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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) 306-1070. Editor: Bill Noxon Contents of this News Tip:
The Proof: NSF Helps Host 500 Young MathematiciansFive hundred high school students from more than 80 countries will gather in Washington, D.C., in July to compete for the title of promising future mathematicians in the International Mathematical Olympiad. The talented scholars will tackle pre calculus problems and produce proofs similar to those of research mathematicians. "Mathematics is the springboard for advances in science and engineering--the same advances that drive our economy and improve medical care," said Rita Colwell, director of NSF, which cosponsors the Olympiad with other government agencies and private groups. "All students deserve to have access to the power of mathematics as they prepare to enter an increasingly competitive and highly technical work force. This contest encourages gifted young mathematicians to sharpen their talents further." Six students from California, Massachusetts and New Jersey are representing the United States in this year's Olympiad, which returns to the United States for the first time in 20 years. The competition takes place July 4-13 in and around the Washington, D.C. area, including the George Mason University campus in Fairfax, Va. NSF is a major supporter of the nation's mathematical research community and the education programs needed to produce a quality work force. [Amber Jones] For more information, see http://imo2001.usa.unl.edu Coral Record Connects Climate Change in Three OceansCoral extracted from a remote central Pacific island has helped NSF-funded scientists at California's Scripps Institution of Oceanography construct a valuable new record of climate conditions during the 20th century. The record, which allowed researchers to trace sea surface conditions over a 112-year- period, may hold implications for long-range climate forecasting and predictability, a result of the central tropical Pacific's influence on climate conditions around the world. With samples from a tiny Pacific atoll called Palmyra, scientists Kim Cobb and Christopher Charles devised a new coral record that shows a 12- to 13-year cyclical pattern of temperatures in the Pacific that is related to similar patterns in the Atlantic and Indian Oceans. "This new, highly accurate coral record shows that there are processes that connect these ocean basins on time scales much longer than El Nino, which operates over a three- to seven-year period," Charles says. Climate scientists have developed models that outline several scenarios for air-sea interactions, operating on cycles known as "decadal variability." However, proof from the field has been sparse. Using mass spectrometry analysis, Cobb was able to determine exactly how monthly seawater temperatures changed, leading to a detailed climate record for the tropical Pacific. [Cheryl Dybas] Measuring Muscle: New Study Shows How Tuna's Body Is Built for SpeedThe mechanics of how fish use their complex muscle systems has been a puzzle. Muscles are how fish power into steady swimming and bursts of speed to elude predators and capture prey. Scientists have long predicted that tunas, with their highly streamlined bodies and elevated internal temperatures, are equipped with "high performance" muscle systems, able to project muscle force from the mid-body back to the tail, which acts as a thrust-producing hydrofoil. Now, through an NSF-funded study conducted at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla, California, scientists have for the first time documented this muscle action in motion. "The anatomy has been known for a long time, especially the idea that the connective tissue architecture in tunas allows muscles to focus their action further down the body," says Robert Shadwick, a marine biologist at Scripps. In other fishes, such as trout and mackerel, swimming muscles are distributed more uniformly along the body. Tunas, however, contain swimming muscles located primarily in the central part of the body. Tendons that angle to the backbone link the muscle with the tail. The results of the study hold implications for research in comparative physiology and the evolutionary biology of fishes. The findings also may be important in the design of robotic, selfpropelled autonomous underwater vehicles that mimic biological design. With new support from NSF, Shadwick and colleagues have launched a study to search for the same results in certain sharks. [Cheryl Dybas]
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