01/27/2009
RPI receives 12,000 applications—a record
Portfolio.com
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute received more than 12,000 applications from high school seniors seeking admission, a new record for the 185-year-old school. The applications are still being counted, school officials said. The previous record was set last year when more than 11,000 applications were received by the Troy school. . . . James Nondorf, RPIs vice president for enrollment and dean of undergraduate and graduate admissions, said the applicants have a very diversified background. For example, the number of international applications rose 294 percent in the past four years. The number of female applicants also climbed 177 percent in the past four years.
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01/21/2009
The Improbable Act
Metropolis magazine
Located in Troy, New York, two and a half hours north of Manhattan on the Hudson River, it’s the oldest technological university in the country and arguably one of the most traditional. Here engineering rules academic life, and music is relegated to band performances in the student union. Among its famous graduates, Rensselaer counts Washington Roebling, who built the Brooklyn Bridge, as well as the gentleman behind televisions cathode-ray tube. . . . And yet, the Experimental Media and Performing Arts Center (EMPAC) rises high above Troy’s dilapidated old downtown, an improbable building on an improbable campus, with an improbable price tag to accompany an improbable array of technical feats, seven and a half years in the making. Designed by the London-based Grimshaw Architects, its the brainchild of the universitys president, Shirley Ann Jackson, and, in the rhetoric of her administration, a glass-and-steel token of the intersection between art, science, technology, and design.
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01/20/2009
In 'Geek Chic' and Obama, New Hope for Lifting Women in Science
New York Times
With the inauguration of an administration avowedly committed to Science as the grand elixir for the nation's economic, environmental and psycho-reputational woes, a number of scientists say that now is the time to tackle a chronic conundrum of their beloved enterprise: how to attract more women into the fold, and keep them once they are there. . . . The Rosalind Franklin Society, a group devoted to ''recognizing the work of prominent women scientists,'' has suggested possible co-chairwomen for the panel. Its candidates include Shirley Ann Jackson, a nuclear physicist and president of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, and Shirley Tilghman, a molecular biologist and president of Princeton University.
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01/17/2009
Iconic light bulb is on the way out
San Jose Mercury News
Light bulb makers have revamped some plants, shuttered others and invested enormous sums of money in preparation for a technological shift that they believe will revolutionize the industry. Yet the fact that the incandescent bulb, which has remained largely unchanged for more than a century, is about to become obsolete is lost on the vast majority of the public. . . . A recent study by Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute estimates global financial savings from LEDs could exceed $10 trillion within 10 years because they last much longer.
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01/17/2009
With online jam sessions, the world could be your living room
The Montreal Gazette
Nils Peters envisions a world where musicians in Montreal and New Delhi can jam together in the comfort of their living rooms. The McGill University doctoral student in music technology is designing software that would allow musicians across town or across the globe to jam together as if they were in the same room. The Virtual Microphone Control (ViMiC) system is a joint project between researchers at McGill, the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, N.Y., and Stanford University in Palo Alto, Calif. The project is headed by Jonas Braasch, an assistant professor of architectural acoustics at Rensselaer.
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01/16/2009
Researchers develop higher-efficiency LEDs
Engadget
Terrific-looking LED-backlit HD displays were all over CES this year, and it sounds like they're only going to get better — scientists from Rensselaer Polytechnic Insitute and Samsung have developed a new polarization-matched LED that cranks out 18 percent more light while being 22 percent more efficient than traditional LEDs. The improved performance is due to a reduction in 'efficiency droop,' which causes regular LEDs to turn less power into light when fed higher currents -— the team replaced the traditional active layer of the LEDs with a new specially matched layer. No word on when any of this is coming to market, but we're holding out hope for CES 2010.
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01/13/2009
At M.I.T., Large Lectures Are Going the Way of the Blackboard
New York Times
For as long as anyone can remember, introductory physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology was taught in a vast windowless amphitheater known by its number, 26-100. . . . But now, with physicists across the country pushing for universities to do a better job of teaching science, M.I.T. has made a striking change. The physics department has replaced the traditional large introductory lecture with smaller classes that emphasize hands-on, interactive, collaborative learning. . . . M.I.T. is not alone. Other universities are changing their ways, among them Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, North Carolina State University, the University of Maryland, the University of Colorado at Boulder and Harvard. In these institutions, physicists have been pioneering teaching methods drawn from research showing that most students learn fundamental concepts more successfully, and are better able to apply them, through interactive, collaborative, student-centered learning.
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01/07/2009
Genes that may lessen epilepsy identified
United Press International
U.S. university researchers say they have identified genes that appear to ease the severity of epileptic seizures in mice. The research may lead to treatments and even possible prevention of the chronic neurological disorder characterized by recurrent unprovoked seizures, said the researchers at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, N.Y. Their findings, published in the January edition of Experimental Neurology, suggest a genetic predisposition, coupled with the occurrence of a patient's first seizures, could set the neurologic stage for later epilepsy.
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01/04/2009
Soon, LEDs may light your home
Times of India
Don't frown if you have to discard normal bulbs and tubes at your home and replace them with light-emitting diodes (LEDs). The use of smart lighting and LEDs will revolutionise illumination in the recent future, researchers claim. A new generation of lighting devices based on LEDs will replace the normal light bulb in coming years, saving almost USD one trillion in energy costs, said professors E Fred Schubert and Jong Kyu Kim of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. "What the transistor meant to the development of electronics, the LED means to the field of photonics. This core device has the potential to revolutionise how we use light," said Schubert.
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Read the Rensselaer news release.
01/04/2009
Who Owns Your Great Idea?
New York Times
Peter Zummo, a senior double-majoring in design and mechanical engineering at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, is used to explaining the products he thinks up for his studio-class assignments. But last spring, he found himself answering questions of a different kind in a conference room at Rensselaer's office of technology commercialization, which tracks and patents inventions made on campus. . . . R.P.I. determined that the bottle design belonged to Mr. Zummo and Mr. Naples. The university offered to patent the bottles and get them into the market if they transferred ownership of the design to the university. . . . The bottle negotiations helped convince R.P.I. to rethink its royalty-sharing policies for students in studio courses: it's now 75 percent for the inventors, 25 percent for the university.
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