“The New Einsteins Will Be Scientists Who Share.”by Kate Bannan 01 Nov, 2011 in Science Communications
In an October 29, 2011 Wall Street Journal article, “The New Einsteins Will Be Scientists Who Share,” Dr. Michael Nielsenstated that networked science has the potential to speed up dramatically the rate of discovery across all of science, and that we may well see the day-to-day process of scientific research change more fundamentally over the next few decades than over the past three centuries. He also noted that there are major obstacles to achieving this goal, including the lack of a systematic effort by scientists to adopt new tools of discovery or to share data – because they are busy, they may believe it’s a diversion from their “real” work or because they may not be familiar with the means to do so easily. OSTI knows that the public and members of the scientific community may not be familiar with the multitude of different science databases. OSTI addresses and solves these considerable challenges by providing vehicles for obtaining targeted, precise information quickly and easily. We believe that shared knowledge is the enabler of scientific progress, and that accelerating the sharing of knowledge will accelerate discovery. To these ends, OSTI uses and extends modern communication technologies. Our databases are the largest national sources of energy and science R&D information in the world. OSTI resources include: Science Accelerator, a gateway to DOE research and development (R&D) projects and programs, descriptions of R&D projects underway or recently completed, major R&D accomplishments, and recent research of interest to DOE. The user can learn about ongoing research projects, explore significant DOE discoveries, learn about DOE Nobel Prize Winners, access and search scientific e-prints... Related Topics: Albert Einstein, information sharing, Science Accelerator, Science.gov, WorldWideScience.org (WWS) Read more... |
Faster than the speed of light? Or an anomaly?by Kate Bannan 27 Sep, 2011 in Science Communications
According to Einstein's theory of relativity, it is not possible for matter to travel faster than the speed of light in a vacuum. The speed of light (186,282 miles per second) has long been considered a cosmic speed limit, and much of modern physics is based on Einstein's work. Now there is a possibility that Einstein was wrong -- and physics may have to rethink the concept of matter and energy.
Related Topics: biological sciences, neutrinos, physics, Science Accelerator, ScienceCinema, speed of light, WorldWideScience.org (WWS) Read more... |
Department of Energy Releases 2011 Strategic Planby Kate Bannan 10 May, 2011 in Science Communications
Plan lays out the Department’s leadership role in transforming the energy economy through investments in research, development of new technologies and deployment of innovative approaches
DOE recently released its 2011 Department of Energy Strategic Plan, which outlines the broad, cross-cutting and collaborative goals, and will serve as a blueprint for DOE to help address the nation’s energy, environmental and nuclear challenges through transformative science and technology solutions.
The Department’s missions and programs are designed to bring the best minds and capabilities to bear on important problems. It draws on the diverse talents of our federal workforce, scientists and engineers from national laboratories, academia and the private sector in multidisciplinary teams, striving to find solutions to the most complex and pressing challenges.
The DOE Strategic Planis organized into four distinct categories:
· Catalyzing the timely, material, and efficient transformation of the nation’s energy system and securing U.S. leadership in clean energy technologies
· Maintaining a vibrant U.S. effort in science and engineering as a cornerstone of our economic prosperity with clear leadership in strategic areas
· Enhancing nuclear security through defense, nonproliferation, and environmental efforts
· Establishing an operational and adaptable framework that combines the best wisdom of all Department stakeholders to maximize mission success
Do you want to find out more about how the Department of Energy plays an important and unique role in the U.S. science and technology community? Or how the DOE plays a leadership role in transforming the energy economy through investments in research... Related Topics: clean energy, nuclear security, Science Accelerator, Strategic Plan Read more... |
Strengthening America’s Energy Securityby Kate Bannan 06 Apr, 2011 in Science Communications
Energy continues to be much in the news these days; rising gas prices affect all Americans – families feel the pinch at the pump, and businesses and farmers see the increased costs impact their bottom line. The Obama Administration recently released a Blueprint for a Secure Energy Future (pdf) that outlines a comprehensive national energy policy that aims to:
Do you want to know what is being done at the Department of Energy and its national laboratories that will help reduce our nation’s dependence on foreign sources of energy, what new or alternative sources of energy are being developed and how we can use energy more efficiently? Go to the Office of Scientific and Technical Informationand use Science Accelerator, a free resource that was developed to advance discovery and deliver science information. Science Accelerator allows the user to search, via a single query, for scientific and technical... Related Topics: America, energy, Science Accelerator Read more... |
Celebrate National Engineers’ Week 2011 – February 20-26, 2011by Dr. Walt Warnick 17 Feb, 2011 in Science Communications The celebration of National Engineers’ Week started in 1951 by the National Society of Professional Engineers. The week occurs in February, in conjunction with President George Washington's Birthday; our first President is considered by many engineers to be the nation's first engineer because of his survey work.
