Science and Technology

A new chemical synthesis method based on a catalyst worth many times the price of gold and providing a far more efficient and economical method than traditional ones for designing and manufacturing extremely novel pharmaceutical compounds is described by its University at Buffalo developers in a review article in the current issue of Nature.

In an effort to improve this process and develop new guidelines for antibiotic use for a potentially deadly staph infection, University at Buffalo researchers are collecting bacterial isolates and clinical information from SAB-infected patients hospitalized in three area hospitals and following their charted progress through inpatient treatment, discharge and for a post-discharge period.

Computer scientists in the University at Buffalo's School of Engineering and Applied Sciences have been working with their colleagues in UB's Graduate School of Education to develop a computational tool that not only dramatically reduces the time it takes to grade children's handwritten essays, but that also may help boost students' reading comprehension skills.

The Concrete Central, Agway, The Great Northern, The Marine A, The Lake and Rail, Kellogg, Pillsbury, H&O Oats, Exchange American, Electric Annex -- these are just a few of the "Grand Ladies of the Lake" whose fascinating biographies and arresting photos are the subject of a new book on Buffalo's grain elevators edited by landscape architect Lynda Schneekloth.

Slow diffusion of patient-managed electronic health information record technologies, or PHRs, has limited the development of an interoperable health information infrastructure that will greatly improve health-care quality and cost and will save lives. For this reason, increasing PHR diffusion has been called a top priority by the Department of Health and Human Services, the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

How prepared is New York for another terrorist attack or major disaster? That's the question a group of researchers and disaster-response experts will discuss at a two-day conference addressing ways to protect New York City and New York State.

Research carried out with a paintbrush bristle, a metronome, smelly chemicals and thousands of microscopic worms called nematodes may reveal important information about human aging diseases like Parkinson's and Alzheimer's.

In the spring of 2006, a paper published in a scientific journal by researchers at the University at Buffalo and two scientific institutions in Italy reported that approximately 4,000 years ago during the Bronze Age, Vesuvius produced an eruption that devastated the area now occupied by metropolitan Naples.

Landscape architect Lynda Schneekloth, professor of architecture in the University at Buffalo School of Architecture and Planning, is delighted that "The Power Trail: History of Hydroelectricity at Niagara," which she wrote with three of her former students, has received the Merit Award of Achievement from the New York State Upstate Chapter of the American Society of Landscape Architects.

A discovery by University at Buffalo biologists that may explain the evolution of a lethal toxin is providing new information that could lead to more effective treatments for humans who fall victim to it.