http://syndicate.missouri.edu/articles Fri, 14 Sep 2007 21:43:26 GMT Connecting you with the University of Missouri’s innovative research and creative activity http://syndicate.missouri.edu/articles/show/45 Meera Chandrasekhar, Professor of Physics at MU, describes herself as "a condensed matter experimentalist," that is, a physicist who studies a class of materials called condensed matter systems (formerly known as "solids"). Within this class are three types of materials: insulators (Styrofoam, plastic, and rubber), which do not allow electricity to flow; conductors (metals), which do allow electricity to flow; and semiconductors, which "have conductivities in between that of insulators and conductors." Chandrasekhar has spent most of her research career seeking to understand the special properties of this "in between" class of materials, and she speaks lovingly about how these semiconductors are unusual by virtue of their limited electrical conductivity and their particular response to light. Mon, 19 Feb 2007 16:06:49 GMT http://syndicate.missouri.edu/articles/show/45 (LuAnne Roth) http://syndicate.missouri.edu/articles/show/65 Craig Kluever’s dream was born as he found himself awestruck in front of a grainy black-and-white television screen watching Apollo 11 land on the moon. He was in kindergarten. As he puts it, “that just made a big impact on me. Of course, the first thing I wanted to be was an astronaut.” Those early dreams of becoming an astronaut turned instead into a pursuit of the science behind the rockets. Today, the MU Professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering works behind the scenes to solve the kind of problems involved in designing space travel—such as how to take off, how to reach a target, and, more importantly, how to return safely to Earth. Wed, 24 Oct 2007 05:00:00 GMT http://syndicate.missouri.edu/articles/show/65 (LuAnne Roth) http://syndicate.missouri.edu/articles/show/68 Becoming a geologist was not the original aspiration for Mian Liu, Professor of Geological Sciences. The Chinese government assigned him to the discipline when he was 17 years old, a course of study he later followed at Nanjing University. His initial lack of interest in geology had much to do with the way the subject was taught. “The focus was not on understanding the processes; we were forced to memorize lots of facts,” he explains. Instead, Liu’s earliest interest was in physics, which “just seemed more intuitive.” He began sitting in on a variety of lectures and found that he preferred learning about geophysics, the physics of the Earth, eventually earning a Ph.D. in that area from the University of Arizona. Wed, 10 Oct 2007 05:00:00 GMT http://syndicate.missouri.edu/articles/show/68 (Tammy Ritterskamp) http://syndicate.missouri.edu/articles/show/74 Great celestial bodies populate the solar system. For an untrained eye staring at the heavens, the starlight spectacles and endless seas of blackness are nothing short of a miracle. Researchers, however, have developed mathematical equations that may help us understand such mysteries of the universe. From Isaac Newton’s Law of Universal Gravitation to Albert Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity, the scientific community has paved the way for a greater understanding of the great beyond. Thu, 07 Feb 2008 06:00:00 GMT http://syndicate.missouri.edu/articles/show/74 (Sean Powers)