It's been a while since we've scoured our blogroll to see what's going on in the world of science, technology and education beyond the virtual borders of the Visions blog. Turns out there's some interesting stuff out there. Here are five:

• Lame. Very Lame. Worst James Bond gadgets ever. Sometimes even the best innovators -- like Bond's pal Q -- miss the mark. Remember radioactive lint or the revolving sofa that swallows whoever sits on it? Link via Wired's Gadget Lab.

• Our favorite science librarian (outside of UMR, of course) concludes a thoughtful, occasional series of posts about the future of library science and what his job will be like in 10 years. Considering that he began this project in June 2005, I guess it's more about what his job will be like in eight years. Either way, it's an interesting exercise -- trying to envision the future -- and all of us ought to take some time to put a little thought into the future of our careers, crafts and professions.

• One of the main challenges of science writing, according to nOnoScience, is "inaccessibility to useful information." A cautionary note to my fellow PR flacks: "The primers, which may be in the form of press-releases and abstracts are not only grossly under-informative, but in most cases frustratingly teasing."

• Virtual tennis, anyone? Just in case you aren't hearing enough about Second Life, read Second Life, Second Sport, about a tennis game on the virtual courts of a virtual Wimbledon.

• Good vibrations. Future Feeder introduces the haptic clock, a program that conveys time through a sequence of vibrations. "Perfect for meetings, lazy people, and people who trying to break the addiction of pulling out their cell phone to check the time." It might also make a pretty cool gadget for James Bond.

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Fifty-six years ago today, the first commercial computer in the United States was put into service for the U.S. Census Bureau. Dubbed UNIVAC I (Universal Automatic Computer I), the 13-ton behemoth used 5,200 vacuum tubes and could perform more than 1,000 calculations per second. It was the fastest in the world at the time. The following year a UNIVAC correctly predicted Eisenhower would be elected president.

But taking up a whopping 350 square feet of floor space, the UNIVAC was hardly your average PC. And I thought my laptop was too big.

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Now, computer science may not have the most glamorous image in the world. But the computer scientists we know do some pretty cool things. They're investigating ways to help protect the nation's power grid, developing a bioinformatics process to help study the morphology of baby, just-out-of-the-tadpole-stage frogs, and looking at ways to improve search-engine performance. UMR's computer science department also has up to four Ph.D.-level GAANN fellowships available for the right candidates.

Now comes the news that some academic administrators think the discipline just needs a cooler name. The discipline that gave us social networking sites seems to also be moving toward developing a social computing branch that better incorporates sociology, psychology, and communication theory alongside programming.

Maybe showing prospective students how computer science can change the world offers a better way to spiff up the discipline's image. Some UMR students have been working on that approach in their efforts to attract more females to the discipline. Their work involves a computerized "game" of sorts to show elementary school girls that computer science can be fun, and socially relevant. And as UMR will show the world soon through its designation as Missouri's first NSA-designated center for cyber-security education, computer science is also important to our national security.

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You might not think of electrical engineers as being leaders in medical research. But at UMR, EE researchers like R. Joe Stanley and Randy Moss have been working for several years on developing a method to detect skin cancer via digital imaging. Some of their latest work, published in the February issue of the scientific journal Skin Research and Technology, may help physicians better detect melanoma based on skin lesion color.

Lead author Stanley, along with Moss and Rolla dermatologist William V. Stoecker, used a color histogram technique to evaluate dermoscopy images of skin lesions. The results of their experiment "appear to indicate that the melanoma color feature information is located in the interior of the lesion." Their report describes techniques to possibly determine whether a lesion might be malignant based on relative color.

The researchers' paper is available as a PDF from Skin Research and Technology.

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The recent news that hackers broke into University of Missouri computer systems ought to present a strong case for a national need for programs like UMR's cyber-security efforts. And for the upcoming announcement that UMR will soon become a National Center of Academic Excellence in Information Assurance Education (CAEIAE).

When the designation occurs on June 5, UMR will become the first university in Missouri to achieve that designation. This means students will be eligible for scholarships and grants from the federal government if they choose to study "information assurance." UMR offers graduate certificates in this area, as well as emphasis areas in computer engineering and computer science.

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One of the newest resources to help promote UMR's research activities is Scholars' Mine, described as an online repository of UMR research. Can you dig it? Take the site's search engine for a test drive and let us know what you find.

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It's been a smidge more than a decade since I was in high school and had to answer all of the "what's next for you" questions. The daughter of a college science dean, I was certainly exposed to more biology than I ever cared to know. As a grade school student, I spent countless hours after school waiting in my dad's office and labs, where I saw students conduct experiments on animals and learn human anatomy by putting organs back inside life-sized mannequins. My parents, both trained as teachers, were always showing me how to do things -- from putting shingles on a roof to solving algebra equations.

Still, the thought of having to dissect frogs or other dead animals in a college biology class made me squemish. So, for me, the answer to what was next was any career path that kept me out of having to smell formaldehyde. With biology out of the question, I figured anything health-related was gone too. Don't get me wrong. I enjoyed playing with my Apple IIE, but I never even considered the role computer science plays in the medical field.

Continue reading "Attracting girls through 'edutainment'" »

Posted by Mindy Limback at 09:23 AM | Permalink | add to del.icio.us| Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Blogworld has been buzzing about ImThere, an innovative mobile social networking service. Now the service has caught the attention of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, snagging a spotlight in a recent Random Play feature.

UMR student-entrepreneur Benjamin Roodman is CEO of this new networking service that connects subscribers to information about events -- such as concerts, CD launch parties or indie film festivals -- via text messages over their cell phones.

