College-wide featured stories
U of M startup thrives in a tough economy
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A nanotechnology company in Rushford, Minn., based on engineering research developed at the University of Minnesota, is expanding and recently won a major grant.
University of Minnesota researchers develop virtual streams to help restore real ones
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Researchers at the University of Minnesota have developed a unique new computer model called the Virtual StreamLab, designed to help restore real streams to a healthier state. The Virtual StreamLab, which demonstrates the physics of natural water flows at an unprecedented level of detail and realism, was unveiled for the first time this week at the 2009 American Physical Society Division of Fluid Dynamics meeting in Minneapolis, one of the largest conferences in fluid dynamics with more than 1,500 attendees from around the world.
The sunny side of engineering
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As the University of Minnesota wrapped up the 2010-11 academic year, talented young engineers flocked to Coffman Memorial Union to display projects of all kinds. Two that caught our eye were solar-powered clothes and a solar tracker.
A mind of its own
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Basic areas of the brain’s visual system show evidence of learning
NOvA project construction moves forward
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By far the largest single recipient of stimulus funds within the College of Science and Engineering is the NuMI Off-Axis Electron Neutrino Appearance (NOvA) detector facility, a state-of-the-art laboratory for investigating the role played by sub-atomic particles called neutrinos in the origins of the universe.
Stimulating research
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The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 is supporting College of Science and Engineering faculty research projects that may help stimulate economic recovery.
Starwatch January 2011
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The morning sun starts coming earlier in January, but even it can’t upstage Venus. The grande dame of planets opens the second decade of our young century with a dazzling display in the eastern predawn sky.
Written in stone
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One jawbone . . . can reveal 100 millennia of history. Thanks to Lawrence Edwards’s work, scientists can read the history of climate change, human migrations, and other signal events over the past half-million years.
A smarter way of looking at power
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Massoud Amin has been all too close to some major disasters. On 9/11 he was in Washington, DC, presenting at a workshop (on, of all things, disaster risk-management), when the plane attacks effectively ended the proceedings.
Tracking the phantom (advanced explanation)
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A leading theory holds that dark matter consists of particles called WIMPs, or weakly interacting massive particles. They would have been created during the Big Bang, the same as ordinary particles. Eventually, the heavier members of the WIMP family decayed away, leaving lighter forms of the particle that are stable and survive today.