Georgia State University researchers will head to Louisiana this fall to see if clay minerals can be used to aid microbes to better break down oil in the wake of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill.
The research in the salt marshes is sponsored by a one-year, $61,537 Rapid Research Response (RAPID) grant from the National Science Foundation.
The research team includes Daniel Deocampo, W. Crawford Elliott, Larry Kiage, Eirik Krogstad and Seth Rose of the Department of Geosciences; Kuki Chin of the Department of Biology; and Gary Hastings of the Department of Physics and Astronomy.
"Anytime we can shave off the timeline for ecological restoration of the Gulf coast will have tangible economic and ecological impacts," said Daniel Deocampo, assistant professor of geosciences.
Georgia State researchers will select three experimental plots in the marshes. They will then spray the clay minerals, which occur there naturally, over the plots. Chunks of sediment and seawater will be taken back to the GSU lab in Atlanta for further analysis.
Deocampo said that the team will hopefully have preliminary data by spring 2011 - a quick turnaround for research.
The microbes that exist in the marshes have evolved over time to be able to ingest oil, as oil naturally seeps out of sediments in the Gulf of Mexico - albeit in significantly smaller amounts than the recent oil spill, said Kuki Chin, assistant professor of microbiology.
"So in this case, when the oil comes, it can be used as a food source," Chin said. "Some microbes can degrade sulfate as well as petroleum hydrocarbon."
There are thousands of species of microbes which can eat up oil, some existing on the surface of the water that are aerobic, meaning they rely on oxygen to live. Others existing in deeper sediment layers on the marshes are anaerobic and can live without oxygen.
What scientists don't know is the exact mechanism that encourages microbes to consume petroleum hydrocarbons, Deocampo said. In the lab, the application of clay minerals, particularly one called calcium montmorillonite, seems to encourage aerobic bacteria to consume more hydrocarbons.
"Clay minerals are really unique among minerals because they have a really high, natural electrical charge," he explained. "That charge has to be balanced somehow, and has to be balanced by magnesium or calcium in sea water."
But this can change, where particles called cations that carry the charge can go back and forth, depending on chemical reactions.
"The hypothesis is that when you have this charged surface with these cations on it, and put that right next to a cell wall of one of these microbes, the charged surfaces help the microbe to gain nutrients," Deocampo said.
Researchers will also test to see if the process functions in anaerobic bacteria in the same way as aerobic bacteria.
Chin said that environmental conditions could play a factor in how the microbes react in the Deepwater Horizon spill, causing a different reaction that the one which occurred during the Exxon Valdez spill in 1989.
"Environmental conditions, such as the temperature, can make a difference. We hope that in the marshes, the reactions could be quicker," she said.
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Showing posts with label research. Show all posts
Showing posts with label research. Show all posts
Friday, August 20, 2010
Tuesday, August 3, 2010
Ice-free Arctic Ocean may not be of much use in soaking up carbon dioxide, a component of global warming, according to new study
The summer of 2010 has been agonizingly hot in much of the continental U.S., and the record-setting temperatures have refocused attention on global warming. Scientists have been looking at ways the Earth might benefit from natural processes to balance the rising heat, and one process had intrigued them, a premise that melting ice at the poles might allow more open water that could absorb carbon dioxide, one of the major compounds implicating in warming.
Now, though, in research just published in the journal Science and led by a University of Georgia marine chemist, that idea may be one more dead end. In fact, a survey of waters in the Canada Basin, which extends north of Alaska to the North Pole, shows that its value as a potential carbon dioxide “sink” may be short-lived at best and minor in terms of what the planet will need to avoid future problems.
“The Canada Basin and entire Arctic Ocean are still taking up carbon dioxide,” said Wei-Jun Cai, a professor in the department of marine sciences in UGA’s Franklin College of Arts and Sciences and lead author of the study. “But our research shows that as the ice melts, the carbon dioxide in the water very quickly reaches equilibrium with the atmosphere, so its use as a place to store CO2 declines dramatically and quickly. We never really understood how limited these waters would be in terms of their usefulness in soaking up carbon dioxide.”
The research was a joint project with the government of China. Other authors on the paper published in Science include, from the University of Georgia: graduate student Baoshan Chen, research scientist Yongchen Wang, postdoctoral associate Xinping Hu, and doctoral student Wei-Jen Huang. Colleagues from China and elsewhere who were co-authors include Liqi Chen, Zhongyong Gao, Yuanhui Zhang and Suqing Xu from the Third Institute of Oceanography of the State Ocean Administration of China; Sang Lee of the Korea Polar Institute;Jianfang Chen and Haisheng Zhang of the Second Institute of Oceanography in China; Denis Pierrot and Kevin Sullivan of the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration; Akihiko Murata of the Research Institute for Global Change in Japan; Jackie Grebmeier of the Chesapeake Biological Laboratory, University of Maryland; and Peter Jones of the Bedford Institute of Oceanography in Canada.
