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Shooting for the Stars
Lawrence Ramsey, Daniel Weedman, and Michael Micci earned top honors
in the Aviation and Aerospace category of the 1997 Discover Magazine
Awards for Technological Innovation. Ramsey and Weedman designed the
Hobby-Eberly Telescope (see "First Light"). Micci
invented a cheaper, safer thruster for positioning satellites in
space, taking some of the parts for his prototype out of a 1,000-watt
kitchen microwave oven. His Microwave Arcjet Thruster has the
potential to reduce the amount of fuel needed by up to 50 percent.
Another New Planet
There's a planet orbiting a star in the Coronae Borealis, or Northern Crown,
50 light years away. As massive as Jupiter, it circles its star closer than
Mercury does our Sun, taking only 40 days to go around. So close, the planet
must be too hot to have liquid water, and so isn't likely to harbor life as
we know it. A team of scientists from the Smithsonian Institution's
Astrophysical Observatory, the National Center for Atmospheric Research,
and Penn State discovered the planet last April using a new instrument
called the Advanced Fiber Optic Echelle spectrograph. Finding that the speed
of the star varied back and forth by about 150 miles per hour over a 40-day
period, the team concluded that the star had a companion in a 40-day orbit;
from the size of the variation and the mass of the star, they calculated
that this companion must be slightly more massive than Jupiter. Penn State
research associate Scott Horner designed and built part of the spectrograph.
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Prof in Space
James Pawelczyk will be the first Penn State faculty member in space.
Pawelczyk, a physiologist, boards the Space Shuttle Columbia next April as a
payload specialist on the 16-day Neurolab Mission. The results of the Neurolab
experiments may be useful to both astronauts and older adults, he says. "Many
of the changes we see in space flight are similar to those associated with
the aging process. These include a loss in blood volume and less precise
control of the cardiovascular system, changes in vestibular control, and, on
longer flights, loss of muscle mass and bone mineral."
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Five Honored Scholars
Faculty Scholar Medals, recognizing scholarly or creative excellence,
were awarded in April to Robert N. Proctor (Arts and Humanities Medal),
Tarasankar DebRoy (Engineering), Joanna Floros (Life and Health Sciences),
Jayanth R. Banavar (Physical Sciences), and Linda M. Burton (Social and
Behavioral Sciences). Proctor's books Racial Hygiene, Value-Free Science?,
and Cancer Wars have had considerable impact on public policy
(see R/PS, June 1993). DebRoy's physical and mathematical modeling
provides a quantitative basis for understanding fusion welding processes.
Floros pioneered the use of molecular biology and molecular genetics to
understand the regulation of lung surfactant protein genes, lung development,
and the genetic basis of neonatal respiratory distress syndrome. Banavar used
computer simulation techniques to solve a set of long-standing problems involving
the motion of fluids at the molecular scale. Burton's innovative methods in
sociology, applied to African American families, have revealed that teenage
mothers are not always bad mothers and that fathers are not always as absent as
the stereotype suggests (see R/PS, December 1991).
Laser Shades
Sunglasses and tinted windshields don't cut it when it comes to protecting the
human eye from laser light. Electrical engineer I. C. Khoo has designed optical
fibers made from liquid crystals that absorb light differently than other light
limiters. "As the intensity of the light increases, the liquid crystal absorbs
higher and higher percentages of light," says Khoo. "As a result, the material
actually allows very little light to pass through."
Bad Vibrations
Aboard aircraft, the annoying noise and vibration caused by engines or airflow
can cause potentially deadly fatigue--not for the passengers, but to the
aircraft's structure. Engineers George Lesieutre, Jeffrey Dosch (of PCB
Piezotronics, Inc.), and doctoral student Christopher Davis have designed a
"smart vibration absorber" that can control noise and vibration on airplanes.
Made of a thin piezoceramic disk, the absorber acts as part of a spring; it
can expand and contract to counter the changing frequencies in noise or
structural motion.
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Country Life
The grass may be greener in the countryside, the air sweeter, and the prospects for a long life better. A study by sociologists Mark Hayward, Diane McLaughlin, and postdoctoral fellow Amy Pienta, reveals that rural men live longer than either urban or suburban men. Although rural men may not have the same access to medical care as their urban and suburban counterparts, they have stronger social ties. "Long-time friends, neighbors, and siblings," Hayward says, "are the people who would be most likely to provide consistent and long-term social support and assistance."
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Nerves
When last reported on by R/PS (December 1994), Andrew Ewing wanted to identify the chemicals released by a single excited nerve cell in a snail. His graduate student, Jody Mesaros, had made a machine to record the cell's signals, second-by-second. Another grad student, Peter Gavin, was refining her technique. Then, as Ewing put it, they would "go after the snail." Last April, when Ewing won the 1997 Graduate Faculty Teaching Award, he commented, "One of my major goals is to create a sense of excitement for chemical research among my students." He holds monthly "marathon" meetings in his home, weekly topical meetings on campus, and brainstorming sessions whenever and wherever. His research group, he says, depends on collective brainstorming and interaction, while encouraging independence. (Or, as Mesaros remembered it, "Everyone seemed really happy.") Ewing's group of 15 to 18 graduate and undergraduate students publishes 14 to 16 papers a year.
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Seeing Organic
Liquid crystal computer displays could be manufactured from organic thin films, according to electrical engineer Thomas Jackson and graduate students Yen Li Lin and David Gundlach. Pentacene, a blue solid composed of carbon and hydrogen atoms, could be used to make cheaper, more durable, and more easily manufactured computer displays.
What's Up? The Number of Penn State Docs
In 1995, Penn State was ranked ninth among American universities in the number of doctoral degrees awarded, up from 13th in 1994. Engineering students earned 160 doctorates, followed by students in education, 109, and biosciences, 66.
Growing Pains
Despite the unifying forces of MTV and Sesame Street, American children today are divided along class, gender, and race lines. The Civil War and 19th-century industrialization set the stage for such divisions, according to historian Priscilla Ferguson Clement in her book, Growing Pains: Children in the Industrial Age, 1850-1890. "In the late 19th century, there was not one childhood, but several," she explains. Middle class children enjoyed an extended childhood, while working class children left school early to find employment; girls enjoyed less social freedom than boys; and African-American children, unlike their White peers, grew up experiencing a spoken culture full of stories.
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œ compiled by Dana Bauer and Nancy Marie Brown from reports by Penn State's Public Information Offices
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