Here's how it works: Users log on to the website and create profiles based on their musical tastes and other interests. Users can post photos in real time taken with cell phones from concerts, write reviews of events and get a text message with a list of events happening in the area, based on their interests.

It's a handy little service to use when you're in the St. Louis area but I'm looking forward to early April, which is when Ben tells me Ramped Media will launch ImThere nationwide. When that happens, I'm so there.

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A better way to keep track of our books, CDs, DVDs and video games, that is.

GuruLib.com is the brainchild of Rana Basheer, a UMR graduate (2003 MS in computer engineering) who recently returned to get his Ph.D. and conduct research in wireless networking. This website allows users to organize their personal libraries by retrieving information about their books, CDs, DVDs, video games or software from some 530 public and university libraries around the world as well as six Amazon.com servers. All you have to do is type in the name of your book, CD, DVD, etc. -- or use a UPC scanner if you have one handy -- and voila!, the Internet fetches all the info you need to know about it, including ISBN, used and new pricing information, author/performer, copyright information, etc. I spent the icy weekend cataloging my music and book libraries for insurance purposes. GuruLib has now become my latest online obsession.

Read more about how GuruLib.com works on our research news site.

Posted by Andrew Careaga at 09:12 AM | Permalink | add to del.icio.us| Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

While the so-called old media has been slow to pick up on our recent news item about student-entrepreneur Benjamin Roodman's cool mobile social networking service (ImThere), the blogosphere is all over it. Which should come as no surprise, since it involves techie gadgety and connects Internet and cell phone technology. That's the sort of thing bloggers jump on. The mainstream media? Not so much, apparently. Or not as quickly. We think they're missing out on a great story. ImThere could be the next YouTube.

Here's a roundup of blog coverage from the past couple of days:

• A MySpace for the mobile generation, from Smart Mobs, the blog of Virtual Community author Howard Rheingold.

• Tracking friends around music venues, from Wired's blog for music fans, Listening Post.

• Missouri student goes mobile..., from Textually.org.

• One of Ypulse's two mobile social networks to watch. We think it's really the only one to watch, but we admit a slight bias.

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Years ago, those groovy mod rockers the Who sang about "going mobile." These days, UMR student Ben Roodman is putting a new spin on the idea with the launch of ImThere, a social networking service that integrates the Internet with cellular telephone technology.

Roodman, a senior computer engineering major from Chesterfield, Mo., is the the CEO of ImThere, which could become the MySpace of the mobile world. It's a social networking
service that connects subscribers to information about events -- such as concerts, CD launch parties or indie film festivals -- via text messages over their cell phones.

ImThere is the first service launched by Ramped Media, a company Roodman co-founded in 2006. He describes ImThere as "a user-driven site that allows people to find things to do, by using either their cell phone or the website."

"We want to be on the forefront of mobile Internet technology,” Roodman says. “Text messaging is the medium that’s going to allow us to get to that point.”

Roodman and company -- which includes some fellow UMR students and one recent grad -- are piloting ImThere in St. Louis with plans to expand it to other markets later this year. Keep tabs on how things progress for this budding entrepreneur at the Ramped Media blog.

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Sprint Nextel CEO Gary Forsee, a 1972 civil engineering graduate from UMR, talks about the future of multimedia content on cell phones and other handheld devices in this interview published today on Forbes.com.

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She's just like the Crocodile Hunter, but with frogs.

Anne Maglia, assistant professor of biological sciences at UMR, studies the tiny amphibians -- specifically the decline in their populations and the malformations that show up in frog development. She recently shared her knowledge on midwestfrogs.com, an online documentary sponsored by the Chicago Herpetological Society.

Maglia hopes to learn how contaminants in the water supply -- from pesticide residue to lead mines -- effects this creature she likens to the "canary in the coal mine." If the junk in the water causes problems in the frogs, it won't be long before it becomes a problem for you and me.

Continue reading "Crikey!" »

Posted by Mary Helen Stoltz at 10:56 AM | Permalink | add to del.icio.us| Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

From the editors: Severe weather ripped through Missouri, Arkansas and Illinois this weekend, tearing off roofs and leaving several dead (read about it here, here or here). With the early start to the Midwest's tornado season, we asked Donald C. Wunsch II, the M.K. Finley Missouri Distinguished Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at UMR, to share his insights into tornado prediction.

Every tornado season, we hear stories of their destructive wrath. As video cameras have improved, we’ve seen much more dramatic clips, attesting to their power. And, all too predictably, we hear of deaths attributable to their fury.

The problem is that tornados are as unpredictable as these stories are predictable. They are highly nonlinear phenomena, and while patterns that give rise to them can be identified, there is a high false alarm rate. False alarms are very bad when the goal is to generate a warning. They create a “Boy Who Called Wolf" problem – people learn to ignore them, and then fail to respond when the situation is truly dire.

Continue reading "The trouble with tornados" »

Posted by Mindy Limback at 03:25 PM | Permalink | add to del.icio.us| Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

From the editors: With National Engineers Week upon us, we asked some of our resident experts to guest-blog about what's next in their areas of engineering. Donald C. Wunsch II, the M.K. Finley Missouri Distinguished Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at UMR, took us up on our challenge but decided to talk about what's not next in his field.

You’ve probably heard it by now, from rich and famous experts like Bill Joy, co-founder of Sun Microsystems, or inventor Ray Kurzweil of kurzweilAI.net : Get ready for computers that are smarter than people, by 2030 or earlier.

That stuff is hogwash. Here’s why:

Continue reading "What's not next in AI" »

Posted by Andrew Careaga at 07:28 AM | Permalink | add to del.icio.us| Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)