The carbon dioxide level in the Earth’s atmosphere has increased dramatically since the industrial revolution, and around 30 percent of that CO2 has been absorbedby the oceans. That has been the good news. The bad news is that it increases the acidification of the seas, causing changes in conditions for the growth of all life forms.
Melting in the planet’s Arctic zone has been dramatic in the past three years. A recent paper predicted that the Arctic Ocean would be ice-free during summer within 30 years, Cai noted. Researchers in years past had predicted that increased areas of open water in the Arctic, while troublesome in many ways, might at least sequester increasing amounts of carbon dioxide because of summertime ice melts.
“This prediction, however, was made based on observations of very low surface water carbon dioxide levels,” said Cai, “from either highly productive ocean margin areas or basin areas under earlier ice-covered conditions before the recent major ice retreat.”
To see just how efficient Canada Basin waters would be in taking up atmospheric carbon dioxide, an international team of scientists in the summer of 2008 boarded the retrofitted Chinese research vessel Xue Long (Snow Dragon) for a three-month research voyage. Using direct sampling of water and another method called “underway” sampling, in which water is pumped into the ship directly from the ocean, analyzed and returned, they studied the upper layers of the water into which they sailed. They also studied the waters’ salinity, temperature, nutrient concentration and chlorophyll activity.
What Cai and colleagues found was that as greater areas of ice melt each summer, the Canada Basin’s potential as a CO2 sink will diminishdramatically mainly because of the rapid uptake of CO2 from the atmosphere. And because of this carbon dioxide uptake, the waters become quite acidic and “a poor environment for calcium-carbonate shell-bearing marine organisms,” Cai said.
The findings are at once intriguing and disappointing because carbon dioxide and other gases dissolve more readily in cold water than warm water, and so scientists had long thought that seas of melting polar ice would at least have the trade-off of being good places for the absorption of carbon dioxide.
Collaborative work of this kind between the governments of the United States and China on Arctic research is relatively new. Cai said it greatly benefits both parties.
“One of the take-away lessons of this research is that we can’t expect the oceans to do the job of helping offset global warming in the short term,” said Cai.
Cai’s work is supported by the National Science Foundation and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
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Now, though, in research just published in the journal Science and led by a University of Georgia marine chemist, that idea may be one more dead end. In fact, a survey of waters in the Canada Basin, which extends north of Alaska to the North Pole, shows that its value as a potential carbon dioxide “sink” may be short-lived at best and minor in terms of what the planet will need to avoid future problems.
“The Canada Basin and entire Arctic Ocean are still taking up carbon dioxide,” said Wei-Jun Cai, a professor in the department of marine sciences in UGA’s Franklin College of Arts and Sciences and lead author of the study. “But our research shows that as the ice melts, the carbon dioxide in the water very quickly reaches equilibrium with the atmosphere, so its use as a place to store CO2 declines dramatically and quickly. We never really understood how limited these waters would be in terms of their usefulness in soaking up carbon dioxide.”
The research was a joint project with the government of China. Other authors on the paper published in Science include, from the University of Georgia: graduate student Baoshan Chen, research scientist Yongchen Wang, postdoctoral associate Xinping Hu, and doctoral student Wei-Jen Huang. Colleagues from China and elsewhere who were co-authors include Liqi Chen, Zhongyong Gao, Yuanhui Zhang and Suqing Xu from the Third Institute of Oceanography of the State Ocean Administration of China; Sang Lee of the Korea Polar Institute;Jianfang Chen and Haisheng Zhang of the Second Institute of Oceanography in China; Denis Pierrot and Kevin Sullivan of the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration; Akihiko Murata of the Research Institute for Global Change in Japan; Jackie Grebmeier of the Chesapeake Biological Laboratory, University of Maryland; and Peter Jones of the Bedford Institute of Oceanography in Canada.
The carbon dioxide level in the Earth’s atmosphere has increased dramatically since the industrial revolution, and around 30 percent of that CO2 has been absorbedby the oceans. That has been the good news. The bad news is that it increases the acidification of the seas, causing changes in conditions for the growth of all life forms.
Melting in the planet’s Arctic zone has been dramatic in the past three years. A recent paper predicted that the Arctic Ocean would be ice-free during summer within 30 years, Cai noted. Researchers in years past had predicted that increased areas of open water in the Arctic, while troublesome in many ways, might at least sequester increasing amounts of carbon dioxide because of summertime ice melts.
