Check Out What Could Become The UK's Tallest Bridge

From Gizmodo



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We Must Stop the Avalanche of Low-Quality Research

From The Chronicle of Higher Education....

"Everybody agrees that scientific research is indispensable to the nation's health, prosperity, and security. In the many discussions of the value of research, however, one rarely hears any mention of how much publication of the results is best. Indeed, for all the regrets one hears in these hard times of research suffering from financing problems, we shouldn't forget the fact that the last few decades have seen astounding growth in the sheer output of research findings and conclusions. Just consider the raw increase in the number of journals. Using Ulrich's Periodicals Directory, Michael Mabe shows that the number of "refereed academic/scholarly" publications grows at a rate of 3.26 percent per year (i.e., doubles about every 20 years). The main cause: the growth in the number of researchers."

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Taking Lessons From What Went Wrong

From The New York Times...

"Disasters teach more than successes.

While that idea may sound paradoxical, it is widely accepted among engineers. They say grim lessons arise because the reasons for triumph in matters of technology are often arbitrary and invisible, whereas the cause of a particular failure can frequently be uncovered, documented and reworked to make improvements.

Disaster, in short, can become a spur to innovation."

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'Elegance in Science'

From insidehighered.com...

"Ian Glynn is a physiologist with a passion for a concept not usually associated with his field: elegance. Specifically, its application and relevance across a wide range of scientific disciplines, from physiology to physics, astronomy to neurology. In his new book, Elegance in Science: The Beauty of Simplicity (Oxford University Press), Glynn gives examples of elegance from each of these subjects and several others, showing how elegance crops up in places where it might be expected (in the mathematics and mechanics of Archimedes) and where it might not be (in the nerve fibers of a giant squid)."

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Whither the Wikis?

From insidehighered.com...

"Of all the Web 2.0 tools that have become de rigueur on college campuses, wikis fundamentally embody the Internet’s original promise of pooling the world’s knowledge — a promise that resonates loudly in academe.

And yet higher education’s relationship with wikis — Web sites that allow users to collectively create and edit content — has been somewhat hot-and-cold. Wikipedia, the do-it-yourself online encyclopedia, vexed academics early on because of its wild-west content policies and the perception that students were using it as a shortcut to avoid the tedium of combing through more reliable sources. This frustration has been compounded by the fact that attempts to create scholarly equivalents have not been nearly as successful.

However, academe’s disdain for the anarchical site has since softened; a number of professors have preached tolerance, even appreciation, of Wikipedia as a useful starting point for research. As the relationship between higher education and wikis matures, it is becoming clearer where wikis are jibing with the culture of academe, and where they are not."

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The Aerodynamics of the World Cup Ball

Good Vibrations: Treating brain disease with some good vibes

From nsf.gov...

"Columbia University bioengineer Elisa Konofagou is making waves when it comes to researching treatments for degenerative brain disorders such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's. These aren't just any waves; they're ultrasound waves.

With support from the National Science Foundation (NSF), Konofagou is experimenting with ultrasound technology and how it could become part of a comprehensive treatment for various degenerative brain diseases."

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