EAS Honors Program course challenges students to reduce CO2
The Whistle-May 5   Students in Kim Cobb's Energy, Environment & Society class  are finding ways to reduce carbon emissions on both a personal and larger scale.  In the class, emphasis is placed less on conventional testing, and more on utilizing the knowledge gained in making lifestyle changes through participation and successfully carrying out the course's Carbon Reduction Challenge - a series of lifestyle or institutional  changes the students can either effect in themselves or others to reduce  the amount of greenhouse gases produced.  ( full story...  | Kim Cobb )

Avoiding Rear-End Collisions
Ivanhoe Newswire-May 1, 2008  Rear-end collisions are responsible for  29-percent of all the injury crashes in the United States; but now, researchers say they may be on the road to preventing them...  Georgia Tech engineering psychologists  found that drivers generally aren't able to detect when the car in front of them is going slower than they are, unless the difference in speed is at least eight to ten miles an hour.  ( full story... | Gregory Corso )

Scientists discover new ocean current
Terra Daily.com-May 1, 2008 Scientists  have discovered a new climate pattern called the North Pacific Gyre Oscillation. This new pattern explains, for the first time, changes in the water that are important in helping commercial fishermen understand fluctuations in the fish stock.  "We've been able to explain, for the first time, the changes in salinity, nutrients and chlorophyll that we see in the Northeast Pacific," said Emanuele Di Lorenzo, assistant professor in GEORGIA TECH'S School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences. ( full story...  | Emanuele Di Lorenzo )

Atomic Force Microscopy reveals liquids adjust viscosity when confined, shaken
ScienceDaily-April 30, 2008 Getting ketchup out of the bottle isn't always easy. However, shaking the bottle before trying to pour allows the thick, gooey ketchup to flow more freely because it becomes more fluid when agitated. The opposite is not typically true -- a liquid such as water does not become a gel when shaken. However, new research  shows that when fluids like water and silicon oil are confined to a nanometer-sized space, they behave more like ketchup or toothpaste.    ( full story...  | Elisa Riedo )