Engineering has made countless contributions to enhancing modern life by making it more comfortable, safe and prosperous. Engineers use imagination and analytical skills to invent, design, improve and build things. They turn ideas into reality, apply basic research and dream up creative and practical solutions. Engineers change the world.
The engineering field is as varied as engineers themselves. Engineers design and build superstructures and delicate medical instruments. They explore for energy and better and more efficient ways to deliver it, design environmental controls for buildings and are driving innovation in wind energy, fuel cell technology, solar energy, geothermal energy, petroleum, gas, nuclear engineering, alternative energy and energy efficiency to fusion, hydrogen and superconductor technologies.
Who knows where the next great challenges and breakthroughs will be?
At DOE and the National Laboratories engineers support the discovery and design of new materials with novel structures, functions and properties that may lead to new materials for the generation, storage and use of energy or address and solve environmental impacts of energy use. Other engineers use modern tools and capabilities in the engineering sciences to ensure the safety, security, reliability and performance of the current and future U.S. nuclear weapons stockpile without having to... Related Topics: Engineers, Science Accelerator Read more... |
Join OSTI at the AAAS Annual Meeting, February 17-21by Dr. Walt Warnick 01 Feb, 2011 in Science Communications
The Department of Energy’s Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI) will be at the American Association for the Advancement of Science’s 2011 Annual Meeting. The theme of this year’s meeting is “Science without Borders.” OSTI will have a booth (#201 floor plan) at the meeting. Our central theme is “Ensuring Global Science Access.”
Join us, and thousands of leading scientists, engineers, educators, policymakers, families and members from national and international media at this important meeting. Be sure to stop by OSTI’s booth where you can ask questions and see how to get worldwide R&D results free and fast via single-point-of-access web portals, such as:
Science Accelerator (DOE resources)
Science.gov(U.S. federal agency science information)
WorldWideScience.org (global science information)
OSTI offers web-based searchable databases with relevancy-ranked and downloadable search results... Related Topics: American Association for the Advancement of Science, Science Accelerator, Science.gov, ScienceEducation.gov, WorldWideScience.org (WWS) Read more... |
Celebrate National Chemistry Week 2010 – October 17-23by Kate Bannan 15 Oct, 2010 in Science Communications
Chemistry has made countless contributions to enhancing modern life by making it more comfortable, safe and prosperous. Chemistry is a physical science that studies atoms, molecules, crystals and other aggregates of matter. Understanding the basic properties of matter and learning how to predict and explain changes are what chemistry and chemists are all about. Chemistry can be very specialized, dealing with the composition, behavior, structure and properties of matter, as well as changes that occur during chemical reactions. The Chemical Sciences, Geosciences, and Energy Biosciences Division (CSGB) in the Department of Energy’s (DOE) Office of Science supports chemistry. CSGB is also involved in DOE’s exciting new Energy Frontier Research Centers and Innovation Hubs. DOE funds approximately 20% of fedderally-funded chemistry research and is the largest source of funding for chemical engineering, sponsoring 40% of all federally funded research in that field in 2007. Over the years, 26 researchers associated with DOE have been awarded a Nobel Prize in Chemistry for their work. Do you want to know more about chemistry at DOE? Do you want to find your own research? Learn more about the Nobel Prize-winning chemistry? Science Accelerator, developed by the Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI) to advance discovery and to deliver science information, is a gateway to chemistry and all science at DOE, including R&D results, project descriptions, accomplishments, full text documents, conference papers, Scientific e-prints….and more... Related Topics: Chemical Sciences Geosciences and Energy Biosciences Division, Chemistry, CSGB, Science Accelerator Read more... |
