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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: Cheryl Dybas Contents of this News Tip:
STUDENTS GET HANDS-ON EXPERIENCE AT PARTICLE PHYSICS LABEleven U.S. undergraduates and four U.S. high school teachers have been at the European Laboratory for Particle Physics (CERN) this summer to work alongside senior scientists investigating the building blocks of matter and the forces that hold it together. Now in its second year, this National Science Foundation (NSF) funded program allows the students and teachers to conduct hands-on experiments with the particle accelerators and detectors at the world's largest particle physics research center near Geneva, Switzerland. "This program gives talented students an opportunity to work in a very high-powered research environment, where they learn from and interact closely with an eclectic group of experts and peers," said Stephen Reucroft of Northeastern University, who co-leads the program with Homer Neal of the University of Michigan. The students, mostly physics majors entering their senior year, studied a predicted family of elementary particles and how they might be discovered. The students simulated conditions under which a superconducting magnet could fail, and also studied how voltage regulators respond to radiation. The students presented their research findings at a poster session with their U.S. and European peers, and prepared papers for publication. The math and physics teachers, all from Massachusetts, discussed with their European counterparts the challenges that face science teachers, collaborated on new programs to encourage high school students to study physics. The teachers also participated in research experiments with CERN scientists. [Amber Jones] MUSTARD WEED COULD PROVIDE CANCER CLUESThe mustard weed may be the curse of the growing season, but to plant biologists at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri, it's a blessing that may someday reveal secrets about the nature of both plants and people. Their research is supported by an NSF grant. Biologists Eric Richards and Jeffrey Jeddeloh have discovered a gene in the mustard weed, Arabidopsis thaliana, that plays a vital role in a process called DNA methylation, a chemical modification in cytosine, one of the four chemical subunits of DNA. Without proper DNA methylation, higher organisms from plants to humans have a host of developmental problems, from dwarfing in plants to tumor development in humans to certain death in mice. Richards and Jeddeloh found that the genetic sequence of the gene, named DDM1, encodes a protein that is similar to a family of proteins named SW12/SNF-2. The proteins are involved in a vast array of vital genetic functions, including controlling gene expression, repairing damaged DNA and assembling and remodeling chromatin, the dense package of DNA and protein complexes that make cells work. Richards says that the discovery of the DDM1 protein represents a new connection between methylation and chromatin. "It’s a new connection that hadn’t been predicted before," says Richards. "We’re not exactly sure how DDM1 works with chromatin, but the evidence is there." [Cheryl Dybas] CHANGES IN EL NINO FREQUENCY SHOW UP IN EGYPT’S NILE RIVERHydrologists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have used records of the Nile River’s height to put recent occurrences of El Niño into historical perspective. The researchers, led by scientist Elfatih Eltahir, funded in part by NSF compared records from 1872 to 1997 of both the Nile River -- indicating years of flooding or drought, and Pacific Ocean sea-surface temperatures -- indicating El Niño years. They found that 30% of the natural variability in the Nile’s water level fluctuations could be linked to El Niño. Based on that information, they analyzed records of Nile water levels for the past 1,000 years. These levels have been measured since 622 A.D. using a simple gauge, the nilometer. Using the Nile’s height as an indicator of El Niño years, the researchers determined that El Niño has occurred more often and with longer duration in the past two decades than in most similar periods during the last millennium. Continuation of this trend for a few more decades would indicate a shift in global climate. [Cheryl Dybas]
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