PHYSICS FLASH
    News from the Department of Physics ~ June 2008

ASU PHYSICS
Department of Physics
Arizona State University
PO Box 871504
Tempe, AZ 85287
480.965.3561
Center hosts summer teaching program

The Center for Biological Physics is proud to take part in hosting the ASU Math and Science Teaching Fellows (MSTF) Program.  The program runs June 16 through July 18. MSTF provides research

experience for Arizona

secondary math and

science teachers.

     This summer, a group

of eleven teachers from

Valley high schools are

participating. Represent-

ed high schools include

Agua Fria, Casa Grande

Union, Cortez, Deer

Valley, Metro Tech,

North and Mesa high

school.

     Through the program,

participants interact with faculty, postdoctoral researchers, and graduate students to learn about the latest scientific discoveries and research. They work with program instructors and with each other to develop new ways of sharing science with high school students.
     “The teachers are very enthusiastic about the program,” says Jill Kolp, Coordinator for the Center for Biological Physics. “They are all excited and eager to apply what they are learning to their classrooms.”
     There are a variety of topics discussed throughout the program. Among them, a discussion about protein structure - starting with the chemistry of amino acids and the formation of the peptide bond and moving on to discuss the elements of secondary structure like alpha helices and beta sheets.

   ASU graduate student, Daniel Barr, led a discussion on protein structure.

     "We discussed the great diversity in protein structure and function, and the problem of proteomics - particularly the need for more structural data."

Barr introduced participants to the protein database and showed them how they can access structures of the proteins that have been published there. After selecting a protein from

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 the database and rendering it for red and cyan glasses, Barr invited teachers to view the structure in 3-D. 

     Participants also discuss the fundamental importance of math concepts to physics and how those concepts are applied today in molecular dynamics simulations of biological molecules. 

     The program is a win-win for all involved and one of many outreach programs supported and/or developed by ASU’s Center for Biological Physics. Valley teachers benefit by expanding and deepening the scope of curriculum shared with students as well as by improving their own teaching skills.

     ASU benefits by generating more youth interest and excitement in physics. Better teachers plus enhanced curriculum equals more engaged students - an algorithm which lays the groundwork for bringing the best and brightest youth into the field of physics at ASU.

 

For more information on the ASU Math & Science Teaching Fellows program, please click HERE.

Keep in touch and
MAKE A DIFFERENCE
with ASU Physics!

Please consider supporting ASU Physics students, research, and programs. More information on the ASU Physics web site

or by calling 480.965.6794.
Front office hires new student worker
ASU Physics welcomes student worker Raiza Dottin to the main office staff. Raiza is an ASU undergrad currently pursuing a degree in Educational Studies with a minor in Justice Studies. She hopes to have a career working with elementary  school children.    Raiza will be working half time at the front desk along with current ASU Physics student worker, Rachelle “Shelly” Robinson.
     Raiza takes over the vacancy created since Sharon Puzio transitioned late in June to the West Campus to continue her degree coursework. Sharon had been with the department since October 2006. We thank Sharon for her hard work and wish her the best of luck in her studies!

In the News...
 

ASU Physics welcomes Dr. Lawrence Krauss to the faculty. Krauss, a renown cosmologist and author, comes to ASU after 15 years at Case Western Reserve University where he served as chair of the physics department for 12 years. Krauss joins ASU Professor Paul Davies in an emerging research and educational initiative on “origins”. Both scientists have strong overlap with physics which makes their association with ASU Physics logical. For more information, see the ASU News article on Krauss’ appointment.

 

Congratulations to Professor Peter Rez who was as recently awarded a three-year grant from the Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) to calculate the complete electromagnetic response of large macromolecules. Rez intends to research the possibility of a unique signature in the electromagnetic spectrum that will distinguished threatening pathogens from innocuous ones like the common cold. Although sole PI on the project, Rez will work with the Center for Biological Physics’ Mike Thorpe and Otto Sankey.

 

ASU Physics Professor Cecilia Lunardini has implemented the use of video email to help successfully mentor her graduate student, Steven Summers. Lunardini has a dual affiliation with ASU and Brookhaven Laboratory. The arrangement requires Lunardini to be away from campus for extended periods of time. To continue mentoring Summer's effectively, Lunardini uses the web service Eyejot (www.eyejot.com) which enables her to record up to five minutes of video and send it by email. Lunardini has found the application very useful in explaining concepts that are too complex or lengthy to be effectively communicated by regular email. Compared to the telephone, video email has the advantage that it can be played multiple times and it helps to overcome the the challenge presented by working three time zones away from your students.

