Letter from the Regional Coordinator Our planning for the 2009 Midwest regional meeting is almost complete. Detailed information about the meeting is available on the 2009 FLC Midwest Regional Meeting page of our website. The meeting will be held at the Hilton Garden Inn in Bloomington, Indiana. A block of rooms has been reserved under the name "FLC Midwest." Read more
Lab Saves Water While Researching New Ways To Fight Weeds
Some weed species have a nifty survival strategy. In a given field, less than half of their total store of seeds will germinate, while the other portion remains dormant in soil. These so-called seed banks are waiting to sprout another day—long after the effects of herbicides have worn off, for example. "Reducing seed banks of annual weeds such as common lambsquarters, giant foxtail, and common waterhemp is among the most important steps that farmers can take in managing weed populations in crop fields," says ARS ecologist Adam S. Davis. Read more Collaboration Between Fermilab, Indian Institutions Sets Stage for Future Accelerators The Department of Energy's Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (Fermilab) in Batavia, Illinois, recently announced the signing of a new Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with four Indian institutions. The MOU establishes collaboration in the areas of superconducting acceleration science and technology and in the research and development of superconducting materials. Read more
From Forest to Fuel: Converting Woody Biomass to Energy Economists have not been harbingers of optimistic news as of late, but Ken Skog, project leader for economic and statistics research at the Forest Products Laboratory (FPL), dares to provide a ray of hopeful light. Skog (rhymes with vogue) believes that even though efficiently converting wood to fuel is not simple, cheap or easy, ethanol produced from woody biomass will help meet the 16-billion-gallon goal for domestic cellulosic biofuels production by 2022, a benchmark set by the Energy Independence and Security Act (EISA) of 2007. Read more
Glenn Expertise Earns Software of the Year Honor A team of engineers—three from NASA Glenn and one from Boeing Phantom Works—has earned NASA's 2008 Software of the Year Award for the development of a general-purpose program used to perform trajectory performance studies for a wide variety of vehicles, including aircraft, rockets, satellites, and interplanetary vehicles. Read more Software of the Year is one of the top two Space Act Awards, along with Invention of the Year, awarded annually by NASA's Inventions and Contributions Board (ICB). Civil servant and support service contractors are eligible for the monetary rewards—up to $100,000 per invention—that reflect the value of the outstanding technological innovation or scientific discovery supported, which was funded or applied by NASA for aeronautic or space activities. Read more NIOSH, Raytheon Partner on Underground Mine Emergency Communication Research The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) is collaborating with Raytheon to explore adaptation of the company's radio technology for wireless communication to save the lives of miners trapped underground by a mine explosion or roof collapse. Raytheon's family of advanced military radios provides soldiers with simultaneous voice, video, data, and critical position information on the battlefield. The partnership supports NIOSH's response to the MINER Act of 2006. For more information on the research, contact Thomas Dubaniewicz at TDubaniewicz@cdc.gov. (Note: Mention of a company or product does not constitute a commercial endorsement by NIOSH.) Upcoming T2 Conferences and Events
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