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  May 21, 2004: Highlights

artist's depiction of the track of the camera array as it is towed over the volcanic cone
An artist's depiction of the track of the camera array as it is towed over the volcanic cone.
Credit: Trent Schindler/NSF

Scientists Discover Undersea Volcano Off Antarctica

Scientists working in the stormy and inhospitable waters off the Antarctic Peninsula have found what they believe is an active and previously unknown volcano on the sea bottom. The international science team from the United States and Canada mapped and sampled the ocean floor and collected video and data that indicate a major volcano exists on the Antarctic continental shelf, they announced on May 5 in a dispatch from the research vessel Laurence M. Gould, which is operated by the National Science Foundation (NSF).
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Characters from PEEP
Characters Quack, Peep and Chirp (left to right) march to the beat of their own drum. Credit: Copyright 2003 WGBH. Usage: This image is limited to editorial use in North America only in conjunction with the direct publicity or promotion of PEEP and the Big Wide World. No other rights are granted. All rights reserved.

Television That's Good for You—Targeted Content and Celebrity Voices Draw Millions to New Season of Educational Children's Television

With huge audiences, popular websites and even vocal talent lent from Hollywood, educational programs are major players in the 2004 children's television season. Supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF), three of the most-viewed programs - ZOOM, Cyberchase and DragonflyTV - now share the airwaves with PEEP and the Big Wide World, a novel show that teaches toddlers to think like scientists. "The response of children and parents to these popular TV programs sends a clear message. They want to watch intelligent, engaging and educational TV," says Barry Van Deman, section head for science literacy in NSF's Division of Elementary, Secondary and Informal Education.
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Cover of Science and Engineering Indicators 2004
The cover of S&E; Indicators 2004 features a model of the potassium channel in the bacterium Streptomyces lividans. Roderick MacKinnon's discovery of the details of this structure and his explanation for how membranes pass electrical charge through cell walls led to his 2003 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. The potassium ion is shown in red at the center of the channel in the symmetrical structure. The surrounding four identical subunits of the protein are conserved in all known potassium ion channels. MacKinnon's work was supported by the National Institutes of Health at the Cornell High Energy Synchrotron Source (CHESS), a facility developed around an accelerator funded by the National Science Foundation originally built for studies of high-energy physics. Credit: Cover image reprinted with permission from Science 280 (5360), April 3, 1998, copyright 1998 AAAS.

United States Still Leads in Science and Engineering, But Uncertainties Complicate Outlook—National Science Board Highlights Workforce Issues in its Release of S&E; Indicators 2004

The United States remains the world's leading producer of and a net exporter of high-technology products and ranks among the global leaders in research and development (R&D;) spending. However, ongoing economic and workforce changes make the outlook for the future uncertain, according to Science and Engineering (S&E;) Indicators 2004, a biennial report of the National Science Board (NSB) to the president. "The United States is in a long-distance race to retain its essential global advantage in S&E; human resources and sustain our world leadership in science and technology," said NSB Chair Warren M. Washington.
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The Whyline's answer to a question during programming of a Pac-Man-like game.
The Whyline's answer to a question during programming of a Pac-Man-like game. The programmer expected Pac to shrink when Pac touched the ghost, but the resizing didn't seem to happen. The programmer asked, "Why didn't Pac resize 0?" The Whyline revealed that the resize did in fact happen, but had no effect on the screen. This helped the programmer isolate the problem to the resize statement and ignore parts of the code that were correct.
Credit: Andrew J. Ko, Human-Computer Interaction Institute, Carnegie Mellon University

Researchers to Help Exterminate Bugs in Spreadsheets, Web Applications

An error in a spreadsheet or Web page calculation sounds harmless enough, unless you're the person whose retirement funds, credit history or medical treatment rely on decisions based on that calculation. A six-campus team of computer scientists led by Margaret Burnett at Oregon State University is working to help exterminate the bugs that infest the spreadsheets and other "programs" created by millions of computer users. You may not think of yourself as a programmer, but that's just what you are if you've ever created a simple Web application that grabs data, such as current weather conditions, from another site, entered a formula in a spreadsheet or automated a repetitive task in your e-mail client or word processor.
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image of a mountain
Credit U.S. Bureau of Land Management

Distant Mountains Influence River Levels 50 Years Later

Rainfall in the mountains has a major influence on nearby river levels, and its effects can be seen as much as 50 years after the rain has fallen, according to hydrologists funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF). Scientists had believed that the downslope distance from a mountain to a river is significant, such that rain falling on a mountaintop doesn't have an impact on a river below, according to Christopher Duffy, a civil engineer at Pennsylvania State University. But Duffy has found that rainfall and snowfall over the mountains, at least in the basin and range area of New Mexico, play an important part in recharge of the water table and the Rio Grande River. More
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