The artificial lower limbs of double-amputee Olympic hopeful Oscar Pistorius give him a clear and major advantage over his competition, taking 10 seconds or more off what his 400-meter race time would be if his prosthesis behaved like intact limbs.

That's the conclusion — released to the public for the first time — of human performance experts Peter Weyand of Southern Methodist University and Matthew Bundle of the University of Wyoming.

The Weyand-Bundle conclusion is part of a written Point-Counterpoint style debate published Nov. 19 online in the "Journal of Applied Physiology." Weyand and Bundle were the first two authors of the study publishing the test results acquired as part of the legal appeal process undertaken after the governing body of Track and Field — the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) — banned Pistorius from able-bodied track competitions, including the Olympics.

The Congo Basin — with its massive, lush tropical rain forest — was far different 150 million to 200 million years ago.

At that time Africa and South America were part of the single continent Gondwana. The Congo Basin was arid, with a small amount of seasonal rainfall, and few bushes or trees populated the landscape, according to a new geochemical analysis of rare ancient soils.

The Geothermal Laboratory at SMU has been awarded $5.25 million by the U.S. Department of Energy to help provide data for the planned National Geothermal Database.

The grant allocation is part of $338 million in Recovery Act funding that was announced Oct. 29 by DOE Secretary Steven Chu. The funding is intended to help dramatically expand geothermal production in the United States.

Paleontologist Michael J. Polcyn, director of the Visualization Laboratory in the SMU Huffington Department of Earth Sciences and SMU adjunct research associate, is quoted as an expert source in Real Sea Monsters: The Hunt for Predator X. The article by reporter James O'Donoghue was published in the October 2009 issue of the magazine New Scientist.

Thirty million years ago, before Ethiopia's mountainous highlands split and the Great Rift Valley formed, the tropical zone had warmer soil temperatures, higher rainfall and different atmospheric circulation patterns than it does today, according to new research of fossil soils found in the central African nation.

Neil J. Tabor, associate professor of Earth Sciences at SMU and an expert in sedimentology and isotope geochemistry, calculated past climate using oxygen and hydrogen isotopes in minerals from fossil soils discovered in the highlands of northwest Ethiopia. The highlands represent the bulk of the mountains on the African continent.

For paleobotanist Bonnie Jacobs standing atop a mountain in the highlands of northwest Ethiopia, it's as if she can see forever — or at least as far back as 30 million years ago.

Jacobs is part of an international team of researchers hunting scientific clues to Africa's prehistoric ecosystems.

The researchers are among the first to combine independent lines of evidence from various fossil and geochemical sources to reconstruct the prehistoric climate, landscape and ecosystems of Ethiopia in particular, and tropical Africa in general for the time interval from 65 million years ago — when dinosaurs went extinct, to about 8 million years ago — when apes split from humans.

SMU geologist James E. Quick led a team of geologists that discovered a rare fossil supervolcano in the Sesia Valley of the Italian Alps.

Now news journalists from internet, radio, television and newspaper outlets are interviewing Quick and his team, which was back at the site this September for further research. The team made the discovery two years ago and announced it in July. The discovery will advance scientific understanding of active supervolcanoes, like Yellowstone, which is the second-largest supervolcano in the world and which last erupted 630,000 years ago.

Sesia Valley's unprecedented exposure of magmatic plumbing provides a model for interpreting geophysical profiles and magmatic processes beneath active calderas. The exposure also serves as direct confirmation of the cause-and-effect link between molten rock moving through the Earth's crust and explosive volcanism.

Paleontologist Michael J. Polcyn, director of the Visualization Laboratory in the SMU Huffington Department of Earth Sciences and SMU adjunct research associate, appears as an expert source in Mega Beasts: T-Rex of the Deep. The science documentary aired Sept. 13 on the Discovery Channel.

A growing global movement to apologize and make restitution to victims of human rights abuses is now gathering steam in the United States, but it won't be a first for the country, says the president of The Western History Association.

"In reviewing the history of reconciliation in the American West, I've found three examples of government restitution — where we acknowledge we've participated in human rights abuses and offered either an apology, restitution, reparation or all three," says Sherry Smith, associate director of the Clements Center for Southwest Studies at SMU and an SMU history professor.

The Christian Science Monitor asked human locomotion expert Peter Weyand to weigh in on the subject of how fast human beings might ultimately be able to run. Weyand's analysis was published as an opinion essay in the newspaper's Sept. 4 online version.

