NSF grant funds study of endangered amphibians

	BRIAN GRATWICKE, Smithsonian Institution

Amphibians are among the most-threatened creatures on earth, with some 40 percent of amphibian species classified as endangered or threatened. One of their primary threats is a rapidly spreading disease that attacks skin cells, a fungus called chytridiomycosis.

Lisa Belden, associate professor of biological sciences in the College of Science, is leading a team of researchers from Virginia Tech, James Madison University, Villanova University, and the Smithsonian Institution who will study the microbial communities living on the skins of frogs that are surviving the fungal scourge. The effort is one of 11 new Dimensions of Biodiversity projects funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) with the aim of transforming, by 2020, "how scientists describe and understand the scope and role of life on earth," according to an NSF news release.
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Board of visitors approves graduate degree offerings in nuclear engineering
At its November meeting, the Virginia Tech Board of Visitors approved offering master's and doctoral degrees in nuclear engineering. The university will now send the proposal to the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia for confirmation. The proposed starting date for the new degree programs is spring 2013. Tech's College of Engineering revived its nuclear engineering program in 2007, and soon started offering graduate coursework that allows students to earn a master's of mechanical engineering with a nuclear certificate.
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		Researchers hope to help people 'sleep tight' The Arlington Innovation Center: Health Research, of Virginia Tech's National Capital Region, has been awarded a $1.5 million cooperative research and development agreement from the U.S. Army for neuroimaging studies of human performance. The agreement also includes an option for approximately $3 million of future work based on availability of funding. "The central scientific effort of this project will be to improve our understanding of how the brain stem and thalamus regulate sleep in humans and how these systems are affected by stress and sleep restriction," said Seong K. Mun, professor of physics, research Fellow, and director of the center. MORE ...
Seong K. Mun

Department strives to increase female representation in computer science

As a founding member of the National Center for Women & Information Technology's Pacesetters program, the Department of Computer Science in the College of Engineering is striving to increase the number of women in its ranks.

Barbara Ryder, professor of computer science and the department head, and two additional departmental faculty members, Manuel Perez-Quinones and Scott McCrickard, are pursuing what they called "designer minors," which allow students to combine computer science with such disciplines as business, mathematics, and psychology. By targeting outreach efforts to high schools, they also are working to increase the number of women graduating from college with technical degrees. In the department, 35 percent of the recent master's graduates and 25 percent of the recent Ph.D. graduates were women. The department also has six female teaching and research faculty members.
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VT KnowledgeWorks announces merger and expansion
VT KnowledgeWorks and the Business Technology Center, two Virginia Tech offices that promote economic development by providing a range of services to technology-based businesses, have joined forces to create a single, comprehensive entrepreneurship-assistance program. The merged VT KnowledgeWorks will launch an "in-reach" program aimed at helping Virginia Tech inventors commercialize their discoveries in a more timely manner.
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Endowment performance recognized with award
The Virginia Tech Foundation received the 2011 Award for Excellence for Mid-size Nonprofit of the Year from the Foundation and Endowment Intelligence (FEI) information service. FEI cited an endowment performance that placed the foundation "solidly in the top quartile of performers." The endowment earned a 19.6 percent return for fiscal year 2011 and topped $600 million for the first time in 2011.
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At iCAN, students 'sculpt' for a cause

		In a unique twist on a canned food drive, the Center for Student Engagement and Community Partnerships' iCAN event featured sculptures made entirely of canned goods. Part of the center's Season of Service initiative, this year's event and its seven participating teams raised more than 5,200 pounds of food worth $1,000 to benefit several local hunger-relief agencies. The SERVE living-learning community team won first place with a rendition of Lane Stadium. MORE ...

Bloomberg dubs Blacksburg best place in the U.S. to raise a family
Bloomberg Businessweek ranked Blacksburg No. 1 on its list of best places to raise kids. The publication cited "excellent schools, combined with an affordable cost of living, relatively low crime, and plentiful amenities" as reasons for the town's jump from its previous No. 6 ranking. The report also notes the economic impact of Virginia Tech as the town's largest employer, the presence of Virginia Tech Corporate Research Center's 140-plus companies and 2,200 employees, and the success of tech start-ups such as Modea, an advertising agency founded by Tech alumni.
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		Electronic health records save money but pose risks Electronic health records (EHRs) can potentially save billions of dollars in health care costs and increase patient safety, but have considerable privacy risks in the United States, more so than the European Union (EU), according to a new study co-authored by Pamplin College of Business Professor Janine Hiller. Strengthening the legal and technical safeguards, she said, would significantly minimize the privacy and security risks and address public concerns about EHRs. Hiller's study examined the benefits and drawbacks of EHRs and the adequacy of U.S. laws to meet the challenges posed by the risks and concerns and compared EU and U.S. legal approaches to EHRs. MORE ...
Janine Hiller

Software allows for putting smart phones on lockdown, wiping data

		A team of Virginia Tech researchers has created software to remotely put smart phones under lockdown in order to protect users and information. The phones are given permission to access sensitive data while in a particular room, but when the devices leave the room, the data is completely wiped. The software also enables central control of phone features, such as preventing a smart phone's camera or email from working. "There are commercial products that do limited versions of these things, but nothing that allows for automating wiping and complete control of settings and apps on smart phones and tablets," said Jules White, assistant professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. "This system provides something that has never been available before. It puts physical boundaries around information in cyberspace."
Uses abound. A general could access classified intelligence in a secure facility without worrying about losing a phone later. A doctor or nurse could consult a patient's electronic records, but couldn't leave the examination room with the records. In order to prevent distraction at school, parents could restrict their children's text messaging. MORE ...

Bats' shape-shifting ears make hearing more flexible
Courtesy of Tech's Bio-inspired Technology Lab		"Certain bats can deform the shapes of their ears in a way that changes the animal's ultrasonic hearing pattern. Within just one-tenth of a second, these bats are able to change their outer ear shapes from one extreme configuration to another," said Rolf Müller, associate professor of mechanical engineering at Virginia Tech. Along with Ph.D. student Li Gao and master's candidate Sreenath Balakrishnan, Müller wrote a paper that appeared in the Physical Review Letters. Weikai He and Zhen Yan, both in the School of Physics at Shandong University, also contributed to the study. Müller said,"In about 100 milliseconds, this type of bat can alter his ear shape significantly in ways that would suit different acoustic sensing tasks. [By comparison], a human blink of an eye takes two to three times as long." MORE ...