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Imaging the Ionosphere in Three Dimensions |
| Scientists and students - undergraduate as well as graduate - have
worked hand in hand during the past four and a half years to design and
build the Boston University TERRIERS satellite, scheduled to be launched in May, 1999. |
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Putting Together the Alzheimer's Puzzle |
| A team of physicists at Boston University's Center for Polymer Studies, working with neurologists at Massachusetts General Hospital, has been able to gain a clearer picture of senile plaques and their structure, which are found in Alzheimer's affected brains, as well as a better understanding of how they develop. |
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Taking the Measure of Galaxies |
| Professor of Astronomy Tereasa Brainerd has set herself an enormous task - to measure the mass of galaxies.
Recently, Brainerd and her colleagues (Professor Roger
Blandford at Caltech and Dr. Ian Smail at the University of Durham)
used gravitational lensing, a technique based on Einstein's theory of General Relativity, to directly measure the extent of dark matter halos. |
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The Green, Green, Grass of Alaska! |
| Data from satellite observations indicate that in recent years spring has been
coming as much as seven days earlier in the northern high latitudes, creating a
longer growing season and significantly greening - increasing the amount of
vegetation - in the area, according to research by Associate Professor of
Geography Ranga Myneni. |
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Global Meltdown? |
| How is global climate change affecting the huge East Antarctic Ice
Sheet, and how will changes in the ice sheet affect the rest of the
world? Is the ice sheet in danger of collapse due to "greenhouse" warming? These are some of the critical questions that David Marchant, professor of earth science is investigating with support from the National Science Foundation. |
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New Promise for Controlling Crohn's and Other Inflammatory Diseases |
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A new gene involved in common inflammatory diseases, like rheumatoid arthritis and Crohn's disease, was recently discovered by scientists at Boston University's School of Dental Medicine. |
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Sitting in the "Smart Seat" |
| Although not yet a regular feature, space weather reports may soon join
terrestrial weather reports on the nightly news. As the sun approaches
solar maximum, a period of intense activity, huge spumes of electrified
gases and magnetic fields are periodically ejected toward Earth. |
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Building a Better MRI |
| Scientists at Boston Univesity's Photonics Center, are collaborating with doctors at Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School, on the further development of a new form of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) that will significantly improve the quality of images of the lungs, blood vessels, and brain. |
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Structuring the Genetic Revolution |
| Bioinformatics, a bold new interdisciplinary approach to the integration of biological information at all levels, is crucial to organizing this wealth of information to support advances not only in basic biology, but also in biotechnology, medicine, agriculture, energy, and the chemical and pharmaceutical industries. It is a major focus at Boston University. |
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Prototyping a National Infrastructure for Computing in the 21st Century |
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As part of the NSF-sponsored National Computational Science Alliance, Boston University's Center for Computational Science (CCS) and Scientific Computing and Visualization group (SCV) are engaged in the challenging task of helping to create the nation's computing infrastructure for the coming millenium. |
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Improving Life by Numbers |
| An interdisciplinary team of scientists at Boston University's Center for BioDynamics is working to apply insights from modern mathematics, biology, and engineering to some of the challenges of modern medicine. |
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Neutrinos: Minute Particles, Massive Results |
| Scientists at Boston University's physics department played a leading role in the discovery of the first evidence that neutrinos — tiny electrically neutral particles -- have mass. |