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.

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.

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.

A team of experts in biomechanics and physiology that conducted experiments on Oscar Pistorius, the South African bilateral amputee track athlete, have just released their findings in the "Journal of Applied Physiology." Some of their previously confidential findings were presented to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) in Lausanne, Switzerland in May of 2008. Other findings are now being released for the first time.

A portion of the team's findings had been presented at the CAS to appeal the eligibility ban that had been imposed on Pistorius by the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) barring him from sanctioned competitions, including the Olympics and World Championships.

Enhancing existing oil and gas wells for the purpose of producing electricity from the Earth's heat will be the focus of an annual international geothermal conference at SMU in November. The conference is coordinated by the SMU Geothermal Laboratory and SMU's Roy M. Huffington Department of Earth Sciences.

"Geothermal Energy Utilization Associated with Oil and Gas Development" will connect landowners with technical, operational and financial players interested in embarking on a geothermal energy project. The two-day conference is set for Nov. 3-4.

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.

Rare earthquake activity in the Dallas-Fort Worth area has prompted the National Science Foundation to loan SMU 10 seismic stations to study the phenomenon. News reports about the research have been filed by The Wall Street Journal, WFAA-TV Channel 8, the Dallas Morning News and others.

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.

SMU is a partner in a newly designated National Science Foundation research consortium aimed at building both military and commercial superiority by making technology faster, better and smarter.

The Net-Centric Software and Systems Industry/University Cooperative Research Center, which also includes two other universities and 11 companies, will focus on improving how complicated information is gathered, shared and used, from the battlefield to the boardroom.

Innovation is a tough concept to define and even harder to teach. But Lockheed Martin's legendary Skunk Works®, where the fastest military jets are born in secret, is sharing its name and formula for innovation with Southern Methodist University's Bobby B. Lyle School of Engineering.

In Greek mythology, Argus Panoptes was a giant sentry with a hundred eyes. But in the lab of Electrical Engineering Associate Professor Marc Christensen, Panoptes is a type of camera technology. The technology is being developed with funding from the U.S. military for surveillance by small aircraft at low altitudes.

The first comprehensive analysis of air emissions associated with natural gas and oil production in the Barnett Shale finds that those emissions might be a significant contributor to smog formation in the Dallas-Fort Worth area.

The emissions are comparable to the combined emissions in the Dallas-Fort Worth area from all cars and trucks. State regulators for years have targeted cars and trucks as a major source of smog in the D-FW area.

The Bobby B. Lyle School of Engineering at Southern Methodist University will serve as a designated research collaborator in the Systems Engineering Research Center, or SERC, the first University Affiliated Research Center funded by the Department of Defense to focus on challenging systems engineering issues facing the defense department and related defense industries.

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."

The Christmas tree that adorns the SMU Bobby B. Lyle School of Engineering holiday card is more than a colorfully lit symbol of the season. It's a unique and festive embodiment of the capabilities of the School's cutting-edge laboratories.

Designed and built in the Lyle School's Research Center for Advanced Manufacturing, called RCAM, the tree features a 3-dimensional lattice structure, known for its strength and versatility in a variety of manufacturing applications. With an actual height and width of about 5 inches, the tree was "grown" in a vacuum chamber from thin layers of titanium-alloy powder and shaped by the controlled melting of an electron beam.

SMU Professor of Electrical Engineering Gary Evans recently received some good news: Journal reviewers said they thought his proposal for solving one of the most perplexing problems in the emerging field of integrated photonics sounded impossible.

"To me, that's extremely promising when the reviewers don't think it's possible," Evans said. "When that's happened, it's been fun showing the reviewers that the conventional wisdom is incorrect."

SMU's Department of Psychology and The Guildhall at SMU have joined forces against dating violence.

Psychology Professors Ernest Jouriles and Renee McDonald, with Guildhall Lecturer Jeff Perryman and Deputy Director Tony Cuevas, are collaborating on a role-playing program that combines virtual reality with behavioral insight to help teach and test sexual assault avoidance techniques.

SMU seismologist Brian W. Stump has travelled far and wide to better understand the sound waves and vibrations that occasionally burp and shudder through and around the Earth.

The past several years, Stump, the Claude C. Albritton Jr. Chair in SMU's Roy M. Huffington Department of Earth Sciences in Dedman College, has expanded his research to China and South Korea.

David Son uses some of the Earth's most common building blocks to create complex new materials with potential wide-ranging applications.

Son conducts research on polymers containing silicon. One of the main elements in the Earth's crust, silicon is the major ingredient in common sand, and is readily available.

The movement of aquatic life can appear inexplicable when viewed through the glass of an aquarium tank.

But Paul Krueger believes the mechanics that jellyfish and squid use to maneuver can be applied to technology in the emerging field of "micro" vehicles.