At last winter’s Abu Dhabi Solar Challenge, residents of the Persian Gulf emirate would pull alongside competitors on the highway, lean out and take photos of the solar-powered vehicles. Solar cars are as much a novelty there as in the United States, says John Ren, a member of the solar car team at Oregon State University, which took part in the 1,250-kilometer race.
With funding from NASA, scientists from Oregon State are looking at how mice expend energy under weightless conditions. Specifically, they want to know if the manner in which animals regulate body temperature affects bone loss.
“It’s essential to help faculty transcend the rat race, to create something new, to grow research impacts from the set of underlying principles that burn in the heart of each researcher.”
English professor Raymond Malewitz will take you on an intellectual romp that careens from crime-scene forensics to IKEA hackers, from the Sokal hoax to mad-cow disease, from “salvagepunks” to the Adventures of Tintin.
To be a wildlife biologist, it helps to have skills: to climb 30 feet up a tree to reach an eagle’s nest, to monitor a tranquilized wolf before it wakes or to track a wolverine in the high country. And in years past, it would have helped to be a man.
At the Oregon Coast Aquarium, the wayfaring jacks and knifejaw will live in the big blue tank bathing in an antiseptic to kill parasites for a month before becoming attractions for aquarium visitors.