February 2011

The road from fish tank to wave tank started with a stick of dynamite. In constructing Chapman Hall, contractors miscalculated either the density of the bedrock or the strength of the blasting material and ended up with a foundation hole deeper than they expected. No one recalls who made the decision to retain the underground

Junior physics major Susan Clark traveled halfway around the world last summer hunting tiny super-heroes who can withstand extreme conditions. These microscopic animals can survive boiling, freezing, radiation, exposure to the vacuum of space and very long periods of dehydration. Clark is a Morehead-Cain Scholar-turned-microorganism detective who is interested in astrobiology research. She teamed up

When a child is born with an obstructed airway, physicians can intervene with different types of surgery. But to decide whether to operate and when, and which procedures to offer, doctors must make educated guesses, relying heavily on their own experience. “Typically it’s very young children with these problems, so the challenge in deciding the