Technology
Wired: Lasers Power Pentagon’s Next-Gen Artificial Limbs
Reporter Katie Drummond with Wired magazine has covered the research of SMU engineers Marc Christensen and Volkan Otugen.
Christensen and Otugen are working as part of a consortium with industry and other universities to develop technology that will someday help amputees have “feeling” in their artificial limbs. The research is funded through a $5.6 million grant from the U.S. Department of Defense and industry for a center led by SMU’s Lyle School of Engineering. Continue reading
SMU Geothermal Lab project: Vast clean energy source confirmed by Google.org-funded geothermal mapping
New research from SMU’s Geothermal Laboratory, funded by a grant from Google.org, documents significant geothermal resources across the United States capable of producing more than three million megawatts of green power – 10 times the installed capacity of coal power plants today. Continue reading
Posted in Earth & Climate, Energy & Matter, Researcher news, Technology, Videos
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SMU faculty, students to help UNHCR clean up refugee camp water
The search for solutions to dangerous water quality issues in refugee camps is driving an SMU lab group’s partnership with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. SMU faculty and students will work in the lab and on the ground in Kenya, Uganda, Liberia and Bangladesh.
The group will integrate information from other sources to develop a database that will help UNHCR planners provide safer drinking water in existing and future refugee camps. Continue reading
The Guardian: Weatherwatch — Can the intensity of a hurricane be predicted?
Science journalist David Hambling has covered the hurricane modeling research of SMU engineers Yu Su, Michael Hahsler and Margaret Dunham in the U.K. daily newspaper The Guardian.
The article published in Hambling’s Oct. 12 column “Weatherwatch.”
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KERA: Engineering Hope: Research To Aid Injured Troops
Reporter B.J. Austin with Dallas area Public Radio station KERA has interviewed SMU engineers Marc Christensen and Volkan Otugen who are working as part of a consortium with industry and other universities to develop technology that will someday help amputees have “feeling” in their artificial limbs. Continue reading
In These Times: How Baseball Explains Modern Racism
Best-selling author, syndicated columnist and progressive talk-radio host David Sirota has covered the research of SMU’s Dr. Johan Sulaeman, an expert in labor economics and discrimination. The article published in the Sept. 30 issue of In These Times.
An assistant professor of finance in the Cox School of Business, Sulaeman and his co-authors analyzed 3.5 million Major League Baseball pitches and found that racial/ethnic bias by home plate umpires lowers the performance of Major League’s minority pitchers, diminishing their pay compared to white pitchers.
The study found that minority pitchers reacted to umpire bias by playing it safe with the pitches they throw in a way that actually harmed their performance.
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Science News: Hints of dark matter reported, again
Science News quotes SMU physicist Dr. Jodi Cooley in its Sept. 12 report “Hints of dark matter reported, again.”
The online story notes that two of the world’s particle detectors differ on whether dark matter has been spotted. Science journalist Devin Powell asked Cooley, assistant professor of experimental particle physics in SMU’s Physics Department, to weigh in on the matter. Cooley is part of the international collaboration of scientists that is hunting for dark matter on the CDMS II experiment in Minnesota’s Soudan mine.
White favoritism by Major League umps lowers minority pitcher performance, pay
Racial/ethnic bias by home plate umpires lowers the performance of Major League’s minority pitchers, diminishing their pay compared to white pitchers, says a new study by economist Johan Sulaeman, Southern Methodist University, Dallas.
The study found that minority pitchers reacted to umpire bias by playing it safe with the pitches they throw in a way that actually harmed their performance.
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The Telegraph: The Pistorius problem – how South African blade runner’s artificial legs make him 10 seconds quicker
Australia’s The Telegraph newspaper quotes SMU’s Peter Weyand, an expert in human locomotion, in an Aug. 11 article “The Pistorius problem – how South African blade runner’s artificial legs make him 10 seconds quicker”
The Telegraph article examines the controversy surrounding double-amputee sprinter Oscar Pistorius and his qualification for the 2012 London Olympics. What if the 24-year-old South African — the world’s only sprinter with no legs — comes out a winner? Will their be an outcry against Pistorius controversial carbon-fiber prosthetic legs that attach just below his knees?
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