Armed with Science | Tag Archive | national science foundation

The BRAIN Initiative

Filed under Videos by jtozer on April 14, 2013 at 7:10 am {no comments}

President Barack Obama has announced a new research initiative to prevent, treat and cure brain injuries. The “BRAIN Initiative” gives scientists the tools they need to get a better picture of how the brain functions.

In his upcoming budget, the President plans to propose $100 million in 2014 –or what he calls a “significant investment” in the project– by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation to start the BRAIN Initiative.

The goal is to better understand how brain cells interact to help crack the code of brain injury and disease.

Specifically, DARPA plans to explore new tools to measure and analyze electrical signals to the brain, as well as, researching the vast spectrum of the brain’s functionality.

To learn more about traumatic brain injury awareness, visit Health.mil.

Story and information provided by Health.mil

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Honoring An Innovator

Filed under Featured, STEM by jtozer on February 11, 2013 at 7:28 am {no comments}

Astronaut John Young leaps from the lunar surface as he salutes the U.S. flag at the Descartes landing site during the Apollo 16 extravehicular activity. Astronaut Charles Duke, Jr. took the photo. The lunar module “Orion” is on the left. The lunar roving vehicle is parked beside Orion and the object behind Young (in the shadow of the lunar module) is the Far Ultraviolet Camera/Spectrograph. (Photo: NASA)

Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) Space Science Division (SSD) scientist Dr. George Carruthers has received the 2012 Medal of Technology National and Innovation. This is the nation’s highest honor for technology achievement, and it is bestowed by the president of the United States upon America’s leading innovators.

The award ceremony was held at the White House on February 1, 2013.

Dr. Carruthers grew up during the space race and was intrigued with space science.

While still a boy, he began building telescopes and model rockets and was an enthusiastic reader at the local libraries. His love for space science extended through his youth and eventually led him to pursue degrees in Aeronautical, Nuclear, and Astronomical Engineering from the University of Illinois.

Following his graduate studies, he accepted a position at NRL in 1964, after receiving a fellowship in Rocket Astronomy from the National Science Foundation. Throughout his tenure in the NRL SSD, Dr. Carruthers has focused his attention on far ultraviolet observations of the earth’s upper atmosphere and of astronomical phenomena.

In 1969 he received a patent for his pioneering instrumentation, “Image Converter for Detecting Electromagnetic Radiation Especially in Short Wave Lengths,” which detected electromagnetic radiation in short wave lengths.

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Improving Our Depth Perception in Augmented Reality

Filed under Technology, Videos by jtozer on October 8, 2012 at 7:39 am {no comments}

Sports fans have come to expect some of the extras they see on their TV screen, such as the yellow lines that appear on a football field to highlight where the ball needs to go for a first down.

Similarly, NASCAR fans can find their favorite driver in the pack because of those superimposed car numbers on the screen. But, most people are probably not familiar with the technology that makes all this happen.

Augmented reality, or “AR,” is used to superimpose computer generated virtual objects on our view of the real world. With support from the National Science Foundation, Swan and his team at Mississippi State University (MSU) are working to improve depth perception in the augmented reality environment. One challenge is aligning an object in the real word so that it precisely lines up with virtual objects.

While exactness may not be all that critical for a TV sporting event, think about a doctor using this technology in an operating room or a soldier relying on this tool during battle. Accurate depth perception is critical to medical and military applications of augmented reality.

Video provided by the National Science Foundation

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Achieving The First Light

Filed under Space, STEM by jtozer on August 15, 2012 at 7:54 am {no comments}

The Jansky Very Large Array radio astronomy telescope array consists of twenty-seven, 230-ton, 25-meter diameter dish antennas that together comprise a single radio telescope system. (Source: National Radio Astronomy Observatory)

U.S. Naval Research Laboratory scientists from the Radio Astrophysics and Sensing Section of the Remote Sensing Division in conjunction with radio astronomers and engineers from the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO), Socorro, N.M., achieve “First Light” image at frequencies below 1-gigahertz (GHz) on the Jansky Very Large Array (JVLA).

Through the combined expertise of NRL and NRAO scientists and engineers, a new, modern, wide-band receiver system has been developed and is being deployed onboard the JVLA to enable much more sensitive observations over a much broader frequency range extending from 50 megahertz to 500 megahertz (MHz).

Using the first five of the 27 new very high-frequency (VHF) receivers successfully brought into operation, astronomer Dr. Frazer Owen, NRAO, reached an important milestone, mapping the radio sky at 337 MHz.

“The use of over 100 megahertz of bandwidth in the first image is a dramatic illustration of the breakthrough to instantaneous wideband systems at frequencies below one gigahertz,” said Dr. Namir Kassim, section head, NRL Radio Astrophysics Section. “This represents a poorly explored part of the electromagnetic spectrum that is important for ionospheric and astrophysical research and to the Navy’s mission for navigation and communications.”

This demonstration of interferometric imaging is a key milestone.

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ONR Researcher Tapped for Role in National Materials Genome Initiative

Filed under Earth Sciences by jtozer on May 26, 2012 at 7:31 am {one comment}

The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) has selected an Office of Naval Research (ONR) director to serve as co-deputy chair of an interagency subcommittee tasked with speeding the advancement of new materials.