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Genetic Sequencing

By Stuart Lindsay

 

(Abridged version of an article by Professor Lindsay that appeared in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists)

James Watson and Francis Crick’s 1953 revelation of the molecular mechanism and structure of the gene forever changed humanity’s view of life, moving the center of mass of the scientific community to the biological sciences. All organisms, of which we are so far aware, are programmed by a sequence of chemical components—adenine, thymine, cytosine, and guanine—known as bases, that make up the polymer deoxyribonucleic acid, DNA, and a close relative, ribonucleic acid, or RNA. DNA is the software code that programs the hardware contained in the chemical soup of living organisms. Bases pair off predictably, adenine with thymine and cytosine with guanine, and this pairing is what allows the genetic code to be copied with high fidelity. Each double helix of DNA is composed of two complementary base-paired chains. By  replicating one chain of DNA with a complementary version of itself, the result is two new identical double helices.
     Or is it really thus? The 2007 “Breakthrough of the Year,” according to the journal Science, is the recognition that genomes, the total amount of genetic information within an individual or cell, are not the inviolable repository of faithfully recorded information that scientists once thought them to be.[1]

     Scientists’ new understanding of genomes recognizes that they are not an identical copy of some perfect “parental” genes. They are shuffled, mixed, copied, deleted, and even inverted in a process called meiotic recombination. But that is just the start. Born with this gemisch, the human genome has littlereason to retain this messy structure much beyond the onset of an individual’s reproductive years.
      One unfortunate manifestation of drastic genomic shuffling is the disease of cancer, though evidence suggests that this shuffling is a consequence, rather than a cause, of cancer. Cancer, the onslaught of pathogens, and even aging may be the ultimate price we pay for genetic instability. But gene shuffling is also the basis of our immune system. The human body uses it to prepare an army of “random” hunters for unknown targets. The very same process of random gene shuffling may be critical to the formation of the complex neural networks that let you read this article[2]  The bottom line: The genome you carry is

not just your mother’s, not just your father’s, and, thanks to environmental pressures, not even really yours to keep. Rather, it reflects a complex set of factors, mostly inherited, but many stochastic and environmental.

     In 2001, scientists first sequenced the human genome, determining the order of the bases that made up the genome’s array of DNA.[3] This event, an enormous milestone, was really just the first tiny step—the average DNA sequence from essentially one person—in a much larger process. Scientists are hoping to develop a method to sequence the genome not just of individual humans, but ultimately, of individual cells from different types of tissue, in different states of health. The first human genome took 10 years to complete and cost billions of dollars.

 

 
DNA being driven through a nanopore by an ionic current in water
 

 
Scientists need to reduce the cost and time by many orders of magnitude to benefit human health. The consequences would be deeper insight into the genetic factors that make one person more likely to suffer a disease than another, and personalized tailoring of treatments to individual characteristics, avoiding many of the side effects of drugs, and targeting expensive treatments to patients on whom they will be effective. The key to understanding the composition of and changes that occur in the 7 billion or so human genomes on the planet will be to develop a vanguard technology to make much longer DNA sequencing reads than are currently possible.  

 

READ THE FULL ARTICLE

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Masters of Natural Science program growth continues

 
Beginning in June, the Master of Natural Science (MNS) program welcomed six new students and 14 returning students to the summer program. This represents an enrollment increase of 18% from 2007. Since the start of the program in 2001, 38 students have earned the MNS degree.

     The Master of Natural Science program is unique to other degree programs offered by the Department of Physics. The program which, is aimed towards in-service high school teachers who are in the science arena, is conveniently structured to allow students to obtain a master’s degree on average over three summers.

