Science and Technology

A University at Buffalo professor who has spent the past decade developing a laser ablation apparatus that solves one of the trickier problems in computer-chip fabrication has received a $900,000 grant under the federal Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program to commercialize the technology.

The final decision on whether to build a "Superspan" or to "twin" the existing Peace Bridge is still months away, but starting this week, all of the proposed bridge and toll plaza designs have come to life, virtually that is, in the Center for Computational Research (CCR) at the University at Buffalo.

A University at Buffalo professor who says his mission in life is to revolutionize the teaching of science has received an $800,000 grant from The Pew Charitable Trusts to do just that.

The so-called "digital divide" between the "haves" -- those who can afford computer access -- and the "have nots" has been erased, at least in the freshman class at the University at Buffalo. Thanks to the university's Students Needing Assistance Program (SNAP) and its corporate partners financial hardship simply is not an issue for 264 freshmen, at least where computers are concerned.

Students in the Graduate School of Social Work at the University at Buffalo are hitting the streets of several urban neighborhoods this semester as they take a close look at issues faced by Buffalo communities. And they'll only have to look as far as their PCs to do it.

Alexander N. Cartwright, Ph.D., assistant professor of electrical engineering at the University at Buffalo, is the recipient of a prestigious Department of Defense Office of Naval Research (ONR) Young Investigator Program Award.

Even in 2000, African-Americans who are studying to be -- or already are -- mathematicians face a lonely proposition: only about one-quarter of 1 percent of all mathematicians in the United States are black. But many of them are finding a thriving community at the unique Web site created and maintained by a professor of mathematics at the University at Buffalo.

A project led by a University at Buffalo geologist involving the topographic mapper being flown by the space shuttle Endeavour could help to develop a new and far more accurate way to map features of shorelines and aid scientists in determining past and future volcanic and seismic activity in an area.

Researchers at the University at Buffalo, in the Feb. 17 issue of Nature, report a new way to study the dynamics of proteins as they pass through the transition state between inactive and active.

When members of the University at Buffalo's School of Dental Medicine's Class of 2004 arrive on campus this August, they will purchase no textbooks, no laboratory manuals, no workbooks. They will pick up no course outlines or lists of recommended reading. They will receive instead one inauspicious-looking compact disc, which will contain the full content of 90 textbooks in 28 topic and the curriculum for all four years of dental school, including course syllabi, class notes, laboratory manuals and lecture slides.