News

Newsmakers 2008

The College of Science is well known for its faculty experts and researchers, many of whom are recognized around the world as some of the best in their field. Below is a sampling of the some of our newsmakers in 2008:

MARKETWATCH

Franklin, Virginia Native Recognized Among NASA Best, Brightest
She was accepted and studied at Virginia Tech receiving a bachelor's degree last year in aerospace engineering with a minor in mathematics. ...

UT The Daily Texan - Austin,TX,USA

Clean water more accessible thanks to UT professor

... don't last long when these disinfectants are used, even in small amounts," said James McGrath of Virginia Tech, with whom Freeman worked on the project. ...

Science Daily

New Insight To Demineralization: Amorphous Silica Dissolves By Pathway Similar To Crystals

Article about the work of Patricia Dove, professor of geosciences in the College of Science at Virginia Tech, and postdoctoral scientists Nizhou Han and Adam Wallace.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/07/080707171744.htm

The News and Observer

Inventor nabs $500,000 MIT prize
Article about Joseph DeSimone who received a doctoral degree in chemistry from Virginia Tech.
http://www.newsobserver.com/business/story/1120716-p2.html

New York Times

The June 23, 2008 edition of the New York Times featured a front-page article about youth in Algeria. Djavad Salehi Isfahani, professor of economics, contributed to a companion piece to this article found here:
http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/06/23/ask-the-experts-about-algeria/

Media Newswire

Team Teaching from a Distance Works for Emerging Nanotechnology Field
The 142 miles between Virginia Tech and University of Virginia were not a deterrent as the two began a distance-teaching course that involved 23 students in ...
http://media-newswire.com/release_1068074.html

Virginia Tech researchers suggest road to better health just a ...

WSLS.com - Roanoke,VA,USA
Psychologists in Virginia Tech’s College of Science http://www.science.vt.edu/ are looking for participants in a free Internet program that helps people ...

Two Explosive Evolutionary Events Shaped Early History Of Multicellular Life

SCIENCE DAILY
Now Virginia Tech paleontologists, using rigorous analytical methods, have identified another explosive evolutionary event that occurred about 33 million years earlier among macroscopic life forms unrelated to the Cambrian animals.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/01/080103144451.htm

Physicists and engineers search for new dimension

TECH JOURNAL SOUTH (NORTH CAROLINA)
Article about the research of John Simonetti, associate professor of physics in the College of Science and Michael Kavic, graduate student and one of the investigators on the project.
http://www.techjournalsouth.com/news/article.html?item_id=5313

Speaker Connects Faith and Science

Planet Blacksburg - Blacksburg,VA,USA
Kingston joined the Virginia Tech Department of Chemistry in 1971. The American Chemical Society named Kingston the 2008 recipient of the Ernest Guenther ...

look who's talking

Roanoke Times - Roanoke,VA,USA
A lecture by Dan Lizarralde as part of the Virginia Tech Geosciences Lecturer Series. 3:30 pm Friday. 4069 Derring Hall, Virginia Tech. geos.vt.edu. ...

ACS Award In Polymer Chemistry

CHEMICAL & ENGINEERING NEWS
"An icon in the field of polymer science," is how one colleague describes James E. McGrath, a University Distinguished Professor and Ethyl Corp. Chair in Chemistry at Virginia Polytechnic Institute & State University. "I cannot imagine a more highly qualified scientist to receive this important recognition," another says.
http://pubs.acs.org/isubscribe/journals/cen/86/i04/html/8604awards5.html

Water Needed To Produce Various Types Of Energy

Science Daily (press release) - USA
Virginia Tech professor Tamim Younos and undergraduate student Rachelle Hill are researching the water-efficiency of some of the most common energy sources ...

Living in Tech tragedy's shadow

Richmond Times Dispatch - Richmond,VA,USA
Professor Ezra A. Brown is a professor of mathematics at Virginia Tech University. Photo By: EVA RUSSO/TIMES-DISPATCH A year to reflect: How have you ...

UD nanomineral research featured in ’Science’

University of Delaware - Newark, DE, USA
The lead author, Michael F. Hochella Jr. of the Center for NanoBioEarth, Department of Geosciences at Virginia Tech, serves on the external advisory board ...

Convection may have made Mercury's cliffs

Science
Professor Scott King of the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University based his finding on an examination of computer simulations of the ...
http://www.upi.com/NewsTrack/Science/2008/03/31/ convection_may_have_made_mercurys_cliffs/5317/

New Theory Explains Mercury's Mysterious Cliffs

SPACE.COM
About research by Scott King, a planetary geophysicist at Virginia Tech.
http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/080325-st-mercury-cliffs.html

Professor To Explore The Paranormal Universe

Planet Blacksburg - Blacksburg, VA, USA
That’s why Nahum Arav, astronomer, and associate professor in Virginia Tech’s physics department, loves studying paranormal phenomenon as a hobby and is ...

Nanoscience Will Change The Way We Think About The World

Science Daily (press release) - USA
Adapted from materials provided by Virginia Tech, via EurekAlert!, a service of AAAS. Need to cite this story in your essay, paper, or report? ...

Nanominerals, Mineral Nanoparticles, and Earth Systems

SCIENCE MAGAZINE
Article mentions the work of Steven K. Lower, Center for NanoBioEarth, Department of Geosciences, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/319/5870/1631

Streams 'are the world's kidneys'

Telegraph.co.uk - United Kingdom
Prof Jack Webster, Virginia Tech, adds: "Eutrophication in the Chesapeake Bay has damaged the oyster industry in Virginia and in the Gulf of Mexico, ...

