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Thursday, July 8 2010

News

Ames Laboratory wins R&D 100 Award for 3-D virtual simulation software

It's a three-peat for Ames Laboratory and ISU scientists Mark Bryden and Doug McCorkle. They've just won their third R&D 100 Award, sometimes called the "Oscars of invention." The 2010 R&D 100 Award recognizes the U.S. Department of Energy's Ames Laboratory for osgBullet, a software package that creates 3-D, real-time computer simulations that can help engineers design complex systems.

Ames Laboratory news release.

ISU student-athlete graduation rate in top seven nationally

Iowa State's school record NCAA student-athlete graduation rate of 79 percent ranks seventh nationally among BCS schools and puts the Cyclones among elite U.S. academic institutions. The top seven schools are Stanford, Boston College, Northwestern, Duke, California, Wake Forest and Iowa State.

Cyclones.com news release.

ISU faculty members analyze human impact of discovery published in Nature

Jo Anne Powell-Coffman and Clark Coffman, faculty members in the Department of Genetics, Development and Cell Biology, were invited by the journal Nature to comment on breakthrough research that may ultimately lead to new treatments for cancer patients.

News release.

Broadband expansion to benefit Iowa's public universities

Iowa State University, the University of Iowa and UNI will benefit from a $62.5 million ARRA grant supporting the United States Unified Community Anchor Network project. The project will increase network capacity and unlock huge research potential, says ISU Vice Provost for Information Technology and CIO Jim Davis.

"The planned improvements in speed effectively eliminate distance as a barrier to sharing expensive laboratory or computing equipment," Davis said. "For example, scientists could connect a virtual reality facility at one university to a supercomputer located elsewhere and share enormous amounts of data as though they were in the same laboratory."

Board of Regents news release.

ISU architecture studio on a transformative journey to the Burning Man Festival

Adjunct assistant professor Samantha Krukowski (left) with architecture student Elizabeth Kief. Photo by Bob Elbert.

Haight Ashbury meets Mad Max at Disney World. That's one way to describe the Burning Man Festival, a radical and creative community of almost 50,000 that exists for one week every fall in Nevada's Black Rock Desert. Perhaps the most surprising phenomenon at this year's festival (Aug. 30- Sept. 6) will be the 12 Iowa State University design students participating in Burning Man for college credit. Except for the occasional graduate student researcher or class studying the festival from afar, they are the first design students taking a course that requires them to create work for Burning Man since the festival's inception.

News release.

Diane Debinski

Diane Debinski

Changing climate could alter meadows’ ecosystems, says ISU researcher

Iowa State University researcher Diane Debinski has been studying the meadows in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem of the Rocky Mountains since 1992 and she believes changing climate could affect the diversity of plants and animals in the region.

News release.

ISU psychology doctoral student Edward Swing (left) and Associate Professor Douglas Gentile (right) led the Pediatrics study.

ISU psychology doctoral student Edward Swing (left) and Associate Professor Douglas Gentile (right) led the Pediatrics study.

Iowa State study finds TV viewing, video game play contribute to kids’ attention problems

A study led by three Iowa State psychologists on both elementary school-aged and college-aged subjects found that youths who exceeded the two hours per day of screen time recommended by the American Academy of Pediatrics were 1.5 to 2 times more likely to be above average in attention problems. The study will be published in the August issue of Pediatrics, which is now available online.

Iowa State students take their professor’s advice and start an Ames bioenergy company

Three recent Iowa State University graduates are building a startup company, Avello Bioenergy Inc., on technology they helped develop at Iowa State. The company's focus will be to produce bio-oils that can be used to replace petroleum-based materials in asphalt, can be processed into various renewable chemicals and can be used as renewable industrial fuels.

News release.

Iowa State named 'Best Buy' in 2011 Fiske Guide to Colleges

Iowa State University is one of 21 public colleges and universities listed as "Best Buy" schools in the new "Fiske Guide to Colleges 2011." The Best Buy institutions "offer outstanding academics with relatively modest prices," according to the guide.

News release.