Michigan Tech Magazine “Research” has released its 2017 issue detailing the recent discovery of Merelaniite by Dr. John Jaszczak and his team; with the article Meet the Minerals.
Merelaniite has a unique geometry made up of tiny whiskers of graphite-like spires extracted from the crooks of an albandanite crystal.
A
new research grant marks more than 30 years of continuous support of NSF to Professor Alex Kostinski.
In the scientific community, Kostinski is well-known as a “Scientist for All Seasons” due to his somewhat nomadic interests in diverse areas of physics including fluid mechanics, atmospheric science, radar meteorology, astronomy, optics and semiconductor physics. Specifically, the results of his research have broad impacts on cloud physics resulting in highly-cited publications in Nature, Phys Rev Letts, Geophys Res Letts. etc.
Kostinski was the recipient of the 2004 Michigan Tech Research Award and has helped the department establish a well-funded research group in atmospheric physics which includes Raymond Shaw, Will Cantrell, and Claudio Mazzoleni.
Physics student Teresa Wilson placed 2nd in the Oral Presentation Competition. Below is a complete list of winners.
The 2017 Graduate Research Colloquium (GRC) was held on February 15-16 in the Memorial Union Ballroom. There were oral and poster presentation. The banquet was held on the evening of February 16
ABC 10’s Keweenaw Bureau Reporter Rick Allen reported on the colloquium. Read more and watch the video at ABC10 UP, by Rick Allen.
Complete list of winners:
The GRC is held each year by the Graduate Student Government at Michigan Tech.
Alexander Kostinski (Physics/EPSSI) is the principal investigator on a project that has received a $156,119 research and development grant from the National Science Foundation.
Miguel Levy (Physics/MSE) and Dolendra Karki (Physics) authored a paper published this month in Scientific Reports — Nature, entitled “Nonreciprocal Transverse Photonic Spin and Magnetization-Induced Electromagnetic Spin-Orbit Coupling.”
Will Cantrell, coordinator of the Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship program, will conduct a workshop for students on the SURF application process, including writing an effective SURF proposal. The workshop will take place at 6 p.m. tomorrow (Jan. 12) in Fisher 130.
Faculty and staff are encouraged to notify students interested in applying for SURF funding to attend. This workshop will cover the same material as the one presented in December.
The deadline for SURF applications is 4 p.m. Jan. 27.
Raymond Shaw (Physics/EPSSI) is the principal investigator on a project that has received a $98,855 research and development contract from the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory.
The project is titled “HOLODEC Participation in the ARM Campaign Aerosol and Cloud Experiments in the Eastern North Atlantic (ACE-ENA).”
This is a 20-month project.
In Mineralogical Magazine’s recent newsletter, the International Commission on New Minerals, Nomenclature and Classification announced twelve new minerals that were approved by the commission in November.
Among them is a new bismuth and gold sulfide [Bi3S3][AuS2] from Alsó-Rózsa adit, Nagybörzsöny Mountains, Pest Co., Hungary named jaszczakite, in honor of Michigan Tech professor John Jaszczak (Physics).
The new mineral was proposed by Luca Bindi (Università di Firenze, Italy;) and Werner Paar (Salzburg, Austria).
Crain’s Detroit Business published three articles about Michigan Tech-based technologies that are being commercialized for the marketplace.
One is about StabiLux Biosciences, based on Yoke Khin Yap’s (Physics) research. Another describes MicroDevice Engineering, producing a battery-operated portable blood typing device developed by Adrienne Minerick (ChE, Associate Dean for Research and Innovation), and the third is about Neuvokas, a local manufacturer of fiber-reinforced polymer rebar developed by Tech alumni and tested at the University.
There are few absolutes in life, but Will Cantrell says this is one: “Every cloud droplet in Earth’s atmosphere formed on a preexisting aerosol particle.”
And the way those droplets form — with scarce or plentiful aerosol particles — could have serious implications for weather and climate change.
It’s been known for decades that cleaner clouds tend to have bigger cloud droplets. But through research conducted in Michigan Tech’s cloud chamber, which was published by Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Cantrell, graduate student Kamal Kant Chandrakar, Raymond Shaw and colleagues found that cleaner clouds also have a much wider variability in droplet size. So wide, in fact, that some are large enough to be considered drizzle drops.
Dirtier clouds, Shaw explains, not only have smaller droplets, but also much more uniformity in droplet size, with no observable drizzle drops.
“If clouds have more aerosols in them, the drops would be smaller and more similar in size,” Shaw says. “It would be harder for the cloud to rain, and the cloud would then last longer. If a cloud rains, or has less water in it, it won’t be there to reflect sunlight.”
By Stefanie Sidortsova, read the full story.