 

 


MNS students in PHS 581 working

on a crystal structure activity

 

Coursework is hands-on and practical for the classroom. Modeling workshops are a key component of the program of study. These workshops are specifically geared toward improving how and what science content is delivered to junior high and high school students. Together with a wide-range of content-intensive classes, the curriculum gives MNS students new skills which they can be incorporated into their own classrooms.
     MNS Program and ASU Physics faculty member Robert Culbertson and Dr. Jane Jackson have acquired grants from the Arizona Board of Regents and Salt River Project to provide MNS students with partial or full tuition. Jackson also works to locate summer housing for out-of-area students. Between the grants and low cost housing, the MNS program continues to be an accommodating and affordable option for teachers seeking higher degrees.
     Feedback from MNS students is very strong.  Current MNS program participant, Elizabeth Fife, comments that the enrollment in general physics at her home school has doubled in the last two years. She attributes this growth to the content and pedagogy she has studied through the MNS program. 

     “It is by far the best science methodology out there. Unlike traditional science classroom practices, the modeling program stresses the PROCESS of science,” says Fife. “Students not only learn the requisite science curriculum, [they learn] how to design and implement experiments that will address a question, how to work well in a community of peers, how to collect and process data, how to think logically and critically - basically, how to be effective problem solvers. Not only do these skills serve to help knowledge retention and increase general interest in science, but they are skills that transcend the science classroom.”

 

For more information on the MNS degree program at ASU, see the MNS Program page on our site.

From the Chair...

 

Research Update:

new laboratories,

new faculty,

new partners.        .

 
The advancements of the frontiers of science, the discovery of all new phenomena, and the innovations that affect our lives are all aspects at the core of the research of our faculty and students at ASU Physics. 

     While ASU has long been known for its outstanding laboratory facilities, the development of modern physics laboratories is truly a challenge.  In the last few months it has been exciting to bring on line the Diamond Device Design laboratory at the ASU Research Park south of campus.  This laboratory represents some of my research where we are preparing single crystal diamond thin films and studying whether they can be used to innovate solid state electronics for power distribution in future electronic cars and trucks.  This laboratory uses state-of-the-art equipment, and that equipment requires attention to every detail to operate effectively and safely. 

     We have nearly completed renovation construction on a new laboratory located in the Psychology North building.  This nano science laboratory is focused on fabricating new types of nanometer scale structures for electronics applications.  Two recent faculty hires in ASU Physics are also immersed in the details of creating and renovating laboratory space. Construction is beginning now for Professor Robert Ros’s new laboratory for nano-bio research, and Professor Sara Vaiana is fully involved with the design of her biophysics laboratory.

     Each of these (amazing) laboratories is set to bring science to the hands of our future researchers. From the first projects of our junior and senior undergraduate students to the expansive dissertations of our graduate students, ASU Physics students will contribute to the new discoveries that will lead to innovations for the future.    

     Most importantly are the faculty who guide the research and inspire our students.  It is a pleasure to welcome Professor Lawrence Krauss to ASU Physics.  Professor Krauss is a highly distinguished cosmology theorist who will join the faculty in the Fall. He has already been working with ASU faculty, and he has joined with Professor Paul Davies, Director of the Beyond Center, to develop new collaborations that span from particle physics to astrophysics to cosmology. The interplay of these fields impacts some of the most fundamental questions about our universe (i.e. where is most of the matter and energy).  There is tremendous excitement for the new collaborations that are developing to explore physics at truly the grandest scale.

     During this month, I had the opportunity to visit Taiwan for the first time. My focus there was on nanoscience and nanotechnology.  It was notable that, at the Nano Diamond-Nano Carbon conference banquet, Dr. Sumio Iijima was acknowledged for winning the first-ever Kavli Foundation Prize in Nanoscience.  Dr. Iijima a former ASU researcher and longtime friend of ASU Physics, had just visited ASU in the weeks before the conference.  His discovery of carbon nanotubes is often associated with the beginning of nanotechnology. 

     I was pleased to be able to visit with distinguished researchers and leaders of several of the leading universities in Taiwan.   They were all aware of the significant nanoscience programs at ASU and I was equally impressed with their programs.  We are discussing ways to build collaborations and exchanges for the future.

     This is indeed the way of the future – where students and faculty begin studies of discovery in state-of-the-art laboratories, where the most outstanding faculty collaborate and inspire students on some of the most significant challenges, and where collaborations and partnerships bring together researchers from around the world.

 

Sincerely,

 

Robert J. Nemanich

 
Physics Flash welcomes your feedback. Please send comments, questions, and suggestions to
margaret.stuart@asu.edu
 

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