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Matt Shipman

May 3, 2010

“My Kid Wouldn’t Do That” – Study Shows Parents’ Difficulty With Teen Sexuality

It can be difficult for parents of teenagers to come to terms with the fact their kids may have sex, particularly given widespread concerns about the consequences of teen sexual activity. In fact, a new study from North Carolina State University shows that many parents think that their children aren’t interested in sex – but… 

Apr 30, 2010

Biofuels, Hold The Sugar

Imagine if we could make biofuels anywhere, without having to worry about biofuel crops competing with food crops. Well, the feds are now funding research that would make that possible. Modern biofuels are largely made from sugar. Basically, plants (like corn) take energy from the sun to convert carbon dioxide into organic compounds (like sugar)… 

Apr 30, 2010

NC State Wins ARPA-E Grant To Study Extremophile Production Of Biofuels

The U.S. Department of Energy’s Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA-E) has awarded a grant for more than $2.7 million to North Carolina State University to support research into the creation of biofuels using microbial organisms, called extremophiles, that live in high-temperature environments. 

Apr 28, 2010

Connecting The Nanodots

Picture a really big library. Imagine that it contains 2.5 million books, and that each of those books is 400 pages long. Now imagine that you could fit ALL of those books onto a computer chip the size of your thumbnail. Researchers just figured out how to do exactly that. The trick is to use… 

Apr 28, 2010

Nanodots Breakthrough May Lead To ‘A Library On One Chip’

A researcher at North Carolina State University has developed a computer chip that can store an unprecedented amount of data – enough to hold an entire library’s worth of information on a single chip. The new chip stems from a breakthrough in the use of nanodots, or nanoscale magnets, and represents a significant advance in… 

Apr 27, 2010

Hey! You! Get Off Of My Cloud Computing!

Cloud computing is a buzzword among tech cognoscenti these days. Its proponents say that it can give people and institutions access to greater computer power than they could otherwise afford by running their programs in a collection of computers and servers located, well, somewhere else. But there are risks too – not least of which… 

Apr 27, 2010

New Research Offers Security For Virtualization, Cloud Computing

Virtualization and cloud computing allow computer users access to powerful computers and software applications hosted by remote groups of servers, but security concerns related to data privacy are limiting public confidence – and slowing adoption of the new technology. Now researchers from North Carolina State University have developed new techniques and software that may be… 

Apr 26, 2010

Don’t Thank Your (Un)lucky Stars

This is an election year, and the fact that there was a surge in voting by young people in the last election has been lost on nobody. Conventional wisdom, and some studies, say that celebrities can help encourage young people to become politically active. But while celebrities may (or may not) be able to get… 

Apr 26, 2010

Study: Celebrity Endorsements Do Not Help Political Candidates

If you’re running for office – and want to shore up support from young voters – you want Hollywood’s support, right? Wrong. Two new studies from North Carolina State University show that young voters are not swayed by celebrity endorsements of political candidates – and sometimes voters like the candidate less as a result of… 

Apr 23, 2010

Trash May Be (Energy) Treasure Trove

Earlier this month, a New York Times article highlighted the fact that European countries are burning garbage as a renewable source of energy – but that similar efforts in the United States are lagging behind. The article cites a 2009 study which “came down strongly in favor of waste-to-energy (WTE) plants over landfills as the… 

Apr 21, 2010

The Buzz On Bees

The plight of honeybees has been the focus of a lot of media attention, as bee populations around the country have plummeted due to colony collapse disorder and other factors. But Dr. David Tarpy, whose research focuses on improving bee health and productivity, is doing something about it. Tarpy, an entomology professor at NC State and… 

Apr 20, 2010

Get Smart

Agent 86 would be proud. Dr. Jay Narayan led the way in the development of “smart sensors,” integrating a sensor material called vanadium oxide with silicon chips to create sensors that can manipulate and respond to information (it has to do with something called “domain matching epitaxy”). These sensors are used in a variety of… 

Apr 20, 2010

Skeleton Crew

The renovated Park Shops building has everything NC State students need to dig into the past: new workspaces, spacious anthropology labs and plenty of skeletons - in the closet and elsewhere. Now, students can bone up on even the most minute details in pursuit of careers ranging from forensics to archaeology, with little concern of classroom overcrowding. 

Apr 20, 2010

Materials Research Advances Reliability Of Faster Smart Sensors

In military and security situations, a split second can make the difference between life and death, so North Carolina State University’s development of new “smart sensors” that allow for faster response times from military applications is important. Equally important is new research from NC State that will help ensure those sensors will operate under extreme conditions… 

Apr 19, 2010

Little Things Mean A Lot

It is widely thought that advances in the use of engineered nanoscale materials will have significant impacts on fields ranging from medicine to electronics – but how do we get there from here? We are talking about manufacturing and manipulating things so small it’s difficult to conceptualize what we’re talking about. After all, William Powell…