The number of doctorates awarded in science and engineering (S&E) fields has risen for the fourth consecutive year, according to the National Science Foundation. Last year the United States produced 29,854 doctorate degrees in S&E fields, an increase of nearly 7 percent from the previous year. Computer science doctorates led the way with a 28 percent increase to 1,452 degrees, following a double-digit increase in CS doctorates from the previous year. CS doctorates are up 79 percent since 2002 and now represent a considerable share of not only S&E doctorates but all doctorate degrees. Non-U.S. citizens have been key to the growth in CS doctorate degree production. In the mid-to-late 1990s permanent or temporary visa holders received about half of CS doctorates, but last year they accounted for 61 percent. CS doctorates to U.S. citizens rose 42 percent from 2002 to 2006, but jumped 115 percent for non-U.S. citizens over the same period.
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Technological advancements in sensing technology makes it possible to take more accurate measurements of brain activity, something computer scientists and neuroscientists say could lead to the discovery of the complex neuronal networks in the brain that allow for simple, automatic movements such as reaching for a glass of water. Virginia Tech and General Motors Research are opening the Laboratory for Neuroinformatics for the purpose of creating algorithms that process the massive amounts of data neuroscientists collect from the brain. The lab will be co-directed by Virginia Tech computer science professor Naren Ramakrishnan and General Motors research scientist K.P. Unnikrishnan. “Neuroscientists are making the transition from studying neurons to studying networks–the sequences of firings and spikes of activity across big groups of neurons,” Ramakrishnan says. “What we are trying to do is analyze all this data and discover something about the network–the connections and relationships.” Unnikrishnan says the many possible applications of neuroscience-related research include analyzing data from cars and maintaining vehicle health. But even greater applications are possible, Unnikrishnan says. “Creation of brain-machine interfaces is the next frontier,” Unnikrishnan says. “Giving senses to people who have lost them–vision, touch, hearing, and motor–would be a contribution to humanity.”
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Academics and software engineers from the universities of Edinburgh, Manchester, and Southampton have established the Software Sustainability Institute (SSI), which will partner with about 30 to 40 research communities across the United Kingdom to develop ways to keep their software current and to help them develop it to meet new requirements. SSI will optimize strategies for sustaining software and provide communities with best practices for improving it for future users. “The issue at the moment is that there are no coordinated ways of sustaining important research software once it comes to the end of its funding,” says SSI director Neil Chue Hong. “The creation of the SSI will ensure that important software is sustained so that it can continue to contribute towards high quality research.”
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Flying pixels have the potential to offer a more immersive three-dimensional (3D) viewing experience than 3D television sets, according to engineers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). The engineers describe their unique 3D display, called Flyfire, as a flock of tiny aircraft carrying multicolored light-emitting diodes (LEDs). The pixels can hover in front of a viewer and form an image, but they also can change their position to add greater depth to the image. “It’s a 3D display with a dual aspect–it can show an image like a traditional display, but then those pixels can move and transform into another shape,” says MIT’s E. Roon Kang. The initial proof-of-principle experiments used quad-rotor helicopters more than 10 centimeters across, and the precise control of their altitude was within three centimeters. Kang says it could take at least five years to make a display with 1,000 or more of the small flying pixels. MIT’s Emilio Frazzoli says onboard controls and a central control system also will be needed to coordinate pixel movement.
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Nagoya University researchers have developed a light-activated switch to turn nanomachines on and off. The team used tiny triggered tweezers made of DNA to open and close in response to ultraviolet (UV) and visible light. “We are designing DNA nano-robotics that are mechanically operated by light rather than chemical fuel,” says Nagoya researcher Hiroyuki Asanuma. The researchers focused on a loop of DNA that looks like a hairpin with two arms. At the end of each arm, azobenzene groups are integrated into the DNA sequence. Under visible light, the azobenzene groups adopt the trans isomer, allowing the base pairs to join together. When UV light is applied, the azobenzene groups switch to the more sterically-constrained cis isomer. The system is fully reversible, allowing it to have great potential to be applied to other nanotechnologies that use DNA. “To be able to switch biomolecular conformational changes is of considerable interest for many applications in biomedicine and bionanotechnology,” says Technical University of Munich’s Friedrich Simmel.
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Microsoft Live Labs researchers have developed Pivot, a tool designed to visually organize large data sets. Pivot presents data in the form of several images accompanied by textual data. Users can zoom into the images to study individual pieces of data, or zoom out to see items grouped according to certain criteria. Data collections can contain a few images with static data attached, or they can be large and connected to a feed of changing data. Pivot is based on Microsoft’s Seadragon, software designed for manipulating large amounts of visual information. Users can make their own collections of data by converting images to the Deep Zoom format used by Seadragon, and annotate them using a format based on extensible markup language. Pivot also could provide a better way to sort through Internet search results, because users could sort through thousands of results visually, instead of just looking a list of the top 10 search results.
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Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) president Susan Hockfield notes that the majority of the 2009 Nobel Prize winners for physics, chemistry, and medicine are immigrants who came to the United States as scientists or as graduate or post-doctoral students. She writes that they were drawn by the openness and prestige of the U.S. system of higher education and advanced research, but “that openness stands in sharp contrast to arcane U.S. immigration policies that discourage young scholars from settling in the U.S.” Student immigrants play a vital role in job creation, and Hockfield notes that foreign MIT graduates have started 2,340 active U.S. businesses in which more than 100,000 people are employed. She points out that U.S. immigration statutes require that students go back to their homelands after graduation and then apply for a visa if they wish to return and seek employment in the United States. “It would be hard to invent a policy more counterproductive to our national interest,” Hockfield says. She advocates the creation of a wider-ranging immigration policy that would allow foreign students who earn advanced degrees in science, technology, engineering, and math to easily obtain legal permanent residence. Also critical is the aggressive cultivation of more domestic talent, especially Ph.D.s in the sciences, as other countries’ graduation rates are outpacing those of the United States. “To be part of [the] global creative network we must inspire more young Americans to pursue scientific careers, and we must rapidly reform U.S. immigration policies that drive away talented young scholars who would otherwise decide to live, work, and innovate here,” Hockfield concludes.