“This prediction, however, was made based on observations of very low surface water carbon dioxide levels,” said Cai, “from either highly productive ocean margin areas or basin areas under earlier ice-covered conditions before the recent major ice retreat.”
To see just how efficient Canada Basin waters would be in taking up atmospheric carbon dioxide, an international team of scientists in the summer of 2008 boarded the retrofitted Chinese research vessel Xue Long (Snow Dragon) for a three-month research voyage. Using direct sampling of water and another method called “underway” sampling, in which water is pumped into the ship directly from the ocean, analyzed and returned, they studied the upper layers of the water into which they sailed. They also studied the waters’ salinity, temperature, nutrient concentration and chlorophyll activity.
What Cai and colleagues found was that as greater areas of ice melt each summer, the Canada Basin’s potential as a CO2 sink will diminishdramatically mainly because of the rapid uptake of CO2 from the atmosphere. And because of this carbon dioxide uptake, the waters become quite acidic and “a poor environment for calcium-carbonate shell-bearing marine organisms,” Cai said.
The findings are at once intriguing and disappointing because carbon dioxide and other gases dissolve more readily in cold water than warm water, and so scientists had long thought that seas of melting polar ice would at least have the trade-off of being good places for the absorption of carbon dioxide.
Collaborative work of this kind between the governments of the United States and China on Arctic research is relatively new. Cai said it greatly benefits both parties.
“One of the take-away lessons of this research is that we can’t expect the oceans to do the job of helping offset global warming in the short term,” said Cai.
Cai’s work is supported by the National Science Foundation and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
-----
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Thursday, January 14, 2010
NASA Caught in Climate Data Manipulation; New Revelations Headlined on KUSI-TV Climate Special
/PRNewswire/ -- Climate researchers have discovered that NASA researchers improperly manipulated data in order to claim 2005 as "THE WARMEST YEAR ON RECORD." KUSI-TV meteorologist, Weather Channel founder, and iconic weatherman John Coleman will present these findings in a one-hour special airing on KUSI-TV on Jan.14 at 9 p.m. A related report will be made available on the Internet at 6 p.m. EST on January 14th at www.kusi.com.
In a new report, computer expert E. Michael Smith and Certified Consulting Meteorologist Joseph D'Aleo discovered extensive manipulation of the temperature data by the U.S. Government's two primary climate centers: the National Climate Data Center (NCDC) in Ashville, North Carolina and the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) at Columbia University in New York City. Smith and D'Aleo accuse these centers of manipulating temperature data to give the appearance of warmer temperatures than actually occurred by trimming the number and location of weather observation stations. The report is available online at http://icecap.us/images/uploads/NOAAroleinclimategate.pdf.
The report reveals that there were no actual temperatures left in the computer database when NASA/NCDC proclaimed 2005 as "THE WARMEST YEAR ON RECORD." The NCDC deleted actual temperatures at thousands of locations throughout the world as it changed to a system of global grid points, each of which is determined by averaging the temperatures of two or more adjacent weather observation stations. So the NCDC grid map contains only averaged, not real temperatures, giving rise to significant doubt that the result is a valid representation of Earth temperatures.
The number of actual weather observation points used as a starting point for world average temperatures was reduced from about 6,000 in the 1970s to about 1,000 now. "That leaves much of the world unaccounted for," says D'Aleo.
The NCDC data are regularly used by the National Weather Service to declare a given month or year as setting a record for warmth. Such pronouncements are typically made in support of the global warming alarmism agenda. Researchers who support the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) also regularly use the NASA/NCDC data, including researchers associated with the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia that is now at the center of the "Climategate" controversy.
This problem is only the tip of the iceberg with NCDC data. "For one thing, it is clear that comparing data from previous years, when the final figure was produced by averaging a large number of temperatures, with those of later years, produced from a small temperature base and the grid method, is like comparing apples and oranges," says Smith. "When the differences between the warmest year in history and the tenth warmest year is less than three quarters of a degree, it becomes silly to rely on such comparisons," added D'Aleo who asserts that the data manipulation is "scientific travesty" that was committed by activist scientists to advance the global warming agenda.
Smith and D'Aleo are both interviewed as part of a report on this study on the television special, "Global Warming: The Other Side" seen at 9 PM on January 14th on KUSI-TV, channel 9/51, San Diego, California. That program can now be viewed via computer at the website http://www.kusi.com/. The detailed report is available at http://icecap.us/images/uploads/NOAAroleinclimategate.pdf.
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In a new report, computer expert E. Michael Smith and Certified Consulting Meteorologist Joseph D'Aleo discovered extensive manipulation of the temperature data by the U.S. Government's two primary climate centers: the National Climate Data Center (NCDC) in Ashville, North Carolina and the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) at Columbia University in New York City. Smith and D'Aleo accuse these centers of manipulating temperature data to give the appearance of warmer temperatures than actually occurred by trimming the number and location of weather observation stations. The report is available online at http://icecap.us/images/uploads/NOAAroleinclimategate.pdf.
