Time for El Niño's half brother to take a bow?

Christian Science Monitor , Sep 25th
For those of us living on the US East and Gulf Coasts, the 2009 Atlantic hurricane season has been pretty quiet — thanks in no small part to El Niño, forecasters note. (Wipe hand across forehead here.)

But over the past few years, researchers have uncovered an odd form of El Niño. Think of it as El Niño’s half brother, "El Nino - Modoki". Now, a team of atmospheric scientists from Korea, Germany, and the US suggests that this form of El Niño may become more common than the El Niños we’ve experienced up to now... ( full story | Peter Webster | Chris Farley's El Niño)

Q&A with Dr. Bahareh Azizi, Atlanta city council candidate


GT Newsroom , Oct 27
Bahareh Azizi, a researcher and Research Support manager in the School of Chemistry and Biochemistry, had thrown her hat in the ring for the District 6 Atlanta City Council race. It’s a crowded field, with six candidates, but Azizi stays optimistic about her chances. Her campaign is centralized on the idea of bringing new people with new ideas to the council, and on increasing Atlanta’s stature as an international city. Born in Houston, Azizi was raised in Kuwait. She earned her bachelor’s degree from Michigan State University and her doctorate in chemistry and biochemistry from Georgia Tech. District 6 is comprised of Midtown, Candler Park, Virginia Highlands, Midtown, Morninside and Lindridge Martin Manor.

In this GT Newsroom interview, she answers questions about her background and the current campaign (full story )

Climate change dialogue: scientists engage the faith based community at Mercer University

Macon.com, Oct 29
Marrying the beliefs of the faith-based community with those of the scientific community isn’t the easiest of tasks, but Mercer University students and faculty hope to do so with a specific issue — the environment. A three-day conference featuring speakers with religious and scientific backgrounds begins today on the school’s Macon campus... Among the conference speakers scheduled are: David Gushee, Distinguished University Professor of Christian Ethics at Mercer; Jonathan Merritt, founder of the Southern Baptist Environment and Climate Initiative; Sharon Astyk, noted author and farmer; Judith Curry, a professor at Georgia Tech and an expert on climate modeling and climate change; and Jeremy Hess of the National Center for Environmental Health, part of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (full story | conference website | Judy Curry )

MRI, solar cells, aging work lead(led) Nobel predictions!



Reuters, Sep 24
After the fact now, but in this article from last month, David Pendlebury of Thomson Reuter's Healthcare and Science Business division predicted the likely winners of the 2009 Nobel prizes (he has been making such predictions with some success since 1989). He had our own professor (and provost) Gary Schuster and his colleagues pegged as likely recipients of the Chemistry prize for their work on electron charge transfer in DNA! ...Well, almost! (full story | Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2009)

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