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A project funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council and led by University of Nottingham researchers is developing a new computerized approach to scheduling airport operations that is designed to reduce delays, speed up baggage handling, and decrease pollution. The project aims to computerize and coordinate the scheduling of take-offs, landings, gate assignments, and baggage handling. The end result will be a search engine capable of analyzing the billions of possible scheduling combinations to provide the controllers with the most efficient courses of action. Currently, these four areas are organized manually by staff members who make decisions based on observations, reports, and experience. The scheduling improvements will make flying easier for passengers and reduce pollution by minimizing the time planes spend on the ground with their engines running. The project will develop computational models for each of the four areas of operations and determine how to run those models in conjunction with each other. One of the critical issues is how long an airplane needs for preparation on the ground before it can take off. Preparation includes enough time for the safety briefing and warming the engines. Sending a plane to the runway before either of these steps has taken place will cause delays on the runway that could affect other flights.

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University of Edinburgh researchers used low-energy lasers to make salt crystals in gel, which could make it possible to store a terabyte of data in a space the size of a sugar cube within the next 10 years. The researchers focused two overlapping low-energy laser beams on a salt solution, which provided the exact right amount of energy to form a temporary crystal. Edinburgh professor Andy Alexander says the process could be used to improve on traditional methods of optical data storage such as CDs. In comparison to the two-dimensional surface of a CD, three-dimensional (3D) optical data storage contains far more layers, and tiny crystals could act as storage points. Information would be stored by making marks in a pattern and read using light. Alexander says that 3D, crystal-based devices could be available within 10 years and would enable users to easily store, access, and move massive amounts of data. “This research builds on a discovery that was made by accident many years ago, when it was found that light can be used to trigger crystal formation,” he says. “We have refined this technique and now we can create crystals on demand. There is much work to be done before these crystals can be used in practical applications such as optical storage, but we believe they have significant potential.”

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The U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) unanimously voted to start drafting rules to support Internet neutrality. “It’s hard to imagine anything more important to the future of the success of our economy than a healthy and vibrant Internet, and there is no question that the openness of the Internet is the secret sauce to its success,” said FCC chairman Julius Genachowski following the vote. He also noted that the FCC has a core agenda to drive investment, innovation, and opportunity in 21st century communications. In addition to providing their customers with consistent Web traffic, Internet service providers (ISPs) would need to detail their network traffic management operations to ensure no wrongdoing. The U.S. government’s previous stance on the Web regulation issue was one of non-involvement, but it changed its position as worries mounted that ISPs could begin to exhibit favoritism toward their products and services. Crafting the rules will be a long, contentious process as wireless carriers, telecommunications firms, and other industry players and participants sound off on the benefits and drawbacks. The FCC’s Democratic commissioners are vocal advocates of net neutrality rules, while the agency’s Republican commissioners argue that such regulations are unnecessary. Critics are concerned that Web regulation will have an adverse effect on innovation in the Internet sector. However, Genachowski disagrees that the rules would hamper investment in broadband networks. “I reject the notion that we must choose between open Internet rules and investment by service providers in their networks,” he said during the meeting.

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