Companies can take advantage of state-of-the art equipment; students gain experience
COLUMBIA, Mo. – When Microdyne, LLC, needed help building a prototype for a dairy cattle breeding device, the company, based in St. Joseph, was ready to look overseas for a prototype manufacturing team. Then Microdyne was introduced to Mike Klote, manager of the University of Missouri’s College of Engineering prototype development facility, and a solution was found that also provided MU engineering students a valuable educational opportunity.(more…)
If the brain goes hungry, Twinkies look a lot better, a study led by researchers at Yale University and the University of Southern California has found.
Brain imaging scans show that when glucose levels drop, an area of the brain known to regulate emotions and impulses loses the ability to dampen desire for high-calorie food, according to the study published online September 19 in The Journal of Clinical Investigation. (more…)
PASADENA, Calif. — Astronomers using NASA’s Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) have captured rare data of a flaring black hole, revealing new details about these powerful objects and their blazing jets.
Scientists study jets to learn more about the extreme environments around black holes. Much has been learned about the material feeding black holes, called accretion disks, and the jets themselves, through studies using X-rays, gamma rays and radio waves. But key measurements of the brightest part of the jets, located at their bases, have been difficult despite decades of work. WISE is offering a new window into this missing link through its infrared observations. (more…)
Are you wooed by advertising? Of course you are. After all, it’s one thing to go out and buy a new washing machine after the old one exploded, quite another to impulse-buy that 246-inch flat screen TV that just maybe, in hindsight, you didn’t really need.
Advertisers come at you in two ways. There is the just-the-facts type of ad, called “logical persuasion,” or LP (“This car gets 42 miles to the gallon”), and then there is the ad that circumvents conscious awareness, called “non-rational influence,” or NI (a pretty woman, say, draped over a car). (more…)
PASADENA, Calif. — Observations from NASA’s Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) mission indicate the family of asteroids some believed was responsible for the demise of the dinosaurs is not likely the culprit, keeping open the case on one of Earth’s greatest mysteries.
While scientists are confident a large asteroid crashed into Earth approximately 65 million years ago, leading to the extinction of dinosaurs and some other life forms on our planet, they do not know exactly where the asteroid came from or how it made its way to Earth. A 2007 study using visible-light data from ground-based telescopes first suggested the remnant of a huge asteroid, known as Baptistina, as a possible suspect. (more…)
*Two studies by a UA business professor examine the hiring of CEOs, finding that new CEOs make better decisions when their self image is tied to the firm and that “strategic noise” can soften market response to a new hire.*
Two new papers co-authored by assistant professor of management Steven Boivie at the University of Arizona uncover novel facets of CEO and firm performance.
The first of the papers, out now in the Academy of Management Journal, finds a new remedy to the CEO agency problem. Instead of trying to design incentives and controls to keep corporate leaders acting in the best interest of the company, Boivie and his co-authors demonstrate that boards should try to hire leaders who strongly identify with the company itself. (more…)
*Increase in Time Spent on Facebook Accounts for 90 Percent of Increase in Total Time Spent Online in Latin America*
comScore Releases Report, “The Rise of Social Networking in Latin America”
Santiago, Chile, September 20, 2011 – comScore, Inc., a leader in measuring the digital world, today released the report The Rise of Social Networking in Latin America. The report examines the state of Latin America’s dynamic social networking landscape, providing insights into trends at a global, regional and individual market level. The 35-page analysis also reveals how social media has shaped the larger digital environment through its influence on other social web activities and its role in the dissemination of marketing messages.
“Social networking has become an essential part of consumers’ digital lives over the past several years,” said Alejandro Fosk, comScore senior vice president for Latin America. “As it has become more widely adopted throughout the region and across demographic segments, it has redefined the way consumers interact with content and with each other. Social media is also changing the way marketing messages are disseminated and offers a new channel to engage with current and potential customers, which presents a variety of attractive opportunities for brands to effectively integrate social into their digital strategies.” (more…)
CT scans of fossil skull fragments may help researchers settle a long-standing debate about the evolution of Africa’s Australopithecus, a key ancestor of modern humans that died out some 1.4 million years ago.
The study, to be published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, explains how CT scans shed new light on a classic evolutionary puzzle by providing crucial information about the internal anatomy of the face. (more…)