***MEDIA ADVISORY***
DATE: Saturday, March 9, 2013
TIME: 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.; 3:45 p.m. is best for team robot competition
WHAT: Girls’ team workshop to build and program LEGO NXT robots
WHERE: Massachusetts Green High Performance Computing Center
100 Bigelow Street, Holyoke
Dozens of middle school girls from across western Massachusetts will converge on the new Massachusetts Green High Performance Computing Center (MGHPPC) in Holyoke on Saturday, March 9, where they will learn how to build and program LEGO robots as part of “Girls Connect,” a program
AMHERST, Mass. – Scientists studying how early land vertebrates evolved from fishes long thought that the animals developed legs for moving around on land well before their feeding systems and dietary habits changed enough to let them eat a land-based diet, but strong evidence was lacking. Now, for the first time fossil jaw measurements by Philip Anderson at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and others have tested and statistically confirmed this lag.
AMHERST, Mass. – A team of researchers at the University of Massachusetts Amherst is proposing a new investigative roadmap for the field of evolutionary developmental biology, or “evo devo,” to better understand how innovation at the genetic level can lead to ecological adaptations over time. Evo devo seeks to understand the specific genetic mechanisms underlying evolutionary change.
AMHERST, Mass. – Geoscientist Michele Cooke and colleagues at the University of Massachusetts Amherst take an uncommon, “Earth is lazy” approach to modeling fault development in the crust that is providing new insights into how faults grow. In particular, they study irregularities along strike-slip faults, the active zones where plates slip past each other such as at the San Andreas Fault of southern California.
AMHERST, Mass. – New recommendations by a National Research Council (NRC) expert panel on green and sustainable building performance could lead to a revolution in building science by creating the first large building performance database, says panel member Paul Fisette, a nationally recognized sustainable building expert at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.
AMHERST, Mass. – Evolutionary ecologist Sonya Auer of the University of Massachusetts Amherst has won the Elton Prize, one of only five British Ecological Society (BES) young investigator awards given each year to recognize the best research papers published in the society’s journals by early-career scientists.
AMHERST, Mass. – More than 2,500 years after tiny infant bones were scattered, perhaps offhandedly, amid animal remains on the floor of an Etruscan workshop, recently-discovered fragments of those bones are causing a stir far beyond Italy’s Poggio Civitate Archaeological Project.
AMHERST, Mass. – The University of Massachusetts Amherst’s MFA Program for Poets and Writers, one of the nation’s oldest and finest creative writing programs, will hold its 10th annual Juniper Summer Writing Institute from June 23-29 and eighth annual Institute for Young Writers from June 22-30.
SPRINGFIELD, Mass. – A new era for New England Public Radio began today as the station formally broke ground on a new, multi-million dollar production and operations facility at the corner of Main and Bridge streets in downtown Springfield.
AMHERST, Mass. – Ken Toong, executive director of Auxiliary Enterprises at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, has been named a winner of a 2013 Silver Plate Award from the International Foodservice Manufacturers Association (IFMA) in the colleges and universities category.