Science and Technology

Alexander N. Cartwright, professor of electrical engineering in the University at Buffalo School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, has been appointed UB's vice provost for strategic initiatives, a new position in which he will serve as the point person in the Provost's Office for the UB 2020 strategic strengths initiatives.

Instead of visiting an amusement park this summer and riding on rollercoasters, 16 high school girls attending a University at Buffalo engineering workshop will develop their own virtual rollercoasters -- and they will get to "ride" them, too.

Esther S. Takeuchi, Ph.D., renowned inventor of the tiny batteries that have helped make implantable cardiac pacemakers, defibrillators and other medical devices a life-saving reality for millions of patients, is joining the faculty in the University at Buffalo School of Engineering and Applied Sciences.

New University at Buffalo research demonstrates that some solvents can significantly enhance certain acid-base interactions and strengthen the bonding interaction between two molecules when one is electron-deficient and one is electron-rich.

Iron is the workhorse of trace minerals. An essential component of red blood cells, disruption of iron levels in the body will result in a myriad of serious conditions, and life cannot be sustained without it. In novel research, investigators at the University at Buffalo's School of Public Health and Health Professions, have learned that iron is only one half of an all-important duo of trace minerals -- the other being copper -- that work in tandem to maintain proper iron balance, or homeostasis.

Primate tourism, an economic benefit and conservation tool in many habitat countries, has exploded in popularity over the past two decades in places like China, Borneo, Uganda, Rwanda, Northern Sumatra, Madagascar, Gabon and Central America. New research by scientists in the United States, China and Japan, however, has found that some primate tourism practices are inappropriate because they provoke an unprecedented level of adult aggression that is proving deadly for infant monkeys.

Selenium, an antioxidant included in multivitamin tablets thought to have a possible protective effect against the development of type 2 diabetes, may actually increase the risk of developing the disease, an analysis by researchers at the University at Buffalo has shown.

The effort to grow the University at Buffalo and dramatically transform its three campuses has taken a major step forward with the awarding of a master planning contract to a team of internationally renowned architectural, planning, landscape and design firms.

Blood vessels that have been tissue-engineered from bone marrow adult stem cells may in the future serve as a patient's own source of new blood vessels following a coronary bypass or other procedures that require vessel replacement, according to new research from the University at Buffalo Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering.

A consortium of theoretical physicists co-founded by a University at Buffalo faculty member has been created to train more U.S. graduate students in theoretical high-energy particle physics calculations to counter "outsourcing" in their field that has allowed the U.S. to lag behind in this area of high-profile, global science.