wayne State University is developing an endangered languages database and a central information server that will allow users to access the material remotely by computer. A $2 million NSF grant to Aristar and his colleagues at Eastern Michigan University, the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Arizona will be used to create this public digital archive. The goals of the Electronic Metastructure for Endangered Languages Data (E-MELD) project are to collect data on endangered languages and to devise a Web-based protocol so that new and existing data will be accessible to researchers and native speakers everywhere. The researchers on the E-MELD project will start with 10 distinct endangered languages to design a system that will be versatile, useful and extensible. E-MELD is modeled on the Internet, where standard communications protocols allow users to access information housed on a variety of very different operating systems, including UNIX, Windows-NT, and VMS. [Dave Vannier] The first version of E-MELD is expected to appear online this fall at: http://www.linguistlist.org. (For more history on efforts to save endangered languages,
contact Mary Hanson, Michigan Facility Could Reveal Stars' SecretsScientists could uncover secrets about the stuff of which stars are made using an upgraded experimental facility at the National Superconducting CyclotronLaboratory at Michigan State University in East Lansing. With NSF funding, scientists combined the beams of two heavy ion accelerators, each a superconducting cyclotron. The higher beam intensities will enable complete experiments to take place in days rather than years. Physicists worldwide will use the upgraded facility to study the properties of short-lived atomic nuclei that do not exist naturally on Earth, and to produce nuclear interactions that simulate conditions in the interiors of stars. Inside the cyclotrons, beams of atomic nuclei are accelerated toward a production target. The collisions between nuclei in the beam and in the production target create a beam of these rare isotopes, which can reveal more about the structure of atomic nuclei and their role in the production of energy and heavy elements within stars. The experiments could provide clues to stellar explosions such as supernovae, believed to be a key source of heavy elements. The nuclear interactions can result in the creation of unstable isotopes that exist for only a fraction of a second -- just long enough to be studied in the Michigan lab. The new facility's first experiment studied the properties of the isotope 33-aluminum, which is 22 percent heavier than normal aluminum and exists for less than one-tenth of a second. [Amber Jones] NSF Funds Study of Recent Immigrants' ChildrenImmigration accounts for one-third of the U.S. population’s growth, yet reliable information about the immigrants themselves is lacking. A $2.2 million NSF grant to researchers at the RAND Corp., the University of Pennsylvania and New York University is designed to correct this information deficit as researchers conduct the first-ever comprehensive survey of children of immigrants newly admitted to permanent residence in the United States. The study is part of the $18.8 million New Immigrant Survey (NIS), which is funded also by the National Institutes of Health, the Assistant Secretary of Planning and Evaluation at the Department of Health and Human Services, and the Immigration and Naturalization Service. The survey sample will include more than 11,000 immigrants in a series of interviews over five years. The NSF-funded portion will measure the scholastic achievement and aptitude of both immigrant children and those born in the U.S. to immigrant parents. The data will be made available to researchers and the public. The feasibility of the survey was confirmed four years ago in a pilot study of 1,800 immigrants. That survey found that legal immigrants are more educated as a group than native-born U.S. citizens and that the major mechanism by which illegals acquire an immigrant visa is marriage to a U.S. citizen. The full-scale, nationwide survey is slated to begin this fall. [Dave Vannier]
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