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For a seventh year of research, Dr. John Trefry, professor of oceanography,
received $182,000 from the U.S. Department of Interior, Minerals
Management Service, through a contract with Battelle Science
and Technology International. The funding supports field research
by Trefry and his team on the potential, long-term impacts of
offshore oil exploration and production in the Alaskan Arctic.
Project funding now totals $1.1 million.
Scientists sampled water
for suspended sediment and dissolved trace metals through six-foot
ice in the coastal Beaufort Sea in May and June 2006. In July
and August,
during the open-water season, they checked the water for suspended and bottom
sediment and several biological specimens, including clams and fish. The researchers
seek to detect signs of industrial inputs early. “We want to know about
possible problems before any significant impacts occur,” said Trefry.
Dr. Marc Baarmand, professor of physics and space sciences, received
a $360,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) for
research aimed at discovering the origin of mass. This grant
augments more than $740,000 that the DOE has previously granted
Baarmand for his work on the Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS) project.
This work, involving a small army of scientists from all over
the world, is located at the European Center for Particle Physics,
CERN, in Geneva, Switzerland.
The CMS project, an array of large
particle detectors, is now in the final stages of construction.
The gigantic experiment, the size of a five-story building,
encompasses several million electronic readout channels that record data on
proton-on-proton collisions that happen every 25 nanoseconds (one
billionth of a second). The
experiment sits in a tunnel beneath the earth, where CERN’s Large Hadron
Collider, a proton accelerator, is reaching completion.
Two contracts, $400,000 from the Agency for Healthcare Research
and Quality of the U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services, and
$200,000 from the Alzheimer’s Association (in partnership
with Intel Corporation and Agilent Technologies) energize the
drive of two professors. Dr. Annie Becker and Dr. Frank Webbe,
professor of psychology, are developing information
and communication technology (ICT) that promote quality of life
for caregivers of Alzheimer’s disease patients. Becker is
director of the Florida Tech National Center for Small Business
Information.
The project, called Buddy Computer Coordinated Healthcare
System (or, Buddy for short), supports quality of life and aging-in-place
initiatives. Buddy takes advantage of information and communication
technology in linking caregivers to a virtual support network
of family and friends.
The caregivers will use PocketPCs to obtain
information about health care, be reminded of daily events and
activities, and
to record
family information in a journal. Family, friends and healthcare
personnel stay connected through the Web by a “buddy blog” that
provides controlled access to information gathered by the PocketPC.
Studying the early life of coral reef fishes is key to understanding
their population dynamics. To support his insights, marine biologist
Dr. Ralph Turingan received $200,000 from FILDUTCH Ventures and
a $120,000 National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s
(NOAA) Florida Sea Grant for his research on the biology of coral
reef fish larvae.
Turingan’s studies involve spawning and
larval rearing of coral reef fishes from the Caribbean and
Southeast Asian regions.
His team will also characterize the community structure of fishes
that congregate on coral reefs in the Philippines.
Turingan will
examine the first-feeding period in the development of marine
fish larvae. This is a bottleneck in the life history
of coral reef fishes, in the wild and in cultured fish.
Adding sand to widen a beach may bring joy to the sunbather and
shell collector, but it could mean unfavorable change to common,
small beach animals. To study these effects, Dr. Elizabeth Irlandi,
assistant professor of oceanography, was awarded $233,998 from
the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. Added
to this were matching funds of $77,999 from the Wildlife Research
Institute. Dr. William Arnold of the institute is the co-investigator
for the three-year research project.
Coastal zone managers, who
regulate the timing and location of sand to help replace
portions of Florida’s coastline, base
their judgments on biological consideration for worm rock and sea
turtles. Dr. Irlandi’s research will allow them to include
in their decision-making other common animals, such as ghost
and mole crabs, and coquina clams. These animals provide important
ecological functions in coastal environments, such as cycling
organic
matter and providing prey to fish and birds.
Septic tanks have always been a potential culprit in water quality
degradation in adjacent waterways. To study impacts on the St.
Lucie River Estuary and Indian River Lagoon in Martin and St.
Lucie counties, Dr. Thomas Belanger was awarded an $80,000 grant
from the South Florida Water Management District. He’ll
use the funding to add three more sites to three sites already
under investigation, evaluating if septic tank effluent is contributing
significant nutrients and bacteria to the river and lagoon.
“Our study, coupled with data collected by Harbor Branch Oceanographic
Institution, Department of Environmental Protection, and county health departments
should provide some answers on the importance of septic tank loading to the river
and lagoon,” said Belanger. |
North, to Alaska 
Two Pocketfuls of Help
