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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: Amber Jones Contents of this News Tip:
Terascale Computer to Fill National NeedWithin a year, the first components of an eventual "Terascale" supercomputer funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) should be operational. The completed system will perform up to five trillion operations per second, making it one of the world's fastest computers. Scientists and engineers across the U.S. will benefit from the computer's ability to execute massive calculations. The Terascale project responds to guidance from the President's Information Technology Advisory Committee, which recommended such a facility as essential "if the U.S. is to continue as the world leader in basic research." In addition to supporting scientific and engineering researchers, the Terascale system will itself be a research project for the nation's top computer scientists. The project's complexity requires fundamental research in computer science related to hardware (processor, memory, storage) and software (operating system, programming tools, applications). The NSF budget for FY 2000 includes $36 million for the first components, to be awarded this fall in a single grant. [Tom Garritano] For more information, see: http://www.interact.nsf.gov/cise/descriptions.nsf/pd/tcs/ Wave-Like Behavior Studied in Bose-Einstein CondensateA team of physicists has explored the creation and behavior of solitons -- solitary wave-like patterns of atoms -- in a Bose-Einstein Condensate (BEC) of sodium vapor. Reported recently in Science, the research team included NSF program manager Barry Schneider and scientists supported by NSF, the National Institute of Standards and Technology and the Department of Energy's Los Alamos National Laboratory. The production of a BEC in 1995 stimulated a burst of theoretical and experimental attempts to understand the quantum properties of matter. As predicted by Albert Einstein, atoms cooled to temperatures approaching absolute zero condense into a "superatom" behaving as a single or collective entity. Quantum theory also predicts that matter behaves like a wave. This wave like behavior is evident when matter is cooled enough for its atoms to coalesce into this collective quantum state. The team members combined multidisciplinary backgrounds in optical, atomic and molecular, and condensed matter physics as well as theoretical chemistry to create the solitary waves and model their behavior. Other NSF-supported scientists are developing beams of atoms with characteristics similar to those of the atoms of light in a laser beam, creating a potential tool for using BECs in scientific research. [Amber Jones] Families Are Factor in Boosting Student Scores on State TestAn NSF-funded program that helps get families involved in teaching children math, science and technology is credited with helping elementary school students in Westfield, N.J., attain the highest scores in statewide tests. Family Tools and Technology is one of three family-involvement programs developed at Rutgers University and offered to parents and children at Westfield's Wilson School. Principal Andrew Perry said in the Newark Star Ledger: "Boosting the success of the school are the after-school family programs in math, science and technology that focus on individual parents and students for six sessions." The after-school program is one of several strategies developed by NSF-funded researcher Arlene Chasek of Rutgers' Center for Family Involvement. Chasek says parents are children's first and most important teachers, so when they are more involved in the educational process, the children do better and the schools improve. The Family Tools & Technology sessions, designed primarily to encourage girls in math, science and pre-engineering, typically are conducted for both girls and boys and their families in a coed setting. [Charles Drum] For more information see: http://www.rci.rutgers.edu/~cfis/family2.htm
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