ScienceMaster - July 2002 Newsletter

WEB SITE NEWS AND COMMENTARY

Short and Sweet

This month's newsletter will find many of you out of school, away on vacation; or just plain busy. That works fine for us because this edition is short and sweet. We are bursting with excitement about a new project and we will be emailing you a special edition of our newsletter July 15, 2002. We can't tell you too much right now, even a science-lover can get a bit superstitious but we know you will love it. So let's jump into some news and we'll be back at you in a few weeks.

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SCIENCE NEWS AND LINKS

Our Fear of and Fascination with Sharks

Last year, a series of shark attacks in U.S. waters created fear among beach goers. It also generated intense media coverage, as well as creating the perception that 2001 was a banner year for shark attacks. However, data indicate that attack numbers for the United States were almost identical to those of the previous year—54 in 2000 and 55 in 2001. More importantly, the number of serious attacks was less than half the average number over the last decade.

Sharks, which are "top predators," play an important role in the ocean and are typically at the top of the marine food chains. "This ecological role of sharks in the oceans is very important—similar to that of the big predators on land," says Hueter, past president of the American Elasmobranch Society "As top predators, sharks affect all the levels below them and there are few other species that can take their place if sharks are removed." [Full Story]
*Text and Photo courtesy NOAA

Scientists Become Filmmakers to Decipher Immunity

For years, scientists studying the immune system have based their observations on snapshots of isolated cells and tissues. Now, thanks to emerging technologies, researchers can have front-row seats to the dance of immune cells occurring within living tissues. New research, reported in three papers in the June 7 issue of the journal Science, for the first time displays the behavior of immune cells and their targets in intact lymph nodes. The publications open the door to important new discoveries that were not possible using previous techniques.

"It is 'The Immune System: The Movie'," says Ronald Germain, M.D., Ph.D., deputy chief of the laboratory of immunology at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) and a principal author of one of the studies. "We can now follow individual T cells within intact tissues to observe how they behave and interact with other cells as immune responses develop." A photograph and brief video of the interacting cells can be viewed online at http://www.niaid.nih.gov/cgi-shl/newsroom/mm_resources.cfm.

Still Image Video Capture
Stained dendritic cells and T cells in the mouse lymph node. Red cells are dendritic cells. Green cells are T cells. Yellow cells are T cells superimposed over dendritic cells; they appear yellow due to the combination of red and green fluorescence.
*Photo courtesy NIH

Another Solar System?

After 15 years of observation and lots of patience, the world's premier planet-hunting team has finally found a planetary system that reminds them of our home solar system. Dr. Geoffrey Marcy of the University of California, Berkeley and Dr. Paul Butler of the Carnegie Institution of Washington discovered a Jupiter-like planet orbiting a Sun-like star at nearly the same distance as Jupiter orbits our Sun. You may want to join the Planet Finder Club. For the archived Space Science update, click here. [Full Story]
*Photo courtesy NASA

Acoustics and Vibration Animations
Dan Russell, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Applied Physics at Kettering University in Flint, MI

Dr. Russell has put together a site of information and animations which will help you visualize scientific principals of acoustics and vibration. For example:

What is a Wave? - a disturbance which travels through a medium
The Doppler Effect - moving sound sources and sonic booms
Sound field radiated by a Tuning Fork - animations to accompany a paper submitted to the American Journal of Physics. [Jump]
*Photo courtesy Dr. Russell

The Greatest Images From NASA
If you had a web site of a collection of the Greatest Images from NASA what would you call it? How about GRIN? That's the name of NASA's newest library of images. GRIN is a collection of over a thousand images of significant historical interest scanned at high-resolution in several sizes. This collection is intended for the media, publishers, and the general public looking for high-quality photographs. --> http://grin.hq.nasa.gov/
*Photos courtesy NASA

*Credits & Contacts
Third party images and text are deemed to be in the public domain.
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