Earlier Weyand was interviewed by the online magazine Matador Sports for the piece "Calculating the Human Speed Limit," which published Aug. 21, 2009; and by Britain's Daily Express, which published "How Fast Can a Bolt of Lightning Travel?" in its July 26, 2009 edition. Weyand was also quoted by the blog SBS.com.au in a story July 22, 2009.

Weyand, a physiologist and biomechanist, is an SMU associate professor of applied physiology and biomechanics in the Annette Caldwell Simmons School of Education & Human Development. He recently lead a team of experts in biomechanics and physiology that conducted experiments on Oscar Pistorius. The South African bilateral amputee track athlete, Pistorius has made world headlines trying to qualify for races against runners with intact limbs, including the Olympics.

Fossils in the rock outcrops of the coast of Angola in Africa are a "museum in the ground," says SMU vertebrate paleontologist Louis L. Jacobs. Louise Redvers with Agence France Presse interviewed Jacobs. BBC and others published the story "Angola: Final frontier for fossils."

"Angola is the final frontier for palaeontology," Jacobs is quoted. "Due to the war, there has been little research carried out... but now we are getting in finally and there is so much to find.

"In some areas there are literally fossils sticking out of the rocks, it is like a museum in the ground."

The remarkable 60-year-career of internationally recognized field archaeologist Fred Wendorf, SMU Henderson-Morrison Professor of Prehistory Emeritus, is the subject of an interview with Richard Pettigrew, president and executive director of the nonprofit Archaeological Legacy Institute.

Pettigrew interviewed Wendorf for The Archaeology Channel, exploring Wendorf's productive career: Founding the Fort Burgwin Research Center in New Mexico, now The Archaeological Field School at SMU-in-Taos; founding SMU's Department of Anthropology; and leading the Combined Prehistoric Expedition in the Sahara Desert from 1962 to 1999, the longest international prehistoric expedition in northeastern Africa.

A collection of artifacts from the expedition are housed in The Wendorf Collection of The British Museum.

Listen to the interview

Southern Methodist University researchers are taking a different approach to producing photo and video images for military surveillance cameras outfitted on unmanned aerial vehicles and helmets. Walt Maciborski of The 33 news broadcast in Dallas reported July 8 on research in the lab of Electrical Engineering Associate Professor Marc Christensen.

Fossil finds in the rock outcrops of the coast of Angola in Africa are a "museum in the ground," according to SMU vertebrate paleontologist Louis L. Jacobs.

Internationally recognized for his fossil discoveries, Jacobs and a team of researchers have unearthed fossils in the outcrops from Namibe, at the southern end of Angola's coast, to Cabinda, at the northern end.

Peter Weyand, an SMU associate professor of applied physiology and biomechanics, was part of a team of experts in biomechanics and physiology that conducted experiments on Oscar Pistorius. The South African bilateral amputee track athlete has made world headlines trying to qualify for races against runners with intact limbs, including the Olympics.

The team just released their full findings in the "Journal of Applied Physiology." Some of the findings were previously confidential and are being released now for the first time. The findings were presented earlier to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) in Lausanne, Switzerland in May of 2008.

Reporter Jeannine Stein of the Los Angeles Times reported July 1 on the new findings.

Southern Methodist University researchers are taking a different approach to producing photo and video images for military surveillance cameras outfitted on unmanned aerial vehicles and helmets. David Hambling of Wired magazine reported July 1 on research in the lab of Electrical Engineering Associate Professor Marc Christensen.

Southern Methodist University researchers are taking a different approach to producing photo and video images for military surveillance cameras outfitted on unmanned aerial vehicles and helmets. William Matthews of Defense News reported June 8 on research in the lab of Electrical Engineering Associate Professor Marc Christensen.

SMU researchers will deploy seismic stations in North Texas in an effort to gather information about the recent spate of earthquakes in the area, according to a June 9 report by WFAA-TV Channel 8 news reporter Jason Whitely. Read the full story.

"Antimatter" is one of the big stars in the new Ron Howard film "Angels & Demons." After seeing the movie, people may wonder how much of the science in the film is actually real.

SMU Physics Professor Fredrick Olness says the new action thriller exploits cutting-edge science to create an exciting tale of science fiction mystery and imagination. "Angels & Demons" takes key ideas that are based upon scientific fact, Olness comments, and then exaggerates the details for the purpose of storytelling — and that's the transformation from "science" to "science fiction."

An SMU anthropologist whose work centers on how people first came to inhabit North America has been elected a member of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS). David Meltzer, chair of SMU's Department of Anthropology, has been elected a member of the NAS in recognition for his achievements in original scientific research.

