Research

Grants Can Help Reduce Highway Deaths, Improve Access to Mass Transit

May 20, 2009 -- WASHINGTON, DC – U.S. Senators Frank R. Lautenberg (D-NJ) and Robert Menendez (D-NJ) today announced the U.S. Department of Transportation has awarded more than $4.3 million in new federal funding to both the City of Trenton and Rutgers University for highway safety programs and new research on public transportation. The City of Trenton’s funding will support highway safety programs in Trenton and Mercer County and Rutgers’ funding will support mass transit research, including studies of rail station access shuttles, transit-supportive residential development and the impact of low-cost bus service.    » read more »

State Investment Secures 10-to-1 Matching Funds from Federal Government

May 22, 2009 -- New York Governor David A. Paterson today announced that New York will commit $10.5 million in state grants to secure a federal investment of nearly $100 million to finance five energy research centers across the State. The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has named five New York institutions Energy Frontier Research Centers (EFRC), and each has been awarded DOE grants between $2 and $5 million per year for a planned initial five year period.    » read more »

May 18, 2009 -- ATLANTA – Today Georgia Governor Sonny Perdue announced the launch of the first-of-its-kind research tool, iResearchGeorgia. The online, free database is the only one in the U.S. that combines the research capabilities of multiple public and private universities within a single state.

“We are proud to freely share Georgia’s intellectual capital with the world in this innovative way,” said Governor Perdue. “iResearchGeorgia will foster the kind of collaboration among research institutions and industry that generates jobs and investment in the biosciences, one of the state’s fastest-growing industries.”    » read more »

Udall Resolution to Raise Awareness of CCM Clears Senate

May 19, 2009 -- WASHINGTON—The U.S. Senate has unanimously passed legislation introduced by Senator Tom Udall, D-N.M., to take a first step towards boosting research and education efforts related to Cerebral Cavernous Malformation (CCM), a relatively unknown illness more prevalent among New Mexico Hispanics than any other group.

Udall's resolution expresses the U.S. Senate’s recognition of the critical need to increase research, awareness and education about CCM. Udall was joined by Senator Jeff Bingaman in introducing the resolution.    » read more »

Funds to Advance Research, Development and Deployment of Carbon Capture and Storage Technologies and Infrastructure

May 15, 2009 -- Washington, D.C. – U.S. Secretary of Energy Steven Chu today announced at the National Coal Council that $2.4 billion from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act will be used to expand and accelerate the commercial deployment of carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology.

The funding is part of the Obama Administration’s ongoing effort to develop technologies to reduce the emission of carbon dioxide, a major greenhouse gas and contributor to global climate change, into the atmosphere while creating new jobs.    » read more »

Finding May Lead to Better Understanding of How Body Responds to Mechanical Stimuli

LA JOLLA, CA, May 13, 2009 -- Scientists from The Scripps Research Institute have elucidated the action of a protein, harmonin, which is involved in the mechanics of hearing. This finding sheds new light on the workings of mechanotransduction, the process by which cells convert mechanical stimuli into electrical activity.

Defects in mechanotransduction genes can cause devastating diseases, such as Usher's syndrome, which is characterized by deafness, gradual vision loss, and kidney disease, which can lead to kidney failure.

The research, led by Scripps Research Professor Ulrich Mueller, was published in the May 14, 2009 issue of the journal Neuron.    » read more »

Simpler, less expensive design could make precision particle therapy available to more patients

May 12, 2009 -- UPTON, NY — As part of an effort to make high-precision particle cancer therapy accessible to more patients, a physicist at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory has developed a simpler, less-expensive gantry design for delivering tumor-killing particle beams. Brookhaven Science Associates, the company that manages the Lab for DOE, has applied for a U.S. non-provisional patent on the design, which is now available for licensing and commercial development.    » read more »

May 11, 2009 -- While on a net basis the United States imports nearly 60 percent of the oil it consumes, this reliance on imported oil is not by itself a major national security threat, according to a RAND Corporation study issued today.

The study finds that the economic costs of a major disruption in global oil supplies—including higher prices for American consumers—pose the greatest risk to the United States.    » read more »

May 8, 2009 -- GAITHERSBURG, Md. – The U.S. Commerce Department’s National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has received Congressional approval on its recovery plan to create jobs, strengthen the economy and encourage innovation.

Under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), NIST was granted $580 million in direct appropriations, along with an additional $30 million transferred to NIST from other federal agencies, to invest in construction projects, grants, scientific equipment and research fellowships.    » read more »

Plankton blooms do not send atmospheric carbon to the deep ocean

May 06, 2009 -- BERKELEY, CA – Oceanographers Jim Bishop and Todd Wood of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory have measured the fate of carbon particles originating in plankton blooms in the Southern Ocean, using data that deep-diving Carbon Explorer floats collected around the clock for well over a year. Their study reveals that most of the carbon from lush plankton blooms never reaches the deep ocean.    » read more »

New green jobs a benefit of effort to end dependence on oil

May 5, 2009 -- WASHINGTON, D.C. — As part of the ongoing effort to increase the use of domestic renewable fuels, U.S. Secretary of Energy Steven Chu today announced plans to provide $786.5 million from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act to accelerate advanced biofuels research and development and to provide additional funding for commercial-scale biorefinery demonstration projects.    » read more »

April 27, 2009 -- WASHINGTON, DC -- In a speech to the National Academy of Sciences, President Obama outlined a bold commitment to basic and applied research, innovation and education. The White House fact sheet is below.

THE WHITE HOUSE

Office of the Press Secretary

FACT SHEET: A HISTORIC COMMITMENT TO RESEARCH AND EDUCATION

Today, President Obama will speak before the Annual Meeting of the National Academy of Sciences, and discuss his plans to reinvigorate the American scientific enterprise through a bold commitment to basic and applied research, innovation, and education.    » read more »

April 27, 2009 -- WASHINGTON, D.C. - In a speech today to members of the National Academy of Sciences, President Barack Obama announced new initiatives and investments in scientific research, innovation, and education, declaring once again to restore science to its rightful place. "The days of science taking a back seat to ideology are over," he said.    » read more »

Scientists Avoid Problems of Genetic Manipulation by Instead Using Chemical Programming

LA JOLLA, CA, April 23, 2009—A group of researchers at The Scripps Research Institute and other institutions have achieved a breakthrough in converting adult cells all the way back to the most primitive embryonic-like cells without using the dangerous genetic manipulations associated with previous methods.    » read more »

April 22, 2009 -- BOULDER, Colo.—Researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have demonstrated a technique for efficiently suppressing errors in quantum computers. The advance could eventually make it much easier to build useful versions of these potentially powerful but highly fragile machines, which theoretically could solve important problems that are intractable using today’s computers.    » read more »