Value of a Semantic Science Accelerator and Means of Constructing Itby Dr. William Watson 28 Jul, 2010 in Technology OSTI's current services accelerate science through what is largely a kind of card file. We point people to particular pieces of literature or data that meet certain search criteria. From there, people can build on what those pieces of information tell them and achieve new discoveries and inventions. Some of what the users achieve involves combining the information they get with other knowledge of their own that isn't represented in databases. This of course requires some thought from the users. But other achievements could result entirely from information that the users retrieve through OSTI, with no additional input whatsoever--namely inferences made directly from that information alone. Right now, such inferences still generally require user involvement. But software programs designed and tested in the last several years can automate some inferences from text and data tables. In biology and medicine, these programs have already turned up connections in the literature that could accelerate our understanding, and thus treatment, of some poorly-understood diseases.[1] Among the most recent inferential programs is Semantic Medline[2], which displays conceptual interconnections across multiple search results in a single graph, thus showing the searcher how his query's terms relate to other concepts, some of which he may not already know. If it were permanently left to unaided human users to make these inferences themselves, very few would ever be made, since no user knows every fact mentioned in the entire science and technology literature. Computers, on the other hand, can check large sets of literature for explicit links between concepts and infer chains of such links to reveal unsuspected relations in the physical world. The text-analysis software currently... Related Topics: Science Accelerator, semantic Read more... |
Enormous STI Content Made Easily Searchable by OSTIby Dr. Walt Warnick 01 Jul, 2010 in Products and Content
We have integrated about ten OSTI products dealing with technical reports, e-prints, patents, conference proceedings, project summaries, etc., so that they are all searchable via s single query. The integrated product allows users to search without first having to decide which OSTI product is likely to have the content he/she seeks. This product is ScienceAccelerator.gov. We have integrated comparable offerings from about 14 other agencies so that all the virtually combined offerings can be searched via a single query. Science.gov allows users to search without first having to decide which agency offers which content. The DOE contribution to Science.gov is ScienceAccelerator.gov . We have integrated comparable offerings from about 70 other countries so that all the offerings can be searched via a single query. The US contribution to WorldWideScience.org is Science.gov. WorldWideScience.org allows users to search without first having to decide which country offers which content. The virtual collection is enormous, being comparable in size to science made searchable via Google. Our tests suggest, however, that well over 90% of the content of WorldWideScience is non-Googelable. Until June 11, 2010, the content accessible via WorldWideScience had English titles and other bibliographic information. On June 11, 2010 WorldWideScience became multilingual. A beta application was launched which enables speakers of English to search databases posted on behalf of the Russian government for speakers of Russian. Similarly, for Chinese and seven other languages. And speakers of these other languages can search the English offerings of WorldWideScience. The translation capabilities are provided by a collaboration with Microsoft. Microsoft has posted a blog about Multilingual WWS by Tony Hey, their... Related Topics: federated search, Science Accelerator, Science.gov, WorldWideScience.org (WWS) Read more... |
Science Accelerator Brings You More Access and More to Accessby Mary Schorn 23 Jun, 2010 in Products and Content You can now have multiple access points to Science Accelerator at your fingertips. Just download the new tabbed widget and you will have access to search Science Accelerator, to the RSS feed, and to the Science Accelerator Alerts. Download via the 'Get Widget Options' link or by placing the inclusion code in the online location of your choice. When you use the widget search feature, a federated search provides one-stop simultaneous searching of multiple networked data resources, including the newly-added resources -- DOE Data Explorer and DOE Green Energy. DOE Data Explorer contains collections of scientific research data such as computer simulations, numeric data files, figures and plots, interactive maps, multimedia, and scientific images that have been generated in the course of DOE-sponsored research in various science disciplines. These publicly available data collections support DOE research results that are well documented in journal articles, conference literature, and technical reports that are available via the Science Accelerator. DOE Green Energy is a portal to information about various forms of green energy, including solar, wind, bioenergy, and others. It provides access to DOE technical report literature, green energy patent information, and other green energy results from research and development conducted throughout the Department and by DOE-funded awards at universities. It contains both current research and historical research. ... Related Topics: accelerator, access, accomplishments, citation clustering, conferences, customizing e-prints information, DOE Data Explorer (DDE), DOE Green Energy, management, patents, projects, reports, science, Science Accelerator, search, software, winners Read more... |
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