Streams are natural filters

Science Centric - Sofia,Sofia Town,Bulgaria
Learn more about the Virginia Tech Stream Team at www.biol.vt.edu/research/streamteam/. The National Science Foundation funded the research. ...

Search for a tiny fourth dimension

Scenta.co.uk - London,England,UK
Now, a team of physicists at Virginia Tech believe they could find it using a very large Eight-meter-wavelength Transient Array radio telescope. ...

Committee assists Tech with April 16 research

Virginia Tech Collegiate Times Online Edition - Blacksburg,VA,USA
Months after the Virginia Tech shooting last April, the university's office of the provost established a group that would supplement the traditional process ...

Searching For A Tiny New Dimension, Curled Up Like The Universe Before The Big Bang

SCIENCE DAILY
Article featuring John Simonetti, associate professor of physics in the College of Science and Michael Kavic, graduate student and one of the investigators on the project.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/03/080310151949.htm

Virginia Tech Researchers Study Effects of Shootings on Their Campus

CHRONICLE OF HIGHER EDUCATION
Some professors there may find themselves compelled to process the recent mass shooting in the best way they know how: by studying it.
http://chronicle.com/weekly/v54/i26/26a01001.htm

Surprising Patterns of Coping After Virginia Tech and Other Calamities

CHRONICLE OF HIGHER EDUCATION
“Welcome to the high point of the afternoon,” said Robert S. Pynoos of the University of California at Los Angeles, standing at a podium at the AAAS meeting. “We have three-quarters of an hour on suffering and loss.”
http://chronicle.com/blogs/conference/1670/surprising-patterns-of-coping-after-virginia-tech-and-other-calamities

Two Oxygenation Events In Ancient Oceans Sparked Spread Of Complex ...

Science Daily (press release) - USA
To test the interaction between biological evolution and environmental change, an international team of scientists from Virginia Tech, the University of ...

At Virginia Tech, Researchers Study the Effects of Shootings on Their Own Campus

CHRONICLE OF HIGHER EDUCATION
When the last television news trucks pull away from Northern Illinois University, some professors there may find themselves compelled to process the recent mass shooting in the best way they know how: by studying it.
http://chronicle.com/daily/2008/02/1795n.htm

Heavy work for green light

Nature.com (subscription) - London,England,UK
That’s what Virginia Tech student Clay Moulton thought. So he designed the Gravia, a metre high lamp powered by a slowly falling weight that users would ...

Unique Martian Formation Reveals Brief Bursts Of Water

Science Daily (press release) - USA
"There are no fans with steps on earth, so we had to build one," said Erin R. Kraal, now a geosciences research scientist at Virginia Tech. ...

Research Explains Formation of Unique Martian Fans

NEW YORK TIMES
Scientists believe they now know how sediment deposits spilling out of the mouth of some water channels on Mars were shaped in a series of terraces.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/21/science/space/21mars.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

Water gushes created "staircases" on Mars

Reuters UK By Will Dunham WASHINGTON (Reuters)
Sudden, tremendous gushes of water from underground most likely carved out unusual fan-shaped geological formations ...
http://uk.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUKN2038698720080221

River-Size "Flash Floods" May Have Carved Mars Craters

National Geographic
Using a classroom-size prop, a team of Dutch researchers says it may have demystified a handful of unusual Martian craters­and further complicated the story ...
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/02/080220-mars-water.html

How Science Is Opening the Way to a New Form of Human Spirituality

Marketwire.com
However, according to astronomer Nahum Arav, a former astrophysics research professor at the University of Colorado, it is science that is opening the way to a new form of human spirituality.
http://www.marketwire.com/mw/release.do?id=820972

Christine George in USA Today

USA TODAY
USA Today honors Virginia Tech’ s Christine George as an All-USA College Academic First Team member (9/20)
http://www.usatoday.com/news/gallery/2008/n080214_collegeallstars/ flash.htm?gid=397&aid=2026

Surprising Patterns of Coping After Virginia Tech and Other Calamities

CHRONICLE OF HIGHER EDUCATION
Russell T. Jones, a psychologist at Virginia Tech, presented some of the first in-depth research on survivors of the mass murders—a topic made even more ...
http://chronicle.com/blogs/conference/1670/surprising-patterns-of-coping-after-virginia-tech-and-other-calamities

Exercise can make you feel better

ROANOKE TIMES
Interview with Richard Winett, a professor of psychology at Virginia Tech.
http://www.roanoke.com/wb/149684

Structure of important neurotransmitter regulator solved

NEWS-MEDICAL.NET
Researchers from Virginia Tech and the Brookhaven National Laboratory have solved the structure of an enzyme that is critical in the regulation of the neurotransmitter system in the human brain.
http://www.news-medical.net/?id=34908

Understanding the Economic Problem

BLUE RIDGE BUSINESS JOURNAL
If all this economics talk leaves you with a headache, let Virginia Tech professor Nicolaus Tideman offer an aspirin.
http://www.bizjournal.com

Computers Used to Study Bacterial Cell Division

OBBeC
According to a recent report from Virginia Tech, a group of computational biologists at the institute have created a mathematical model of the process that regulates cell division in a common bacterium, confirming hypotheses, providing new insights, identifying gaps in what is understood so far, and demonstrating the role of computation in biology.
http://www.obbec.com/component/content/article/1135-computational-biology/1613-computers-used-to-study-bacterial-cell-division

Another Big Bang for Biology

Science Now
Researchers have uncovered what they think is a sudden diversification of life at least 30 million years before the Cambrian period, the time when most of the major living groups of animals emerged. If confirmed, the find reinforces the idea that major evolutionary innovations occurred in bursts.
http://sciencenow.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/2008/103/1