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Marcia and George Rieke and Jonathan Lunine are among a team of space scientists being put together by NASA to build the successor to the Hubble Space Telescope. The new Next Generation Space Telescope, as the project is called, will peer into space looking for clues to the earliest stars and galaxies in the universe.
The Hubble Space Telescope has its infrared vision back -- and UA astronomer Rodger Thompson showed first images from the restored "NICMOS" at a June 5 news conference.
On June 4, 2002, NASAs 2001 Mars Odyssey successfully deployed the Gamma Ray Spectrometer boom. The GRS instrument suite has already detected significant amounts of hydrogen beneath the surface of Mars. Boom deployment will enhance the suite's sensitivity.
An open-wheel racecar built by UA engineering students finished 97th out of 125 entries at the annual Formula SAE competition in Pontiac, Mich. UA faced competition from some teams that had spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on their cars and team expenses, and had 50 or more students to design and build the car. The UA car was built for only $30,000, with many donated parts and some credit card debt for the teams 15 members.
Researchers at the University of Arizona are exploring ways to "grow" microchips, using proteins from living cells. Microchips currently are made by lithography, etching and soldering. The new biological interconnects would bypass these processes with long strings of proteins called microtubules. They'll connect transistors and other devices in microchips by growing between the device junctions. They're solder-free, don't involve lithography or etching, and are highly uniform. Once the proteins connect devices, they will be coated with metal and turned into microscopic wires.
Size matters--at least for worm sperm. For tiny soil nematodes, big sperm have the edge over smaller sperm in fertilizing a mates eggs, according to University of Arizona biologists Craig LaMunyon and Samuel Ward.
Peter Smith, whose IMP camera provided unrivaled images on the Mars Pathfinder expedition, has been named as one of the participating scientists on the Mars Exploration Rover, due to leave Earth in mid-2003.
The UA Manduca Workshop trains local teachers on how to use insects as teaching tools. A new Web site also offers anyone a chance to be a budding entomologist.
The growing world network of seismic stations is increasingly useful for monitoring more than earthquakes, says UA geoscientist Terry Wallace. He studies seismograms as records of industrial explosions, clandestine nuclear weapons tests and terrorist bombings.
"Talk It Out" teaches preschoolers that there are better ways to settle arguments than fighting and screaming. And lessons these little ones learn have enormous impact on their future lives.