Nick Houtman is director of research communications at OSU and edits Terra, a world of research and creativity at Oregon State University. He has experience in weekly and daily print journalism and university science writing. A native Californian, he lived in Wisconsin and Maine before arriving in Corvallis in 2005.
Fred Kamke, professor in the OSU Department of Wood Science and Engineering, has now improved the process, achieving strength increases up to 400 percent, taking less time and using less mechanical force. He has applied for a patent on the technique, known as viscoelastic thermal compression, or VTC. The strength and stiffness of VTC wood is better than the best available Douglas fir.
No need to duck! Watch an underwater volcano erupt in this video shot by OSU researchers.
Water in the West has long been a trigger for disputes. Witness Colorado River diversions in California and Arizona and struggles in Oregon’s Klamath basin. But cooperation is still the rule, according to research by master’s student Kristel Fesler and a team of OSU students in the Dept. of Geosciences.
The 22-year-old senior in bioengineering from Tualatin, Oregon, has been doing extraordinary things for an undergraduate: culturing breast cancer cells, exposing them to controlled doses of radiation, learning how to make nanoparticles that can circulate in the body.
Nanotechnology has arrived. No longer do we just have to imagine the benefits. Advertisers tout them in cosmetics, clothing, batteries, dental adhesives, paint and golf clubs.
Teams of students led by faculty mentors design and conduct research that start-ups or established firms can use to inform their marketing plans and guide product development.