The report reveals that there were no actual temperatures left in the computer database when NASA/NCDC proclaimed 2005 as "THE WARMEST YEAR ON RECORD." The NCDC deleted actual temperatures at thousands of locations throughout the world as it changed to a system of global grid points, each of which is determined by averaging the temperatures of two or more adjacent weather observation stations. So the NCDC grid map contains only averaged, not real temperatures, giving rise to significant doubt that the result is a valid representation of Earth temperatures.
The number of actual weather observation points used as a starting point for world average temperatures was reduced from about 6,000 in the 1970s to about 1,000 now. "That leaves much of the world unaccounted for," says D'Aleo.
The NCDC data are regularly used by the National Weather Service to declare a given month or year as setting a record for warmth. Such pronouncements are typically made in support of the global warming alarmism agenda. Researchers who support the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) also regularly use the NASA/NCDC data, including researchers associated with the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia that is now at the center of the "Climategate" controversy.
This problem is only the tip of the iceberg with NCDC data. "For one thing, it is clear that comparing data from previous years, when the final figure was produced by averaging a large number of temperatures, with those of later years, produced from a small temperature base and the grid method, is like comparing apples and oranges," says Smith. "When the differences between the warmest year in history and the tenth warmest year is less than three quarters of a degree, it becomes silly to rely on such comparisons," added D'Aleo who asserts that the data manipulation is "scientific travesty" that was committed by activist scientists to advance the global warming agenda.
Smith and D'Aleo are both interviewed as part of a report on this study on the television special, "Global Warming: The Other Side" seen at 9 PM on January 14th on KUSI-TV, channel 9/51, San Diego, California. That program can now be viewed via computer at the website http://www.kusi.com/. The detailed report is available at http://icecap.us/images/uploads/NOAAroleinclimategate.pdf.
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Monday, November 23, 2009
Using New Technique, Scientists Find 11 Times More Aftershocks for 2004 Quake
Using a technique normally used for detecting weak tremors, scientists at the Georgia Institute of Technology discovered that the 2004 magnitude 6 earthquake along the Parkfield section of the San Andreas fault exhibited almost 11 times more aftershocks than previously thought. The research appears online in Nature Geoscience and will appear in print in a forthcoming edition.
“We found almost 11 times more events in the first three days after the main event. That’s surprising because this is a well-instrumented place and almost 90 percent of the activity was not being determined or reported,” said Zhigang Peng, assistant professor at Georgia Tech’s School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences.
In examining how these aftershocks occurred, Peng and graduate research assistant Peng Zhao discovered that the earliest aftershocks occurred in the region near the main event. Then with time, the aftershocks started migrating. Seeing how the aftershocks move from the center of the quake outward lends credence to the idea that it’s the result of the fault creeping, said Peng.
“Basically, the big event happens due to sudden fault movement, but the fault doesn’t stop after the main event. It continues to move because the stress has been perturbed and the fault is trying to adjust itself. We believe this so-called fault creep is causing most of the aftershocks,” he said.
Peng and Zhao used a method known as the matched filter technique, rather than the standard technique to examine the aftershocks. The traditional way of determining a location of an earthquake is that a human analyst has to go through each seismic recording, determine the order of events and their location. This takes time and if there are many events, or if some of them occur at the same time, it’s hard for the analyst to figure out which came first.
“Because of these difficulties, only the largest aftershocks are located, with many small ones missing. So, we used the matched filter technique because it allows us to use a computer to automatically scan the seismic records to detect events when their patterns are similar. There is no need to manually pick out the aftershocks after the mainshock,” said Peng.
The team chose the 2004 Parkfield quake to test the matched filter technique because the quake is on the San Andreas fault. The San Andreas is one of the most heavily instrumented places in the world, owing to the famous Parkfield, California, earthquake prediction experiment in the 1980s.
Peng is currently using the matched filter technique to work with several other research groups to detect early aftershocks of recent large earthquakes in Japan and China.
By David Terraso
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“We found almost 11 times more events in the first three days after the main event. That’s surprising because this is a well-instrumented place and almost 90 percent of the activity was not being determined or reported,” said Zhigang Peng, assistant professor at Georgia Tech’s School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences.
In examining how these aftershocks occurred, Peng and graduate research assistant Peng Zhao discovered that the earliest aftershocks occurred in the region near the main event. Then with time, the aftershocks started migrating. Seeing how the aftershocks move from the center of the quake outward lends credence to the idea that it’s the result of the fault creeping, said Peng.
