News 12-6-00
Flexible Displays for Electronic Ink
Last week a flexible display using electronic ink was unveiled in
Cambridge, Mass., advancing the technology needed to create a
changeable display screen that is portable, lightweight and easy
to read as paper. Some technologists have envisioned
that this technology could lead to something like a continually
updated newspaper that displays information carried over the
Internet.
About the stiffness and thickness of a mousepad, the prototype
was created as part of a joint project between E Ink,
which was founded by physicists from the Media Laboratory
at MIT, and Lucent Technologies, which has created flexible
plastic circuits. The core technology consists of an ink that
responds to electric charges, enabling words or images to be
displayed on a relatively thin screen without the need for a
conventional cathode-ray tube monitor or liquid crystal display screen.
For more information, visit www.eink.com.
Internet Educator of the Year Award
Classroom Connect announced the second annual Internet
Educator of the Year Award. The award will go to an educator
who has embraced Internet resources and technologies and
successfully integrated them into the classroom. Nominations
for the Internet Educator of the Year 2001 Award must be
received by December 31, 2000. The awardee will be notified
in January 2001.
For more information visit
www.classroom.com/conferences/award
Student Wins Grand Prize in Peer-to-Peer Sweepstakes
Porivo Technologies, Inc., recently announced the grand prize
winner of its October "Cycles for Cycles'' sweepstakes. Daniel
Fung, a 19-year-old sophomore at the University of California,
Berkeley, received the $2,000 grand prize, a mountain bike from
PerformanceBike.com. Fung and other PC users across the
country participated in the sweepstakes by downloading the
Porivo PEER, a secure application that links
PCs together in large-scale computing projects across the Internet.
Two additional users won first-prize certificates worth $1,000.
Porivo also announced a new sweepstakes for December, offering
$10,000 in cash prizes for Porivo PEER users.
To participate in the new December sweepstakes, users can
register online at www.porivo.com and download the Porivo
PEER application.
First Graduate of Online University Receives Degree
Gennie Kirch, a Roy, Utah elementary school teacher, received
her Master of Arts degree in learning and technology Friday in
a ceremony attended by the Governors of 11 western states. The
special occasion was held in conjunction with the Western
Governors' Association meeting in La Jolla and celebrates the
first commencement ceremony and the first graduate of Western
Governors University, an online, competency-based university.
Governors is one of only a few virtual universities to achieve
candidate for accreditation status and is the only competency-
based university to gain that status.
Ciphergen Collaborates With Johns Hopkins
Ciphergen Biosystems, Inc.
announced the start of a multi-year
research collaboration with The Johns Hopkins University
School of Medicine aimed at the discovery of novel protein
biomarkers in the field of cancer. The focus of the collaboration
will be the discovery and validation of diagnostic markers that
improve tumor detection, tumor classification by type,
invasiveness and stage, and tumor monitoring. The protein
markers currently available to address these tasks are very
limited in comparison with the scope of medical needs in
oncology.
As part of this multi-year collaboration, Ciphergen will provide
financial support and technical assistance through its Biomarker
Discovery Centers. Johns Hopkins will contribute significant
resources including cancer serum samples and the clinical ex-
pertise of its physicians and scientists. Ciphergen will have
access to the commercial rights of the discoveries made through
the collaboration with Johns Hopkins.
'Jumping DNA' Discovery Wins Award
Alka Agrawal's discovery of jumping DNA's role in creating
the modern immune system, earned this year's $25,000 Young
Scientists Prize, awarded by Science and Amersham Pharmacia
Biotech (APBiotech). Agrawal was working on a doctorate at
Yale University when she proved that genes called RAG1 and
RAG2 carry out genetic reshuffling or "transposition'' reactions
in a test tube. In theory, if these genes trigger transposition in
living cells, too, they may be involved in harmful DNA trans-
locations associated with certain cancers, Agrawal explained in
her winning essay, which appears in the 1 December 2000 issue
of Science.
Information about the prize and copies of the winning essays
are posted on Science Online
www.sciencemag.org/feature/data/pharmacia/prize/apbprize.shl.
NSF Honors 409 Junior Faculty Members
The National Science Foundation (NSF) is honoring 409 outstanding
junior faculty members in science and engineering
nationwide with the Faculty Early Career Development
(CAREER) awards, NSF's most prestigious honor for junior
faculty members. Awards for 2000 range in amount from
$200,000 to $500,000, and in duration from four to five years.
NSF established the CAREER program in 1995 to help top
performing scientists and engineers early in their careers to
develop simultaneously their contributions and commitment
to research and to education.
For a list of individual awardees, visit
www.nsf.gov/home/crssprgm/career/start.htm.