News Archive
Sunday, February 9 2020
-
77-year-old amateur astronomer helps reveal rare galaxy double nucleus
Iowa State astronomers have revealed that a well-known, nearby galaxy has a rare double-nucleus structure. Their paper reporting the discovery is now online and has been accepted for publication by the Astrophysical Journal. First author of the paper is Allen Lawrence, a 77 -year-old who went back to school to study astronomy after retiring from a long career as an electrical engineer.
-
Celebrate Black History Month at Iowa State
A variety of events are planned to celebrate Black History Month throughout February at Iowa State University and in Ames.
-
Major NSF-sponsored grant will help researchers discover ways to improve urban sustainability
A new $2.5 million grant will help an interdisciplinary team of researchers analyze innovative approaches to improving urban sustainability. The team will study various approaches to bolstering local food production in Des Moines and the surrounding area and how those approaches could affect nutrition, waste and environmental impacts.
-
Students, Iowa State police join forces to design new police gear
Iowa State University industrial design students are collaborating with the ISU Police Department to examine the issues police officers face with their uniforms, gear and vehicles – and what designers can do to help solve those problems.
-
Diverse cropping systems don’t increase carbon storage compared to corn-soybean rotations
Diversified crop rotations protect water quality and have other environmental benefits, but recent experiments show that farms can’t rely on such rotations to improve carbon storage in the soil. The findings contradict widely held expectations that the extensive root systems of perennials and cover crops would deposit carbon in soils.
-
Signs of economic recovery, but Iowa’s job growth lags behind nation
In the decade since the Great Recession, Iowa’s job rate has grown by 7.1%, according to a new employment analysis. Dave Swenson, an associate scientist of economics at Iowa State University who conducted the study, says much of the growth occurred in metropolitan counties.
-
Iowa FIRST LEGO League Championships: Students build better cities, crowd cheers
The state’s best teams of FIRST® LEGO® Leaguers – 120 of them – will demonstrate their robot, research and thinking skills during the annual Iowa championships this weekend, Jan. 18 and 19, at Iowa State University’s College of Engineering.
-
Innovative mindset takes Iowa State student on the ride of his life
Charlie Wickham loved roller coasters as a child – but he didn’t want to ride them. He finally hopped on one at 10 years old. Now a senior in mechanical engineering at Iowa State University, Wickham has ridden 250 roller coasters around the world, and his knack for designing rides and networking has given him a front-row seat to the amusement park industry.
-
Engineers develop “chameleon metals” that change surfaces in response to heat
Martin Thuo and his research group have found a way to use heat to predictably and precisely change the surface structure of a particle of liquid metal. It's like a chameleon changing skin color in response to its environment. And so Thuo and his team are calling the technology "chameleon metals."
Change Agent: Paul Plummer
Paul Plummer started taking on scientific challenges as a kid on his family farm. Today, he’s working on one of the most pressing concerns faced by modern science: antibiotic resistance.