Science and Technology

Working with Vibrio cholerae, the bacterium that causes the severe diarrheal disease of cholera, microbiologists at the University at Buffalo have revealed new information on a cellular signaling system that ultimately will help scientists understand how cholera toxin and virulent proteins of other pathogenic bacteria migrate through their cellular membranes to cause disease.

In his 30 years of studying freeze-thaw cycles of lakes in New York State, Kenton Stewart, Ph.D., has never seen some lakes in his lake-ice network stay unfrozen for an entire winter unless it was an El Nino year. But things changed with the winter that officially ended on Wednesday. While the majority of lakes still froze, the professor emeritus of biological sciences says "a surprising number" that developed ice covers in previous winters, had only a partial skim of ice this winter, or did not freeze at all during the winter of 2001-02.

Researchers at the University at Buffalo have developed the first approach that achieves both high-bandwidth efficiency and fast recovery speeds in protecting mission-critical computer connections against high-speed network failures.

A novel method of computing and modeling turbulent reacting flows developed by University at Buffalo researchers produces results equivalent to those generated by expensive supercomputers and is anywhere from 30 to 100 times less expensive to use.

The beautiful patterns on butterfly wings are emerging as exceptional model systems that may reveal much about how the shapes, sizes and colors of specific organisms have evolved, a type of study called morphological evolution, according a paper featured on the cover of the March issue of Trends in Ecology and Evolution that is co-authored by Antonia Monteiro, Ph.D., University at Buffalo assistant professor of biological sciences.

In response to concerns that the American health-care system offers almost no palliative care for terminally ill children, psychologist James Donnelly, Ph.D., of the University at Buffalo, is conducting an assessment of the palliative-care needs of terminally ill children and their parents. The needs assessment will be conducted, in part, through brainstorming sessions over the World Wide Web between palliative-care workers, medical personnel and patients' families.

A small piece of protein from one end of a larger molecule found in human saliva has been shown in laboratory tests to have potent antimicrobial activity against several types of bacteria and fungi, some of which are resistant to current drugs. If these findings hold up in animal and human trials, the peptide could form the basis for promising new drugs for treating a wide range of infections.

Douglas D. Osheroff, the 1996 Nobel laureate in physics, will deliver the 2002 Moti Lal Rustgi Memorial Lecture at 4:30 p.m. on March 15 in Room 225 of the Natural Sciences Complex on the North Campus.

Paschalis Alexandridis, Ph.D., a faculty member in the University at Buffalo School of Engineering and Applied Sciences who uses molecules and particles as "LEGOs" to develop advanced materials at the nano-scale that end up in products ranging from paints to contact lenses has been chosen to receive the prestigious 2002 Sigma Xi Young Investigator Award.

Technologies ranging from mathematical modeling, geologic simulation and geographic information science to scientific computing and virtual reality are being combined by University at Buffalo researchers for the first time to provide the most accurate information on geologic dangers to scientists, civil-defense authorities and citizens who live in the shadow of volcanoes.