UA researchers try to minimize Internet’s energy use

Posted: Friday, October 21, 2011 7:00 am

Patrick McNamara, Inside Tucson Business

These days life without the Internet seems unimaginable.

But even as few question the necessity of the Internet, hardly anyone considers the environmental impacts that reliance creates.

A pair of University of Arizona researchers have begun a project that seeks to find ways to minimize the energy consumption of the Internet.

“People never thought there could be an environmental impact,” said Beichuan Zhang, assistant professor of computer science.

Zhang and research partner Chris Gniady, also a computer science professor, have been given a four-year, $620,000 grant from the National Science Foundation to develop new internet protocols and devices that would minimize energy consumption associated with the Internet.

Worldwide, the Internet consumes volumes of energy – from computer and data networks, down to the individual users.

UA projects aim for high-dollar NASA grants

Will Ferguson Arizona Daily Star | Posted: Friday, October 28, 2011 12:00 am

The University of Arizona’s Steward Observatory is competing for two NASA grants to launch a telescope into near-Earth orbit and lift one into the stratosphere by balloon.

NASA will consider funding the multimillion-dollar projects, EXCEDE and GUSSTO, as part of its 2013 Explorer Mission program.

EXCEDE, the Exoplanetary Circumstellar Environments and Disk Explorer, is a space telescope scientists hope will unravel mysteries of planetary system formation.

If selected for an Explorer mission, the project would receive $200 million for development from NASA.

“We know there are a lot of stars with planets around them; maybe there are one or two where life could potentially form,” said UA astronomer George Rieke, co-investigator for EXCEDE.

Work under way in Biosphere 2 on 3 huge experimental slopes

Tom Beal Arizona Daily Star | Posted: Wednesday, October 26, 2011 12:00 am

The University of Arizona is assembling steel frames for three massive hill slopes inside Biosphere 2 near Oracle – a process scientists say is akin to building three giant ships in a bottle.

The steel parts of the $7 million Landscape Evolution Observatory (LEO), and the trucks that carry them, must squeeze through a 10-by-15-foot opening in the steel-and-glass terrarium that was originally built as an experiment in sustaining life in a sealed-off environment.

When assembled, each frame, measuring 40 feet by 100 feet, will be filled with about 3 feet of soil and weigh about 2.2 million pounds.

It is the first large-scale instrument being built at the Biosphere since the UA took over its operation in 2007. It assumed ownership of the 40-acre property in June.

GPS-guided rounds sought by Marines for use in Afghanistan

Raytheon to fill ‘urgent’ order for shells

David Wichner Arizona Daily Star | Posted: Wednesday, October 26, 2011 12:00 am

The Marine Corps has urgently ordered more than 1,000 precision-guided artillery shells made by Tucson-based Raytheon Missile Systems, for use in Afghanistan.

The Marine Corps issued an “urgent operational need” order for 1,037 of Raytheon’s 155-millimeter Excalibur extended range artillery projectiles, the company said.

The purchase of the Excalibur Ia-2, the latest operational version, is worth a total of $81 million, a Raytheon spokeswoman said.

Though the company doesn’t release per-unit costs, the total cost of the new buy equals about $78,000 each, in line with industry estimates.

The Marines have significantly increased operational use of Excalibur in the last year, firing as many as 32 rounds in one week, Raytheon said. The Army also uses Excalibur, which was first fielded in 2007.

Ventana gets FDA nod

Inside Tucson Business | Posted: Monday, October 24, 2011 10:05 am

Ventana Medical Systems, Inc., a member of the Roche Group, received approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for an image analysis system used by pathologists.

The VENTANA Companion Algorithm HER2 (4B5) works with the company’s VIRTUOSO software and iScan Coreo Au scanner in analyzing tissue samples to detect breast and other types of cancer.

While the pathologist is still the ultimate authority in analyzing the samples, the image analysis application helps ensure consistency and objectivity in interpretation.

The company also received FDA clearance for the digital read application that allows pathologists to view tissue samples on stained slides as images on a computer monitor with its VIRTUOSO software and iScan Coreo Au scanner.

Ventana Medical Systems is located in Oro Valley and owned by Swiss pharmaceutical firm Roche.

UA spinoff’s product speeds finding right cancer-fighting drug

Luceome receives NIH grant to put technology on market

Michelle A. Monroe Arizona Daily Star | Posted: Saturday, October 22, 2011 12:00 am

Luceome Biotechnologies, a University of Arizona spinoff company, received a $1.6 million grant from the National Institutes of Health to commercialize its drug research technology.

The grant award will help Luceome develop a product called KinaseSeeker that helps speed the process of finding effective cancer drugs.

Indraneel Ghosh, a UA chemistry professor, and his wife, Reena Zutshi, started the company in 2009.

The latest NIH award, a Phase II Small Business Innovation Research grant in August, follows a $287,000 Phase I SBIR grant the company won earlier this year.

“We more than met the goals and more than met the expectations for the first grant,” said Zutshi, the company’s president and CEO.

Survey also shows state is 6th in such jobs per-capita

Arizona moves from 8th to 3rd in solar-energy workers

Arizona Daily Star | Posted: Tuesday, October 18, 2011 12:00 am

Arizona ranks third among the states for the number of solar-energy jobs, up from eighth last year, says an industry survey released Monday.

Arizona had an estimated 4,786 solar jobs and 980 solar establishments as of August, says a survey conducted for The Solar Foundation, a nonprofit solar energy promotion group.

That’s up from an estimated 3,800 solar jobs in Arizona in last year’s inaugural survey.

California had the most solar jobs – more than 25,500 – and the most establishments, 3,550, according to the study by BW Research Partnership’s Green LMI Division and Cornell University.

Arizona ranked sixth in solar jobs per capita, with about one job per 1,336 people.

Grant helping UA team learn to market device that patients can use

Handheld glaucoma tool being developed

Michelle A. Monroe Arizona Daily Star | Posted: Saturday, October 15, 2011 12:00 am

UA researchers are hoping a new tool will help glaucoma patients take their care into their own hands.

Glaucoma occurs when pressure builds in the eye, either because the eye produces too much fluid or is unable to drain adequately, said Jill Brickman, director of the Student Sight Savers Glaucoma Screening Program at the University of Arizona Medical Center’s Department of Ophthalmology.

Glaucoma patients now must go to a doctor every time they want to check their inner eye pressure.

Eniko Enikov, a UA associate professor of aerospace and mechanical engineering, and a team of researchers are working on a handheld device that patients would be able to take home and use themselves.

Four major attractions band together to plug region’s biodiversity

Tourism plan puts spotlight on science

Tom Beal Arizona Daily Star | Posted: Thursday, October 13, 2011 12:00 am

Two University of Arizona sites are joining with two of the region’s biggest tourist attractions to market Southern Arizona as a geotourism location and Tucson as a “Science City.”

Biosphere 2 and the Mt. Lemmon SkyCenter are joining with the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum and Kartchner Caverns State Park in a campaign that celebrates the diversity of the Sonoran Desert.

“The biodiversity here is the equivalent of the Galapagos in many ways, and very few people understand how special Southern Arizona really is,” said Joaquin Ruiz, dean of the UA College of Science.

Ruiz said the campaign is geared toward out-of-state visitors and residents of Southern Arizona.