Matt Shipman

Mar 31, 2011

Nanoparticle Quilt

This image is a colorized transmission electron microscope (TEM) micrograph, and shows the orientation of iron platinum (FePt) nanoparticles in a thin film. The image was created as part of a research effort published in Langmuir this month. Most of the nanoparticles are enclosed by a hexagon of six neighboring nanoparticles. Each nanoparticle was color… 

Mar 31, 2011

New Tool Makes Programs More Efficient Without Sacrificing Safety Functions

Computer programs are incorporating more and more safety features to protect users, but those features can also slow the programs down by 1,000 percent or more. Researchers at North Carolina State University have developed a software tool that helps these programs run much more efficiently without sacrificing their safety features. 

Mar 30, 2011

Can You Throw Biological Weapons In The Garbage?

When you envision an attack with biological weapons, you probably don’t think about what happens to the trash. But seriously, when the attack is over, and the buildings have been scrubbed down, the drywall ripped out, etc. – can they just chuck all that refuse into a landfill? Wonder no more! Somebody’s already looked into… 

Mar 30, 2011

‘Spincasting’ Holds Promise For Creation Of Nanoparticle Thin Films

Researchers from North Carolina State University have investigated the viability of a technique called “spincasting” for creating thin films of nanoparticles on an underlying substrate – an important step in the creation of materials with a variety of uses, from optics to electronics. 

Mar 29, 2011

Health Care IT Providers Need To Do More To Solicit User Feedback

Information technology (IT) companies need to bring in doctors and other health care stakeholders in order to ensure that new technologies and applications are actually useful to the health care system – something which is currently fragmented at best, according to a recent paper from North Carolina State University. 

Mar 24, 2011

What Happened In Japan? An Overview

In the wake of a recent earthquake and tsunami, there has been enormous interest in the problems facing Japanese nuclear power plants. These events have people asking a large number of questions. What happened? How dangerous is this? How do nuclear power plants work, anyway? On March 23, a panel of nuclear engineering experts held… 

Mar 23, 2011

Avast! Legal Confusion May Help Pirates Avoid The Plank

Forget Captain Jack Sparrow. Today’s maritime pirates aren’t swashbuckling antiheroes, they are gun-toting kidnappers, extortionists and murderers. And their numbers are swelling, not diminishing. New research highlights one of the factors contributing to international piracy – the legal system. Fifty years ago, piracy was in decline. But by 2009, the world was dealing with an… 

Mar 23, 2011

International Laws May Be Part Of Maritime Piracy Problem

International piracy costs the shipping industry billions of dollars a year and leads to high-profile murders that make global headlines. Longstanding concerns over piracy have led to numerous international laws and conventions designed to keep pirates in check – but research from North Carolina State University shows that the tangled network of laws may actually… 

Mar 22, 2011

Study Finds That Overweight People Really Are Big-Boned

One of the blind spots in forensic science, particularly in identifying unknown remains, is the inability of experts to determine how much an individual weighed based on his or her skeleton. New research from North Carolina State University moves us closer to solving this problem by giving forensic experts valuable insight into what the shape… 

Mar 21, 2011

NC State Program Fosters Entrepreneurship In Engineering Community

One lesson learned in North Carolina State University’s Engineering Entrepreneurs Program (EEP): technical knowledge is not enough, if you want to be successful. NC State researchers are laying out lessons they’ve learned running one of the nation’s first EEPs in a paper being published by IEEE’s Computer, as part of a special issue focused on entrepreneurship. 

Mar 17, 2011

Study Finds More Efficient Means Of Creating, Arranging Carbon Nanofibers

Carbon nanofibers hold promise for technologies ranging from medical imaging devices to precise scientific measurement tools, but the time and expense associated with uniformly creating nanofibers of the correct size has been an obstacle – until now. A new study from North Carolina State University demonstrates an improved method for creating carbon nanofibers of specific… 

Mar 16, 2011

Going Nuclear: Putting Some Media Coverage Into Perspective

Note: This is a guest piece written by Steve Skutnik, a Ph.D. candidate in nuclear engineering at NC State. Among other things, Skutnik is a regular contributor to the nuclear engineering blog The Neutron Economy, where a version of this post originally ran. In times of crisis, mainstream media can make mistakes – particularly when the… 

Mar 10, 2011

NC State Hosts Lecture On ‘Tea Party In American History’

What: North Carolina State University is hosting a lecture, “The Tea Party In American History.” The guest speaker is Jill Lepore, writer for The New Yorker, professor of history at Harvard University, and author of The Whites of Their Eyes: The Tea Party’s Revolution and the Battle over American History. Who: Sponsored by NC State’s History… 

Mar 9, 2011

How Magnets Work (It’s Complicated)

Occasionally, when looking for scientific issues to write about, I will survey my friends to see whether they have any “fundamental science” questions that I could explore. When someone recently suggested that I find out how magnets work, I thought it would be easy. I was wrong. First of all, I learned that there are… 

Mar 9, 2011

NC State Hosts Civil War Symposium

What: North Carolina State University is hosting a symposium, “The Public History Of The Civil War,” marking the 150th anniversary of the beginning of the war. The symposium will explore the many ways that historians can work together to engage general audiences at battlefields, historic sites and museums. Sessions will address a variety of topics,…