“Basically, the big event happens due to sudden fault movement, but the fault doesn’t stop after the main event. It continues to move because the stress has been perturbed and the fault is trying to adjust itself. We believe this so-called fault creep is causing most of the aftershocks,” he said.
Peng and Zhao used a method known as the matched filter technique, rather than the standard technique to examine the aftershocks. The traditional way of determining a location of an earthquake is that a human analyst has to go through each seismic recording, determine the order of events and their location. This takes time and if there are many events, or if some of them occur at the same time, it’s hard for the analyst to figure out which came first.
“Because of these difficulties, only the largest aftershocks are located, with many small ones missing. So, we used the matched filter technique because it allows us to use a computer to automatically scan the seismic records to detect events when their patterns are similar. There is no need to manually pick out the aftershocks after the mainshock,” said Peng.
The team chose the 2004 Parkfield quake to test the matched filter technique because the quake is on the San Andreas fault. The San Andreas is one of the most heavily instrumented places in the world, owing to the famous Parkfield, California, earthquake prediction experiment in the 1980s.
Peng is currently using the matched filter technique to work with several other research groups to detect early aftershocks of recent large earthquakes in Japan and China.
By David Terraso
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Wednesday, October 21, 2009
Older Adults Want Robots that Do More than Vacuum, Researchers Find
Researchers at Georgia Tech have discovered that, contrary to previous assumptions, older adults are more amenable than younger ones to having a robot “perform critical monitoring tasks that would require little interaction between the robot and the human. The findings will be presented at the upcoming HFES 53rd Annual Meeting, Grand Hyatt, San Antonio, Texas on Thursday, October 22.
Despite manufacturers’ increased development of in-home robots, it’s unclear how much interaction people would be willing to have with them. Robots can perform routine tasks such as cleaning, the Roomba vacuum cleaner being the best-known example. Studies have found that individuals think of robots as advanced appliances, but there is not much research on why this is so. Robots could perform more critical tasks, such as reminding a person to take medications, teaching a new skill, providing security and reducing social isolation.
To gauge how willing people might be to have a robot perform these kinds of more interactive tasks, Neta Ezer (now at Futron Corporation), Arthur D. Fisk and Wendy A. Rogers sent a questionnaire to 2,500 Atlanta-area adults ages 18 to 86 and received 177 responses. One of their questions addressed respondents’ level of experience with technology and robots that do things like mow, clean, guard and entertain. Older adults (ages 65 to 86) had significantly less experience with technology than younger ones (18 to 28), but younger adults had only slightly more experience with robots currently on the market.
When asked about their willingness to have robots perform 15 tasks in the home (categorized as entertainment, service, educational and general health/self-care), respondents of all ages preferred that robots stick to noninteractive tasks (such as “Help me with housework” or “Bring me things I need from another room in my home") rather than interactive ones (for example, “Have a conversation with me” or “Help motivate me to exercise"). Infrequent critical tasks, such as “Warn me about a danger in my home” or “Inform my doctor if I have a medical emergency,” were seen by more older adults than younger ones as important for robots to perform.
Both younger and older respondents reported positive attitudes toward a robot in their homes. They thought a robot would be useful, but were less confident that it would be easy to use. Given a choice between receiving care from a robot in their homes and moving to a care facility in the event of illness or injury, 67 percent of younger adults and 77 percent of older adults chose the former option. (This finding is not reported in the paper to be presented in October.)
The researchers say their results “suggest that both younger and older individuals are more interested in the benefits that a robot can provide than in their interactive abilities.” Furthermore, the results discredit the stereotype that older adults would be less willing than younger ones to accept new technology such as a robot in their home. Manufacturers: Take note.
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Despite manufacturers’ increased development of in-home robots, it’s unclear how much interaction people would be willing to have with them. Robots can perform routine tasks such as cleaning, the Roomba vacuum cleaner being the best-known example. Studies have found that individuals think of robots as advanced appliances, but there is not much research on why this is so. Robots could perform more critical tasks, such as reminding a person to take medications, teaching a new skill, providing security and reducing social isolation.
To gauge how willing people might be to have a robot perform these kinds of more interactive tasks, Neta Ezer (now at Futron Corporation), Arthur D. Fisk and Wendy A. Rogers sent a questionnaire to 2,500 Atlanta-area adults ages 18 to 86 and received 177 responses. One of their questions addressed respondents’ level of experience with technology and robots that do things like mow, clean, guard and entertain. Older adults (ages 65 to 86) had significantly less experience with technology than younger ones (18 to 28), but younger adults had only slightly more experience with robots currently on the market.
