Science and Technology

In a groundbreaking new book, "The Neural Imagination" (2009, University of Texas Press), Irving Massey, PhD, explores the relevance of neuroscience to the study of the arts. Subtitled "Aesthetic and Neuroscientific Approaches to the Arts," the book is concerned with the emergence and significance of neuroaesthetics, an alliance born of the recent and rapid convergence of art and technology.

The University at Buffalo's Transportation Systems Laboratory is only a year old, but already its researchers are helping enhance the mobility of travelers in Western New York and southern Ontario.

A new residence hall that embodies the principles of the University at Buffalo's comprehensive physical plan, "Building UB," is being constructed on the university's North Campus.

A year ago, the small house at 139 Howell St. in Buffalo's Black Rock neighborhood stood vacant, just one more derelict property up for auction. The two-story structure was crumbling. It languished as an eyesore, its fate uncertain. Where others saw blight, four University at Buffalo architecture students saw opportunity.

Kim Dai of New York City, a freshman architecture student at the University at Buffalo, has received a scholarship from the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) to join more that 25,000 sustainable design and construction professionals at the USGBC International Conference and Expo in Phoenix Nov. 11-13.

New funding for an innovative University at Buffalo program that trains Zimbabwe's clinician scientists and translational pharmacologists will bring additional health care professionals and researchers to Buffalo to be trained to fight the war on AIDS in Zimbabwe.

The possibility that climate change might simply be a natural variation like others that have occurred throughout geologic time is dimming, according to evidence in a Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences paper published today . The research reveals that sediments retrieved by University at Buffalo geologists from a remote Arctic lake are unlike those seen during previous warming episodes.

Dead zones in critical waterways, accelerated loss of arable land and massive famines. They're all caused by the 24 billion tons of soil that are lost every year to erosion, a phenomenon that costs the world as much as $40 billion annually. But predicting where erosion occurs, and thus how to prevent it, is a serious challenge. That's why University at Buffalo geographer Sean Bennett has constructed various systems to model it.

UBMD, the University at Buffalo's 450-member physician practice plan, has received a $7 million grant from the New York State Department of Health HEAL NY initiative to implement a novel electronic records system to track and manage treatment of chronic kidney disease in real time, with the goal of reducing the number of patients in Western New York who develop end stage kidney disease (ESRD).

The University at Buffalo introduced today iSciWNY, a comprehensive life-sciences workforce development program dedicated to preparing all Western New Yorkers, not just scientists, for new positions in Buffalo Niagara's growing life sciences industry.