Science and Enterprise

Month: September 2011

  • DoE Science Review Boosts Transport, Grid, Quicker Payoffs

    The U.S. Department of Energy (DoE) today released its first Quadrennial Technology Review report, an assessment of the Department’s technology research and development portfolios. The report urges the department to focus its R&D more on transportation than stationary energy production, grid modernization, and technologies closer to fruition than is now often the case. The report…

  • Copper Nanofilm Can Replace Rare Earth in Digital Displays

    Research chemists at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina have developed a film made of copper nanowires that could replace expensive rare earths now used in digital displays. The discovery by Duke chemistry professor Ben Wiley and grad student Aaron Rathmell appears online in the journal Advanced Materials (paid subscription required). Wiley has also started…

  • Drug Company Stock Prices Linked to Cancer Trial Results

    A study indicates that changes in stock prices of companies in phase 3 clinical trials of their cancer drugs were associated with the outcomes of those trials in the period before the results were publicly announced. The findings of Allan Desky of Mount Sinai Hospital in Toronto, Canada and colleagues appear online in the Journal…

  • Roche, Canadian Not-for-Profit to Partner on New Drugs

    The Centre for Drug Research and Development (CDRD) in Vancouver, Canada and Swiss pharmaceutical maker F. Hoffmann-La Roche Ltd. have agreed to collaborate on development and commercialization of new drug therapies. The exact therapies are yet to be defined, according to the announcement, but will be “for the treatment of diseases with high unmet medical…

  • NSF Grant to Fund Research on Power Distribution

    A team of engineers and computer scientists at Kansas State University in Manhattan have received a $1.1 grant to research better ways of distributing solar power to homes and businesses. The grant, funded by National Science Foundation’s Cyber-Physical Systems program, aims to give utilities generating solar energy better tools for managing and distributing this power.…

  • Clemson University Creates Sustainable Vehicle Center

    Clemson University in Greenville, South Carolina has received a $1 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy for a research and education program in sustainable vehicle systems. The program will be part of Clemson’s International Center for Automotive Research. The new program at Clemson aims to overcome barriers in the design and development of…

  • Gold Nanowires Add Conductivity to Heart Tissue Patches

    Researchers at Children’s Hospital Boston and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have found a way to improve the performance of engineered heart tissue patches with gold nanowires. The findings from the team of physicians, engineers, and materials scientists appear online in the journal Nature Nanotechnology (paid subscription required). Patches of engineered heart tissue, made with…

  • Kauffman Global Scholars Program Applications Now Open

    The Global Scholars Program, a six-month training program on entrepreneurship offered by the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation in Kansas City, Missouri is now accepting applications for 2012. The foundation encourages recent (since 2009) undergraduate or graduate degree recipients with ideas for new businesses in the natural or physical sciences, technology, and engineering fields. Applicants need…

  • NYU to Study Response of Rice to Environmental Change

    The National Science Foundation’s Plant Genome Research Program has awarded a $3.6 million grant to New York University to study the response of rice to environmental change. NYU’s Michael Purugganan and Richard Bonneau, who are part of the university’s Center for Genomics and Systems Biology, will head the study, and collaborate with Endang Septiningsih of…

  • Likely Cause of Vertigo from MRI Identified

    Researchers at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore have found what they believe is a likely cause of the dizzy feeling patients experience when subjected to magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans. The findings from the team led by systems engineer Dale Roberts appear online in the journal Current Biology. Many patients undergoing MRI scans complain of…