When asked about their willingness to have robots perform 15 tasks in the home (categorized as entertainment, service, educational and general health/self-care), respondents of all ages preferred that robots stick to noninteractive tasks (such as “Help me with housework” or “Bring me things I need from another room in my home") rather than interactive ones (for example, “Have a conversation with me” or “Help motivate me to exercise"). Infrequent critical tasks, such as “Warn me about a danger in my home” or “Inform my doctor if I have a medical emergency,” were seen by more older adults than younger ones as important for robots to perform.
Both younger and older respondents reported positive attitudes toward a robot in their homes. They thought a robot would be useful, but were less confident that it would be easy to use. Given a choice between receiving care from a robot in their homes and moving to a care facility in the event of illness or injury, 67 percent of younger adults and 77 percent of older adults chose the former option. (This finding is not reported in the paper to be presented in October.)
The researchers say their results “suggest that both younger and older individuals are more interested in the benefits that a robot can provide than in their interactive abilities.” Furthermore, the results discredit the stereotype that older adults would be less willing than younger ones to accept new technology such as a robot in their home. Manufacturers: Take note.
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Tuesday, September 15, 2009
Emory Joins Other Leading Research Universities to Launch Futurity.org
A group of leading research universities has launched Futurity (www.futurity.org), an online research channel covering the latest discoveries in science, engineering, the environment, health and more. Emory University is one of 35 partners supporting the project.
Futurity gives the public direct access to exciting research breakthroughs in a way that offers broad appeal, says Nancy Seideman, Emory’s executive director of media relations and associate vice president of communications.
“Futurity allows major research universities like Emory and its peers to build a bridge between the academic community and the public,” Seideman says. “It gives us a dynamic portal with clear writing and a lot of multimedia that communicates the cutting-edge, interdisciplinary research that is shaping our understanding of ourselves and our world.”
Futurity has featured a number of studies by Emory scientists in recent weeks, including a discovery by Emory paleontologist Anthony Martin of dinosaur burrows in Australia. His research was covered by numerous outlets including National Geographic.
Bill Murphy, one of Futurity’s cofounders and vice president for communications at the University of Rochester, says universities are affected by the challenges facing newspapers today. News holes are shrinking, he notes, and coverage of research-related stories has been hit particularly hard.
“In light of this shifting news landscape, universities are looking for ways to share important breakthroughs with the public. Futurity gives our partners an opportunity to communicate in a new and direct way—and to remind the public why research matters.”
Futurity cofounder Michael Schoenfeld, vice president for public affairs and government relations at Duke University, says the site serves another vital role. It allows the public to see how federal, state and private funding are being put to use by universities to address critical challenges.
“It’s not often you see high-powered universities working together in such a collaborative way,” says Schoenfeld. “That fact alone indicates the project’s significance. Universities are the world’s laboratories. They host the brightest minds working to answer some of today’s most urgent questions. The breadth and caliber—and the collective force—of the research featured on Futurity is truly extraordinary.”
All of the stories on Futurity are edited to stir the imagination, says Murphy. “We want the stories to engage readers, to raise questions, and to make readers want to learn more—and to come back for more.”
Since launching a beta version in March, Futurity has continued to add membership and readership.
Lisa Lapin, assistant vice president for communications at Stanford University, says Futurity is looking for new ways to extend the site’s reach. “We’re active on Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube. We’re also in partnership talks with major Internet news providers. Today’s online environment is perfectly suited for this type of direct communication. There’s something very authentic about universities working together to share knowledge.”
Lapin says the site is designed to encourage interaction. Stories include links to published reports and supplemental materials that allow readers to explore topics in more detail. The site is available in a mobile friendly version, and visitors can comment on stories and sign up for a daily e-mail update.
Emory, like all the current partner universities, is a member of the Association of American Universities (AAU), a nonprofit organization of leading public and private research universities. Lapin says Futurity may revisit membership criteria down the road but needs to keep the numbers manageable while they fine-tune the approach.
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Futurity gives the public direct access to exciting research breakthroughs in a way that offers broad appeal, says Nancy Seideman, Emory’s executive director of media relations and associate vice president of communications.
“Futurity allows major research universities like Emory and its peers to build a bridge between the academic community and the public,” Seideman says. “It gives us a dynamic portal with clear writing and a lot of multimedia that communicates the cutting-edge, interdisciplinary research that is shaping our understanding of ourselves and our world.”
Futurity has featured a number of studies by Emory scientists in recent weeks, including a discovery by Emory paleontologist Anthony Martin of dinosaur burrows in Australia. His research was covered by numerous outlets including National Geographic.
Bill Murphy, one of Futurity’s cofounders and vice president for communications at the University of Rochester, says universities are affected by the challenges facing newspapers today. News holes are shrinking, he notes, and coverage of research-related stories has been hit particularly hard.
