ALISON (Image 6)

Marge Porter of Somers School, Conn., measures ice thickness at 35.8 Mile Pond, an ALISON site. The ALISON (Alaska Lake Ice and Snow Observatory Network) program is a science education and scientific research partnership between the University of Alaska, Fairbanks, and the K-12 …

ALISON (Image
Graphs showing all the ice thickness data obtained at ALISON (Alaska Lake Ice and Snow Observatory Network) study sites in the winter of 2003-2004. Note that the vertical scales are different. The data reveal the effects of spatial variability in winter climate on lake ice …

ALISON (Image 3)

A group of home-school students at the Aurora Pond observatory site in Fairbanks, Alaska. In the foreground are two parents taking snow samples that will be weighed and their density determined. In the background, children measure snow depth and temperature. Note the line of …

ALISON (Image 5)

Two high school students from Innoko River School, Shageluk Village, Alaska, measure and record snow depth and the temperature on the ice surface at the bottom of the snow at Shageluk observatory. The observatory, which is operated by teacher Joy Hamilton and her high school …

ALISON Network (Image 4)

Students from the Innoko River School in Shageluk Village, Alaska, look on as village elder Rudi Hamilton uses his chainsaw to cut a slot in the ice prior to installing a hot-wire ice thickness gauge that will be used with the Shageluk observatory. The observatory, …

ALISON (Image 7)

Shannon Graham, a middle and high school science teacher at Washington School for the Deaf in Vancouver, Wash., places a snow sample in a bag so that it can be weighed and its density calculated in due course at the 34 Mile Pond, an ALISON site. The ALISON (Alaska Lake Ice and …

ALISON (Image 2)

Elementary school students from Wales Kingikmiut School in the Kingikmiut Village of Wales are participating in the ALISON (Alaska Lake Ice and Snow Observatory Network) program, a science education and scientific research partnership between the University of Alaska, …

When it comes to research at the nanoscale, vision is not necessarily an advantage. The subjects are so small, no one can see them. To encourage people with visual impairments to pursue fields in nanotechnology, educators have developed a way to craft accurate, detailed and touch-friendly models of nanoscale objects like carbon nanofibers, allowing the students to "see" those objects for the first time.


While students have learned from abstract models of chemical structures More …

Ever since 1887, when Norwegian mathematician Sophus Lie discovered the mathematical group called E8, researchers have been trying to understand the extraordinarily complex object described by a numerical matrix of more than 400,000 rows and columns.


Now, an international team of experts using powerful computers and programming techniques has mapped E8–a feat numerically akin to the mapping of the human genome–allowing for breakthroughs in a wide range of problems in geometry, numbe More …

Central-American villagers created sacred burial customs despite volcanic eruptions More …

Researchers have created an anti-reflective coating that allows light to travel through it, but lets almost none bounce off its surface. At least 10 times more effective than the coating on sunglasses or computer monitors, the material, which is made of silica nanorods, may be used to channel light into solar cells or allow more photons to surge through the surface of a light-emitting diode (LED).


Publishing in the March 1, 2007, Nature Photonics, lead author Jong Kyu Kim and More …

From enormous mining trucks to human knee implants, sensor technology is teaching us when enough is enough More …

Using corncob waste as a starting material, researchers have created carbon briquettes with complex nanopores capable of storing natural gas at an unprecedented density of 180 times their own volume and at one seventh the pressure of conventional natural gas tanks.


The breakthrough, announced today in Kansas City, Mo., is a significant step forward in the nationwide effort to fit more automobiles to run on methane, an abundant fuel that is domestically produced and cleaner burning tha More …

In a breakthrough that could make fuel cells practical for such small machines as lawnmowers and chainsaws, researchers have developed a new mechanism to efficiently control hydrogen fuel cell power.


Many standard fuel cell designs use electronics to control power output, but such designs require complex systems to manage humidity and fuel recovery and recycling systems to achieve acceptable efficiency.


The new process controls the hydrogen feed to match the required power out More …

Engineers have developed a system that uses a simple water purification technique that can eliminate 100 percent of the microbes in New Orleans water samples left from Hurricane Katrina. The technique makes use of specialized resins, copper and hydrogen peroxide to purify tainted water.


The system–safer, cheaper and simpler to use than many other methods–breaks down a range of toxic chemicals. While the method cleans the water, it doesn’t yet make the water drinkable. However, the m More …