On July 15, President Obama made a trip to Holland, Michigan to visit the site of an advanced battery plant.  As part of the funds from the Recovery Act, this would be the 9th plant to be built.  The plant is proposed to create 300 new jobs, and be a sort of flagship for advanced batteries produced in the United States.  The administration’s hope is that within five years, the United States will be producing 40 percent of the world’s demand for vehicular batteries.

Continue reading “White House Lauds Advanced Batteries to Be Made in Michigan”

Continue reading “Ask A Nobel Laureate Photographs Hot Off the Presses!”

Our first ever Networking Forum: The Public Education of Science was a huge success!

The format of this program was a departure from C²ST’s normal programming. Instead of having a traditional lecture with Q&A, panelists and attendees spent about 25 minutes in the auditorium, receiving an overview of the topic. The group then moved into the atrium where each panelist was seated at a table, ready to take questions and continue the conversation.

Continue reading “Networking Forum 3/31”

Originally published at: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/05/20/AR2010052003336_pf.html

The other day, the J. Craig Venter Institute announced that it had created a man-made copy of the genome  of Mycoplasma mycoides. A bacteria.

After painstakingly linking over a million nucleotides in the right places to create the complete genome, they implanted this into a different bacterial cell.  Not only did it begin to immediately reprogram the recipient cell, but it began to reproduce those new cells.  Naturally.

This is, quite honestly, the coolest thing. Ever.

Five experts, knee-deep in dealing with the controversy that has become “Asian Carp,” presented their research and views on April 6 at the Shedd Aquariums Phelps Auditorium.

In this venue, feet from living examples of the invasive species, the history of the Great Lakes water flows , the ecology, and policy perspectives of plans of action were discussed.

To put it into perspective, Duane Chapman of the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) makes note that when the media refer to “Asian Carp,” they are actually talking about the Big Head and Silver Carp species.  These are but two types of carp species, out of hundreds, that exist throughout the world.

Continue reading “Asian Carp Invasion: Notes”