The Abstract

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 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 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 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 14, 2011

Research Gets Curiouser and Curiouser

Interested in learning more about how ants live in the medians of Manhattan or in Peruvian tree gardens? How about the ways animals and plants move through landscape corridors that surround nuclear weapons sites? If so, you have something in common with Dr. Jai Ranganathan, a conservation biologist who produces “Curiouser and Curiouser” podcasts for…

Mar 11, 2011

We Have Found the Enemy and It Is Us

If you suffer from preeclampsia during pregnancy, it could be because your body is fighting against itself. New research from Dr. Jorge Piedrahita, NC State professor of genomics, has found that the placentas of women diagnosed with preeclampsia have more of a gene associated with regulating the body’s immune response than the placentas of women who…

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 8, 2011

Why Rooting For Losers May Save Your Life

If you’re a sports fan, you want your team to win. You especially want your team to win the big games: championships, rivalry games, etc. Be careful what you wish for. A new study shows that big games with close scores are followed by a significant increase in traffic fatalities – but only for fans…

Mar 4, 2011

Research In Action: Helping Homeless Children

Psychologist Mary Haskett has been doing research on childhood development for over 20 years, and her experiences in that field ultimately highlighted a real and growing mental-health crisis facing homeless children around the country. Now she’s calling on her research expertise to do something about it. Haskett, a professor at NC State, is working with eight…

Mar 3, 2011

Our Online Training Preferences, or Why Clippy Bombed

A new study finds that students in online training courses want to be taught by electronic versions of themselves. The study, by researchers from NC State and George Washington University, were interested in how student performance was affected by changes in the electronic tutorial “helpers” utilized in online training programs. It turns out that students do…

Mar 2, 2011

Food Safety: The Disconnect Between What’s Yucky And What’s Dangerous

Note: This is a guest piece written by Dr. Ben Chapman, an assistant professor and food safety expert at NC State. Among other things, Chapman is a regular contributor to the food safety blog Barfblog, where a version of this post originally ran. While it might be nice to know whether there has been an insect…

Feb 24, 2011

Language Development Is Cyclical In Kids

Does it sometimes seem like your kids are suddenly speaking a totally different language? Well, you may be on to something. New research on language development in African-American children shows that kids go through cycles – going back and forth between standard English and vernacular English a couple of times before settling into an established…

Feb 18, 2011

Let’s Talk About ScienceOnline2012

The Abstract crew is pretty excited that NC State is going to host the ScienceOnline2012 (Scio12) conference next January. If you’re not familiar with ScienceOnline, it’s a gathering of researchers, bloggers, reporters, authors and students (I can think of some people who are all of the above) who are passionate about science. And they’re not just…

Feb 16, 2011

Superbugs From Swine Farms?

The spread of bacteria that are immune to many types of antibiotics – so-called “superbugs” – is cause for great concern for public health. But where are these superbugs coming from and how are they spreading? One source may be hog farms. A recent study by NC State entomologist Coby Schal and colleagues from Kansas State…