“In light of this shifting news landscape, universities are looking for ways to share important breakthroughs with the public. Futurity gives our partners an opportunity to communicate in a new and direct way—and to remind the public why research matters.”
Futurity cofounder Michael Schoenfeld, vice president for public affairs and government relations at Duke University, says the site serves another vital role. It allows the public to see how federal, state and private funding are being put to use by universities to address critical challenges.
“It’s not often you see high-powered universities working together in such a collaborative way,” says Schoenfeld. “That fact alone indicates the project’s significance. Universities are the world’s laboratories. They host the brightest minds working to answer some of today’s most urgent questions. The breadth and caliber—and the collective force—of the research featured on Futurity is truly extraordinary.”
All of the stories on Futurity are edited to stir the imagination, says Murphy. “We want the stories to engage readers, to raise questions, and to make readers want to learn more—and to come back for more.”
Since launching a beta version in March, Futurity has continued to add membership and readership.
Lisa Lapin, assistant vice president for communications at Stanford University, says Futurity is looking for new ways to extend the site’s reach. “We’re active on Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube. We’re also in partnership talks with major Internet news providers. Today’s online environment is perfectly suited for this type of direct communication. There’s something very authentic about universities working together to share knowledge.”
Lapin says the site is designed to encourage interaction. Stories include links to published reports and supplemental materials that allow readers to explore topics in more detail. The site is available in a mobile friendly version, and visitors can comment on stories and sign up for a daily e-mail update.
Emory, like all the current partner universities, is a member of the Association of American Universities (AAU), a nonprofit organization of leading public and private research universities. Lapin says Futurity may revisit membership criteria down the road but needs to keep the numbers manageable while they fine-tune the approach.
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Tuesday, September 8, 2009
Tornado Threat Increases as Gulf Hurricanes get Larger
Tornadoes that occur from hurricanes moving inland from the Gulf Coast are increasing in frequency, according to researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology. This increase seems to reflect the increase in size and frequency among large hurricanes that make landfall from the Gulf of Mexico. The findings can be found in Geophysical Research Letters online and in print in the September 3, 2009 issue.
“As the size of landfalling hurricanes from the Gulf of Mexico increases, we’re seeing more tornadoes than we did in the past that can occur up to two days and several hundred miles inland from the landfall location,” said James Belanger, doctoral student in the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at Georgia Tech and lead author of the paper.
Currently, it’s well known that when hurricanes hit land, there’s a risk that tornadoes may form in the area. Until now, no one has quantified that risk because observations of tornadoes were too sporadic prior to the installation of the NEXRAD Doppler Radar Network in 1995. Belanger along with co-authors Judith Curry, professor and chair of the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at Tech and research scientist Carlos Hoyos, decided to see if they could create a model using the more reliable tornado record that’s existed since 1995.
The model that they developed for hurricane-induced tornadoes uses four factors that serve as good predictors of tornado activity: size, intensity, track direction and whether there’s a strong gradient of moisture at midlevels in the storm's
environment.
“The size of a tropical cyclone basically sets the domain over which tornadoes can form. So a larger storm that has more exposure over land has a higher propensity for producing tornadoes than a smaller one, on average,” said Belanger.
The team looked at 127 tropical cyclones from 1948 up to the 2008 hurricane season and went further back to 1920 modifying their model to account for the type of data collected at that time. They found that since 1995 there has been a 35 percent percent increase in the size of tropical cyclones from the Gulf compared to the previous active period of storms from 1948-1964, which has lead to a doubling in the number of tornadoes produced per storm. The number of hurricane-induced tornadoes during the 2004 and 2005 hurricane seasons is unprecedented in the historical record since 1920, according to the model.
“The beauty of the model is that not only can we use it to reconstruct the observational record, but we can also use it as a forecasting tool,” said Belanger.
To test how well it predicted the number of tornadoes associated with a given hurricane, they input the intensity of the storm at landfall, it’s size, track and moisture at mid-levels, and were able to generate a forecast of how many tornadoes formed from the hurricane. They found that for Hurricane Ike in 2008, their model predicted exactly the number of tornadoes that occurred, 33. For Hurricane Katrina in 2005, the model predicted 56 tornadoes, and 58 were observed.
The team’s next steps are to take a look to see how hurricane size, not just intensity (as indicated by the Safir-Simpson scale), affects the damage experienced by residents.
“Storm surge, rain and flooding are all connected to the size of the storm,” said Curry. “Yet, size is an underappreciated factor associated with damage from hurricanes. So its important to develop a better understanding of what controls hurricane size and how size influences hurricane damage. The great damage in Galveston from Hurricane Ike in 2008 was inconsistent with Category 2 wind speeds at landfall, but it was the large size that caused the big storm surge that did most of the damage.”