Dr. Julie Christodoulou, division director of naval materials in ONR’s Sea Warfare and Weapons department, became one of three co-deputy chairs of the National Science and Technology Council’s Subcommittee for the Materials Genome Initiative. The subcommittee is supporting the Materials Genome Initiative for Global Competitiveness (MGI), part of President Obama’s plan to accelerate the standard decades-long process to discover, mature and manufacture new materials.

Just as the Human Genome Project rejuvenated and spurred the growth of biological sciences by decoding the fundamental building blocks of human genetics, MGI is a national effort to build a materials innovation infrastructure that will accelerate the discovery and incorporation of materials in half the time and at a reduced cost of traditional approaches.

It took nearly 40 years for lithium-ion batteries to go from material discovery and development to mass market consumption.

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Robot SHARKS

Filed under Robots, Technology by jtozer on May 2, 2012 at 7:34 am {no comments}

Video provided by the National Science Foundation Edited by Jessica L. Tozer

Sharks with lasers on their heads!

Okay, not really, but I still don’t think Dr. Evil would be too disappointed. Robot sharks are still pretty awesome. And thanks to new research, not far from reality.

Dive in with NSF funded researcher John Long and his robotic sharks. A professor at Vassar College, Dr. Long and his team study real live sharks and their vertebral columns. They then takes these findings and design computer models and artificial vertebral columns to understand sharks’ movement and biomechanics.

Maybe lasers can be an additional feature…

From Science 360

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Report from Antarctica: USTRANSCOM Deputy Commander Vice Adm. Mark D. Harnitchek

Filed under Earth Sciences, STEM by Carla Voorhees on May 10, 2011 at 12:07 pm {no comments}

Vice Adm. Mark D. Harnitchek is the deputy commander, United States Transportation Command (USTRANSCOM), Scott Air Force Base, Ill. He serves as a principal advisor and assistant to the commander, USTRANSCOM. USTRANSCOM is the single manager for global air, land and sea deployment and distribution for the Department of Defense. This post was originally written for the USTRANSCOM internal blog.

Vice Admiral Harinitchek, Deputy Commander, USTRANSCOM (Official Photo)

I recently returned from the trip of a lifetime to Antarctica. I was there to visit the National Science Foundation’s facilities at McMurdo Station and Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station; not many folks get to go there so it was truly a thrill to experience that continent in all its majestic splendor — absolutely pristine and unspoiled — and to see firsthand the incredible performance of the mobility team that supports the National Science Foundation.

Literally everything at the National Science Foundation’s McMurdo Station and outposts on Antarctica is transported there by a TRANSCOM component — by sea via an Military Sealift Command charter vessel, container ship or oiler — and by air via a McChord C-17 or NYANG LC-130 (that’s a C-130 with skis). Equally impressive, everything present at the South Pole station was flown in an LC-130 — and I mean everything. I was lucky enough to fly to the South Pole and see these LC-130 professionals in action on the ice — and that’s literally on the ice, since there’s no concrete on the continent, and no hangers either, so the crews are outside working on this a/c in  subzero temps — talk about impressive! (more…)

Relentless Execution: The Final Dispatch from Antarctica

Filed under Education & Culture by John Ohab on March 3, 2011 at 3:11 pm {14 comments}

US Air Force Lt. Col. Vaughan is the Chief, Joint Operations and Plans, Joint Task Force Support Forces Antarctica.

This is the 42nd and final entry in the Armed with Science series, Dispatches from Antarctica. The series features Air Force Lt. Col. Ed Vaughan’s first-hand experiences on OPERATION: DEEP FREEZE, the Defense Department’s support of National Science Foundation research in Antarctica.

Christchurch, New Zealand — End of Tour Report: Relentless Execution

With a 4.5 hour C-17 flight from McMurdo Station to Christchurch, New Zealand, my short tour in Antarctica has come to a close. I spend this time reflecting on my tour. I’m very lucky to have served alongside a team of exceptional problem-solvers. They made my job easy. More importantly, they executed our mission without fail.

As warfighters deployed to a non-war zone, we’re fairly well positioned under the radar, as it were. I look around the airplane at the men and women with whom I served over the past two months. Not surprisingly, I see many of the same qualities I saw in my compatriots in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere. Qualities like ownership, integrity, service, excellence, creativity, commitment to the mission, accountability, teamwork, and thrift.

There’s no way to succeed in an environment like this without each person digging deep and finding the risk taker and innovator within him or herself. On a daily basis, they are tasked with succeeding in the face of unknown and difficult obstacles. The regulations and guide books don’t cover many of the challenges they face here. They must think on their feet, and they must do it fast. There is no time for whining, no time for laziness, no time for blaming anyone or anything, and certainly no time for bureaucrats. These fine humans make their mission their personal business. And then they mind that business with the sense of urgency and attention to detail of a sole proprietor.

So each day they execute. They execute relentlessly.

Superficially, I’m looking at Airmen and Sailors and Soldiers. Each one managing and leading and making things happen for most potent effect. The Technical Sergeant responsible for repairing and replacing LC-130 propellers fearlessly leads his team into sub-zero temperatures to make sure his venture is responding to his customer’s needs. When other shops might close their doors, the Prop Shop is open for business. The crusty Master Sergeant busy organizing and inspecting cargo loads puts his name and reputation on the line with each pallet he certifies—the sense of ownership in his method is so strong one expects to see a company logo with “inc.” after his initials. Watching the young military medical doctor caring for the sick and injured, one might get the sense that he just opened his own clinic and is willing to go the extra mile to ensure the community is served. After hours? He’s there when needed, 24/7.

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