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Moons Leave Auroral Footprints on Jupiter |
| The interests of John T. Clarke, professor of astronomy and faculty member in the
Center for Space Physics, lie in auroras on the far-away planets Jupiter and Saturn. Recently he and his colleagues used the Hubble Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph to produce brilliant ultraviolet (uv) images showing auroras on the planet Jupiter. |
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Synthetic Photosynthesis |
| The problem of harnessing the sun's energy is being addressed by Chemistry Professor Guilford Jones, a Photonics Center faculty member, who is working on the basic science that may hold the key to transforming solar energy into readily used power. |
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Reengineering Diabetes |
| In the not too distant future diabetics may also be able to leave the balancing of insulin levels to their bodies, thanks to a new technology being developed by Tejal Desai, associate professor of biomedical engineering, that effectively reintroduces insulin-producing cells to the pancreas. |
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Green Power: The Promise of Fuel Cells |
| Srikanth Gopalan, a College of Engineering assistant professor of manufacturing engineering, envisions a day in the not too distant future when individual homes will manufacture their own electric power, free of the grid and the massive generating plants we now depend on for electricity. |
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Hidden Persuaders: Learning While Your Thoughts are Elsewhere |
| In his 1957 classic critique of advertising, Vance Packard posited that
what you don't perceive may, in fact, influence what you do. Now, some
45 years later, Takeo Watanabe has shown experimentally that visual learning takes place in the absence of awareness, attention, or even relevance to the task at hand. |
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High-Tech Dowsing: Finding Water in the Desert |
| In olden times New Englanders employed a forked stick to locate promising spots to site their wells. Modern day diviners, like Professor Farouk El-Baz, director of BU's Center for Remote Sensing, use highly sophisticated and powerful instruments, including satellite images, to locate potential new underground sources of water for people living in desert areas. |
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Global Warming: The Human Touch |
| Over the past 130 years human activities have contributed to the
earth's rising surface temperatures, according to a new analysis by Robert Kaufmann, a College of Arts and Sciences associate professor of geography and core faculty member of the Center for Energy and Environmental Studies. |
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Firm Footing for Targeted Drug Delivery |
| Ligand-receptor pairs are as specific to one another as a lock and key.Joyce Wong, Clare Boothe Luce Assistant Professor of Biomedical Engineering, has been investigating the factors that govern ligand-receptor binding with the aim of creating new systems for more effective, targeted drug delivery. |
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Ten Minutes of Sunshine: Vitamin D & Cancer |
| A critical protein involved in vitamin D metabolism has recently been isolated in human colon cells by Michael D. Holick, a MED professor of medicine. |
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Floss for Your Heart's Sake |
| Recent research by Salomon Amar, a professor at the Goldman School of Dental Medicine, indicates that gum disease may aggravate atherosclerosis, the hardening of the arteries associated with heart disease and stroke. |