Articles by R. L.

A Trio Of Innovative T.A. Training Programs Date: February 3, 1997 The Principal Investigator Program, Bates College, Lewiston, Maine: At Bates college, the laboratory component of four core life science courses is conducted in the manner of a real research lab. Instead of cookbook-like instructions, students design experiments. In lieu of seeking answers to age-old lab exercise questions in fraternity house archives, students hand in formal write-ups as if they were principal i

SCIENCE STUDIOS Author: Ricki Lewis The field of virtual environments is in its infancy, particularly in the life sciences. Costs now are so high that rather than earmark a grant application for the million or so dollars necessary to start one's own system, researchers are bringing their data to computer science departments providing virtual environments compatible with biological investigation. The University of North Carolina (UNC) offers such a facility, where molecular biolo

FREEBIES AND OTHER INDUCEMENTS Author: RICKI LEWIS * The instructor of a 500-student nutrition class is offered $500 if she orders a particular book. The payment is for keeping a diary of student reactions to the text. * A biology department has whittled down its choice to three books. One publisher offers the department $1 for every book ordered, to be used for educational equipment. * The text selection committee of a university science department has made a decision, but c

Volume 5, #16The ScientistAugust 19, 1991 Great Balls O' Carbon It was late on an August evening six years ago that Rice University professor Richard Smalley sat in his kitchen, cutting out shapes from a legal pad and taping them together. He was trying to come up with a model having 60 vertices to represent the 60-carbon molecule which he and his collaborators generated in the lab by laser-vaporizing carbon in helium gas. Chemist Harold Kroto was one of these collaborators. He

Volume 5, #16The ScientistAugust 19, 1991 BUYING BUCKYBALLS Restaurants succeed because people would rather buy the food than prepare and cook it themselves. The situation may be the same with fullerenes--and that's what a handful of companies are banking on. "You can get nice, pure stuff if you make it yourself, but that route is not without problems. It takes about a week to get 250 milligrams of pure material. So the prices are not out of line at all," says Christopher Foote