Earth to Mars to the moons of Saturn - The Trentonian

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<br />http://www.trentonian.com/article/20120731/OPINION03/120739931/earth-to-mars-to-the-moons-of-saturn

Music today bland, but louder - UPI.com

Study leader Joan Serra, a researcher at the Institute of Artificial Intelligence Research at the National Research Council, said a computer analysis was performed on songs from a public database of more than 1 million songs recorded from 1955 to 2010, produced by Columbia University. In the 1960s, there was more experimentation with chords, rhythm and instrumentation. However, the songs today are louder. Another trend is the gradual increase of the intrinsic volume recorded, Serra said. <br />http://www.upi.com/Science_News/2012/07/28/Music-today-bland-but-louder/UPI-50341343533572/?spt%3Dhs%26or%3Dsn

Lab-Made Jellyfish Hints at Heart Fix - Wall Street Journal

The robot, named "Medusoid," was placed in salty fluid that can conduct electrical currents. When the engineers oscillated the voltage in the fluid, the muscle-coated membrane began to contract in a synchronized manner. (By contrast, a real jellyfish obtains nutrients by feeding on plankton, eggs, larvae, small fish and other jellyfish, which then enables specialized tissue to electrically activate the muscular contraction.)The engineers used a silicone polymer to build a centimeter-long jellyfish consisting of a membrane with eight armlike appendages. They overlaid muscle cells, obtained from a rat heart, on this membrane in a particular pattern. "We coaxed them to self-organize so that they matched the [muscle] architecture of a jellyfish precisely," Dr. Parker said.<br />http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390444097904577539081426736516.html

Institutional Mission and University

University administration should generate a pool of creative ideas for faculty members. When designing an academic research project, professors know the general preferences of a university, but not necessarily specific policy of their own university.

http://higher-education.criticpen.com/article/institutional-mission-university-priorities-m4z9

In Preventing Alzheimer's, Mutation May Aid Drug Quest - New York Times

<br />http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/12/health/research/rare-gene-mutation-is-found-to-stave-off-alzheimers.html?pagewanted%3Dall

University as a Country

The structure of a university is very similar to a country, and its management system too; a smaller society but utopia, due to its sophisticated community. Factors like national benefits, patriotism, and nostalgia are all (and must be) the case in a smaller scale. Even outsiders (usually in administrative roles) are expected to behave like loyal alumni, learn the school alma mater, and become interested in in the major sport teams, and other traditional functions of the university. This practical allegory is to utilize available models. The athletic success in Olympic is of political important (not just fun) for a country, it is the same for a university fame (for attracting students). The reasons and motivations of students for attending a university are like those of immigration. Thus, university leadership should empower its own country through united national strategies. This is the reason that today’s university essential needs to implement change. The ratio of people living in developed country to those living in developing countries from one to two (in 1995) is approaching one to four (in 2010). This is the case for higher education too; universities which focus on traditional models soon will lose the ground, regardless of their history. In the past, difference of universities was due to the quality of their programs; but today’s universities need to offer new features, as this is the crucial expectation of all parties (students, families, employers, governments, etc).


http://higher-education.criticpen.com/article/university-as-a-country-m4zc

New studies nix report of arsenic-loving bacteria - Wall Street Journal

The saga began when scientists led by Felisa Wolfe-Simon of NASA's Astrobiology Institute published a paper that said the bacteria, found at Mono Lake in eastern California, could grow by substituting arsenic for phosphorus. The researchers had looked at Mono Lake because of its high arsenic levels, and they reported their conclusions from lab experiments.For both new papers, scientists did their own tests of the bacteria. One team, led by Rosemary Redfield of the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada, reports that arsenic does not contribute to the bacteria's growth. Maybe the original results came from some sort of undetected contaminant in the arsenic the researchers used, they suggest.<br />http://online.wsj.com/article/AP452b9db03a74414bb2240f4208c5fbd1.html

New Science Papers Prove NASA Failed Big Time In Promoting Supposedly Earth ... - Forbes

Today, Science Magazine, one of the top scientific journals and the original publisher of the GFAJ-1 work,is publishing two new papers that completely demolish the argument that GFAJ-1 is a completely new form of life. Early on, the magazine’s editors make the point quietly: “Contrary to an original report, the new research clearly shows that the bacterium, GFAJ-1, cannot substitute arsenic for phosphorus to survive.”&nbsp; Later,they repeat it for emphasis, in stronger terms: “In conclusion,” they write,&nbsp; “the new research shows that GFAJ-1 does not break the long-held rules of life, contrary to how Wolfe-Simon had interpreted her group’s data.”Flash back to December 2010. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) called a press conference. Rumors circulated that the agency was about to announce that life had been discovered somewhere other than planet Earth. The real news wasn’t that big, but it was close. A 33-year-old biologist, Feli!
sa Wolfe-Simon, had discovered a bacteria that seemed to break a cardinal rule of biology. All life forms on earth use six elements: oxygen, carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, phosphorus and sulfur. But in Mono Lake in California, Wolfe-Simon and her colleagues had found a type of bacteria, GFAJ-1, that seemed to have replaced phosphorus with arsenic.<br />http://www.forbes.com/sites/matthewherper/2012/07/08/new-science-papers-prove-nasa-failed-big-time-in-promoting-supposedly-earth-shaking-discovery-that-wasnt/

Scientists unveil cause of massive plankton blooms in North Atlantic - The Bunsen Burner

WHOI describes the study as being conducted by a specially designed robot that can float just below the surface like a phytoplankton (only much, much larger). Other robots, referred to by WHOI as “gliders” dove to depths of 1,000 meters to collect data and beam it back to shore. Together, the robots discovered a great deal about the biology and nature of the bloom. Then, using three-dimensional computer modeling to analyze the data, Ms. Mahadevan created a model that corresponded with observation of the natural phenomena.“Springtime blooms of microscopic plants in the ocean absorb enormous quantities of carbon dioxide, much like our forests, emitting oxygen via photosynthesis. Their growth contributes to the oceanic uptake of carbon dioxide, amounting globally to about one-third of the carbon dioxide we put into the air each year through the burning of fossil fuels. An important question is how this ‘biological pump’ for carbon might change in the future as our cli!
mate evolves,&#8221; said researchers.<br />http://www.thebunsenburner.com/news/scientists-unveil-cause-of-massive-plankton-blooms-in-north-atlantic/