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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:
Computer-Savvy Students Compete in Internet Health-Care ChallengeTen student teams are demonstrating their computer expertise this week in a challenge to identify the most promising Internet applications for health care. The National Science Foundation (NSF) is among the sponsors of the Computer Society International Design Competition, in which undergraduates from around the world are competing for prizes of up to $25,000. The students were chosen from more than 180 initial applicants to compete in a final showdown in Arlington, Va., on June 26-27. Using identical hardware and software toolkits, each team, consisting of three to five undergraduates and a faculty sponsor, created an "information appliance" to address health-care challenges. The devices create, send, retrieve and manipulate information via the Internet or similar networks. During the Arlington finals, the teams will compete head-to head in presentations to a distinguished panel of judges, which will evaluate the devices based on their portability, simplicity of use, reliability and cost-effectiveness. The 10 finalists are presenting devices that address diabetes, fatigue, fertility and overall family health. [Tom Garritano] For more information see http://computer.org/CSIDC NSF-Funded Scientists Discover Bizarre, 70-Million-Year-Old Crocodile FossilA unique fossil discovered in Madagascar, off the east coast of Africa, calls into question the commonly held belief most people have about crocodiles -- that they are ferocious kings of the swamps. The fossil reveals that seventy million years ago a species of crocodile existed that lived primarily on land, survived mainly on plants and dug holes for burrowing. "This creature is not something that, if it were alive today, people would be running from," said crocodile expert Gregory Buckley of Roosevelt University, Illinois. "It's something very different from the crocodiles we see now." Simosuchus clarki had a short, blunt snout and clove-shaped teeth with multiple points that are usually associated with plant eating animals like iguanas and herbivorous dinosaurs. Such teeth have never before been seen in a fossil crocodile or living crocodile, which have teeth with a single point used to impale animal prey. "The discovery of this amazing fossil points out the incredible ability of life to fill available environmental niches," said Rich Lane, director of NSF's geology and paleontology program, which funded the research. "Humans have only begun to document and understand the biological complexity that existed in ancient geological times." Buckley's team included David Krause of the State University of New York at Stony Brook, Christopher Brochu of the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago and Diego Pol of the American Museum of Natural History in New York. [Cheryl Dybas] Researchers Grant New Life to Old TiresResearch supported by NSF may provide an ecologically sound way of recycling the 800 million used tires currently taking up space in landfills. Avraam I. Isayev, professor of polymer engineering at the University of Akron in Ohio has developed a process that uses ultrasonic techniques to devulcanize rubber, making it soft and suitable for remolding. He is working with an Ohio company to find ways to commercialize the technology. Vulcanization--a thermal process that bonds rubber permanently with sulfur--makes tires tough enough to roll on for thousands of miles. But vulcanized tires are virtually impossible to recycle. The new process uses sound waves to break down the sulfur bonds, resulting in near-virgin rubber that can be reshaped and reused. The process produces no chemical waste. "Other techniques for devulcanization mostly use chemicals to break
the chemical bonds in tire rubber," said Isayev. "This is the first physical
process; it uses mechanical action." For more information, see http://www.uakron.edu/isayev/
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