The School of Public Health and Health Sciences (SPHHS) collected more than 200 toys to benefit the children at Square One, the Springfield-based early childhood education program whose building was damaged in a gas explosion last month.
Together, students, faculty, and staff in each of the school's four departments, along with many others throughout the campus community, donated toys for children ages 15 months to 5 years.
SPHHS organizers thanked everyone who participated in the toy drive and helped make a difference in a child's life this holiday season.
Photo: School of Public Health and
A one-year, $112,501 grant from the state Department of Higher Education’s Vision Project is funding the design and teaching of service-learning courses on campus. The new money will support faculty members to develop new courses or to adapt existing courses by adding a service-learning component.
Geckskin, a super-strong adhesive device developed by campus researchers that can hold 700 pounds on a smooth wall, has been named one of the top five science breakthroughs of 2012 by CNN Money.
An international team of microbiologists led by Klaus Nüsslein, associate professor of Microbiology, has found that a troubling net loss in diversity among the microbial organisms responsible for a functioning ecosystem is accompanying deforestation in the Amazon rainforest.
Contributing geometric and topological analyses of micro-materials, mathematician Robert Kusner aided experimental physicists at the University of Colorado (CU) by successfully explaining the observed “beautiful and complex patterns revealed” in three-dimensional liquid crystal experiments. The work is expected to lead to creation of new materials that can be actively controlled.
Malaria brings misery and death to millions in the developing world each year, and fighting it keeps medical researchers up at night because the mosquito-borne parasite Plasmodium falciparum, which causes the deadliest form of the disease, has developed resistance to every drug thrown at it. Resistance has cut short the useful life of nearly every therapy tried so far, experts say.
Though it seems like an oxymoron, Arctic hurricanes happen, complete with a central “eye,” extreme low barometric pressure and towering 30-foot waves that can sink small ships and coat metal platforms with thick ice, threatening oil and gas exploration. Now climate scientists in the Geosciences Department and in England report the first conclusive evidence that Arctic hurricanes, also known as polar lows, play a significant role in driving ocean water circulation and climate.
Biologist Jeffrey Blanchard and microbiologist Kristen DeAngelis, with other New England researchers, recently received a $500,000 grant from the Joint Genome Institute at the U.S. Department of Energy to identify soil microbes in Harvard Forest and track how they break down forest litter in a simulated warmer climate. The goal is to determine the impact of a warmer climate on microbes and their production of greenhouse gases.
Sandra Petersen, professor of Veterinary and Animal Sciences, is executive director, Patricia Lehouillier the financial director and Jennifer MacDonald managing director of the institute, which is overseen by Provost James
Campus researchers have received a two-year, $867,040 grant from the National Science Foundation to build a high-bandwidth optical data network to handle large amounts of computerized research data. The new network is designed to separate research data traffic from the rest of the data traffic on the Amherst campus.