Evolutionary theory expert Ron Wetherington, an SMU professor of anthropology and director of the University's Center for Teaching Excellence, has received the 2009 Grassroots Hero Award from the Texas Freedom Network (TFN). Wetherington will accept the award April 16 at a ceremony in Dallas.

TFN presents the award each year to "a dedicated individual who exemplifies our work to stand up for science."

The work of SMU researchers Timothy Myers and Anthony Fiorillo was featured online March 19, 2009 on the Discovery Channel. "Mass Dino Graves Suggest Young Banded Together" by Jennifer Viegas highlighted findings being published in the April issue of "Science" magazine.

Gary E. Pittman received the 2008 Distinguished Alumni Award, the highest award SMU can bestow upon its former students. Pittman and other recipients were honored at the November DAA celebration.

Pittman is a multifaceted researcher, whose discovery has transformed the electronics world and our daily lives. While working at Texas Instruments in the 1960s, he and a colleague co-invented the light emitting diode. More commonly known now as the LED, the invention led to formation of the multi-billion-dollar optical communications industry.

Vertebrate paleontologist Louis L. Jacobs, a professor in Dedman College's Roy M. Huffington Department of Earth Sciences, is quoted in Discovery News online in the February 25 story "Long-Necked Stegosaur Defies Reputation."

Jacobs is known for his work documenting changes in fossil mammals in Pakistan, which helps scholars correlate climatic changes with evolutionary changes seen in animals, and which helps calibrate the rate of DNA evolution in mammals. He's also credited for discovery of what's now known as "Malawisaurus," a plant-eating dinosaur that lived in Malawi, Africa, 115 million years ago.

Vertebrate paleontologist Louis L. Jacobs, a professor in Dedman College's Roy M. Huffington Department of Earth Sciences, is quoted in the February 3 online story "Early whales gave birth on land, fossils reveal" by National Geographic News Service.

Jacobs is known for his work documenting changes in fossil mammals in Pakistan, which helps scholars correlate climatic changes with evolutionary changes seen in animals, and which helps calibrate the rate of DNA evolution in mammals. He's also credited for discovery of what's now known as "Malawisaurus," a plant-eating dinosaur that lived in Malawi, Africa, 115 million years ago.

SMU's Meadows Museum honors the 15th anniversary of University Distinguished Professor of Art History P. Gregory Warden's groundbreaking archaeological excavation in Poggio Colla, Italy with an exhibition dedicated to the Etruscans.

"From the Temple and the Tomb: Etruscan Treasures From Tuscany" is the most comprehensive exhibition of Etruscan art ever undertaken in the United States, with more than 400 objects spanning the 9th through 2nd centuries B.C.

Robert H. Dennard, an alumnus of SMU's Bobby B. Lyle School of Engineering, will receive engineering's highest honor "for his invention and contributions to the development of Dynamic Random Access Memory, or DRAM, used universally in computers and other data processing and communication systems."

Vertebrate paleontologist Louis L. Jacobs is scientific consultant and co-writer of a new 33-minute video just released by the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology.

A professor in Dedman College's Roy M. Huffington Department of Earth Sciences, Jacobs introduces the "We Are SVP" video. An internationally known vertebrate paleontologist, he is a former president of the society.

Through their research, SMU professors not only bring new information and insights to their classrooms, but also serve as role models and collaborators to students who conduct research in their laboratories across campus.

Maintaining a strong research program is significant for a number of reasons, says James Quick, associate vice president for research and dean of graduate studies.

"Research programs serve as a recruiting tool that helps a university attract the best students," Quick says. "Research also increases the diversity of ideas on campus and creates opportunities for different departments to work together on interdisciplinary projects."

Kumar Venkataraman, in SMU's Cox School of Business, has received an SMU 2008 Ford Research Fellowship.

Venkataraman's research has influenced important policy debates on the structure of financial markets and has been cited by regulators with the Securities and Exchange Commission in the United States, as well as with the Financial Services Authority in Europe.

Steven Vik, in the Department of Biological Sciences of Dedman College, has received an SMU 2008 Ford Research Fellowship.

A professor in the Department of Biological Sciences, Vik's research interests include protein structure and function, and the biochemistry of membrane-bound enzymes. His work focuses on key mechanisms of bioenergetics, the study of how living systems get and use the energy sources required to sustain life.

Marc Christensen, in SMU's Department of Electrical Engineering, has received an SMU 2008 Ford Research Fellowship.

Christensen, an associate professor and chair of the Department of Electrical Engineering in the Bobby B. Lyle School of Engineering, has built a nationally recognized research group in photonics and computational imaging.