Science and Technology

A dramatic statistical correlation between the prevalence of diabetes and air pollution levels has been demonstrated by a University at Buffalo researcher who publishes his observations in the August issue of the journal, Diabetes Care.

A new laboratory with state-of-the-art graphics workstations at the University at Buffalo is providing a rare commodity: a way to bridge the gap between bench science and supercomputing through molecular modeling and bioinformatics tools. The Laboratory for Molecular Visualization and Analysis is one of a handful of such facilities in the nation, providing a critical service to researchers at UB and its affiliated research partners.

More than 800 of the world's leading earthquake specialists, including scientists from the Multidisciplinary Center for Earthquake Engineering Research (MCEER) headquartered at the University at Buffalo, will discuss urban earthquake risks at the Seventh U.S. National Conference on Earthquake Engineering to be held in Boston on July 22-25.

Investigators working to identify the source of the anthrax-containing envelopes that terrorized the American public last fall concluded they were hand-addressed by the same person. Messages penned in Urdu that allegedly belonged to Daniel Pearl's kidnappers were introduced by prosecutors during their trial. Expanding the forensic use of computer processing of handwriting to solve such high-profile criminal cases will be among the topics discussed at the Eighth International Workshop on Frontiers in Handwriting Recognition, sponsored by the University at Buffalo.

Scientists from the University at Buffalo described their work with biological agents and their research in developing methods to counteract them at a National Institutes of Health (NIH) biodefense summit held today at NIH headquarters in Bethesda, Md., to assess the most promising bioterrorism research and set funding priorities.

The Milwaukee Institute of Design will be the first venue to host the traveling version of "Unlimited by Design," a multi-media, hands-on exhibition of well-designed, attractive products and residential interiors created according to the principles of universal design (U/D). The exhibit is a presentation of the Rehabilitation Engineering Research Center (RERC) on Universal Design in the University at Buffalo School of Architecture and Planning.

With two major championships under his belt already and this week's British Open in his sights, Tiger Woods has a 13 percent chance of completing golf's coveted Grand Slam by winning all four of golf's major tournaments this year, according to a "probabilist" from the University at Buffalo School of Engineering and Applied Sciences.

Companies with transactional Web sites aren't providing consumers with enough assurances about the privacy, security and business integrity of the sites, according to a study by researchers from the University at Buffalo School of Management. As a result, some companies may be losing customers concerned about Internet fraud, theft of credit-card information or a company's ability to follow through on its promises.

Volcanologists and computational scientists from around the globe will gather at the University at Buffalo on July 18 and 19 to discuss how integrating fundamental physical models with sophisticated technologies, such as supercomputing, can help produce more accurate simulations of volcanic mass flows and mitigate the dangers related to real ones.

Two University at Buffalo materials researchers have developed an extremely sensitive nanoscale device that could shrink ultra-high-density storage devices to record sizes. The magnetic sensor, made of nickel and measuring only a few atoms in diameter, could increase data storage capacity by a factor of a 1,000 or more and ultimately could lead to supercomputing devices as small as a wristwatch.