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“As the size of landfalling hurricanes from the Gulf of Mexico increases, we’re seeing more tornadoes than we did in the past that can occur up to two days and several hundred miles inland from the landfall location,” said James Belanger, doctoral student in the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at Georgia Tech and lead author of the paper.
Currently, it’s well known that when hurricanes hit land, there’s a risk that tornadoes may form in the area. Until now, no one has quantified that risk because observations of tornadoes were too sporadic prior to the installation of the NEXRAD Doppler Radar Network in 1995. Belanger along with co-authors Judith Curry, professor and chair of the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at Tech and research scientist Carlos Hoyos, decided to see if they could create a model using the more reliable tornado record that’s existed since 1995.
The model that they developed for hurricane-induced tornadoes uses four factors that serve as good predictors of tornado activity: size, intensity, track direction and whether there’s a strong gradient of moisture at midlevels in the storm's
environment.
“The size of a tropical cyclone basically sets the domain over which tornadoes can form. So a larger storm that has more exposure over land has a higher propensity for producing tornadoes than a smaller one, on average,” said Belanger.
The team looked at 127 tropical cyclones from 1948 up to the 2008 hurricane season and went further back to 1920 modifying their model to account for the type of data collected at that time. They found that since 1995 there has been a 35 percent percent increase in the size of tropical cyclones from the Gulf compared to the previous active period of storms from 1948-1964, which has lead to a doubling in the number of tornadoes produced per storm. The number of hurricane-induced tornadoes during the 2004 and 2005 hurricane seasons is unprecedented in the historical record since 1920, according to the model.
“The beauty of the model is that not only can we use it to reconstruct the observational record, but we can also use it as a forecasting tool,” said Belanger.
To test how well it predicted the number of tornadoes associated with a given hurricane, they input the intensity of the storm at landfall, it’s size, track and moisture at mid-levels, and were able to generate a forecast of how many tornadoes formed from the hurricane. They found that for Hurricane Ike in 2008, their model predicted exactly the number of tornadoes that occurred, 33. For Hurricane Katrina in 2005, the model predicted 56 tornadoes, and 58 were observed.
The team’s next steps are to take a look to see how hurricane size, not just intensity (as indicated by the Safir-Simpson scale), affects the damage experienced by residents.
“Storm surge, rain and flooding are all connected to the size of the storm,” said Curry. “Yet, size is an underappreciated factor associated with damage from hurricanes. So its important to develop a better understanding of what controls hurricane size and how size influences hurricane damage. The great damage in Galveston from Hurricane Ike in 2008 was inconsistent with Category 2 wind speeds at landfall, but it was the large size that caused the big storm surge that did most of the damage.”
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Wednesday, May 20, 2009
Adolescents who think that they are overweight are at increased risk of suicide attempts
Multiple social factors, including discrimination and harassment, may contribute to an increased risk of suicidal feelings among adolescents who feel that they are overweight, a Georgia State University researcher says.
Monica Swahn, associate professor in the institute of public health, and her students found that adolescents who perceive that they overweight -- even though they are not, according to their body mass index -- are at increased risk for suicide attempt, according to a recently published study in the Journal of Adolescent Health.
"We were surprised to find that any combination of perception of being overweight, or actually being overweight, increased the risk of suicidality," Swahn said.
Swahn and students in her social determinants of health class analyzed data from the National Youth Risk Behavior Study from the Centers from Disease Control and Prevention. Further studies are needed to look at multiple factors related to suicidal feelings, but social structures including discrimination, harassment, income, housing, food and nutrition, and media messages likely play a role in the increased risk for suicide attempts among youth who feel that they are overweight.
"There is an ideal about what a body should look like, which we're all inundated with constantly," Swahn said. "And children and youth are very vulnerable to these messages as they transition into adulthood."
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Monica Swahn, associate professor in the institute of public health, and her students found that adolescents who perceive that they overweight -- even though they are not, according to their body mass index -- are at increased risk for suicide attempt, according to a recently published study in the Journal of Adolescent Health.
"We were surprised to find that any combination of perception of being overweight, or actually being overweight, increased the risk of suicidality," Swahn said.
Swahn and students in her social determinants of health class analyzed data from the National Youth Risk Behavior Study from the Centers from Disease Control and Prevention. Further studies are needed to look at multiple factors related to suicidal feelings, but social structures including discrimination, harassment, income, housing, food and nutrition, and media messages likely play a role in the increased risk for suicide attempts among youth who feel that they are overweight.
"There is an ideal about what a body should look like, which we're all inundated with constantly," Swahn said. "And children and youth are very vulnerable to these messages as they transition into adulthood."
----
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