Science and Technology

The anticipated Mars landing on Jan. 24 of the Opportunity rover will be a bit more challenging than the Spirit's bounce onto the red planet earlier this month, according to a University at Buffalo geologist, but if it's successful, then scientists will be able to be much bolder about selecting future Mars landing sites.

A research paper by University at Buffalo industrial geographers maintains that the launch of the proposed Boeing 7E7 "Dreamliner" will cost $13.4 billion, nearly double what the company estimates, because it is, in fact, covering the launch of two distinct aircraft.

Cringe. That's what most people do when they look at fossils of the impressive, eight-inch-long canines of the now extinct sabertooth tiger, Smilodon fatalis. But Frank Mendel, a University at Buffalo anatomist, sees those big teeth and thinks: How in the world did they use those fangs?

"Studio for Architecture," the architectural design firm of Mehrdad Hadighi, associate professor of architecture in the University at Buffalo School of Architecture and Planning, has been recognized by Architectural Record magazine as one of 10 members of its 2003 "Architectural Vanguard" -- "the top young firms reshaping the globe."

The University at Buffalo Gifted Math Program is accepting nominations from schools and parents of outstanding sixth-grade mathematics students for its Fall 2004 class.

A standard textbook for primary or secondary school students is a robust learning tool rich with photographs, illustrations, charts, maps: visual images that bring the words to life. Textbooks for blind or visually impaired students are considerably less dynamic. But the learning status quo for these students may be changing as the result of a project completed by assistive technology experts at the University at Buffalo.

A series of studies led by a University at Buffalo psychologist involving a group of Rhesus monkeys and a bottlenose dolphin suggest that some animals have functional features of, or parallels to, human conscious metacognition.

The University at Buffalo's Center for Computational Research will be a major participant this week in Grid2003, one of the largest public displays of an international computational grid running numerous applications across dozens of sites involving thousands of processors.

The University at Buffalo has established the Center for Unified Biometrics and Sensors, a new, cross-disciplinary center that takes a unique approach to developing technologies in biometrics, the science of identifying individuals based on their physical, chemical or behavioral characteristics.

Physicians have treated chronic pain with antidepressants for many years, knowing that the medications -- particularly the drug with the scientific name amitriptyline -- helped many sufferers, but they didn't know how it worked as a pain reliever.