Konrad Rykaczewski, an assistant professor of engineering at Arizona State University, has strived for years to develop a better anti-icing solution for airplanes. His drive is more than academic: He was once stranded for two days in London when a long snowfall depleted Heathrow Airport of the supplies of antifreeze it uses to keep ice off airplane wings.
Before Alison Sheets was an assistant professor at Ohio State University, she was a competitive gymnast who knew her way around a trampoline. Over dinner one day, she began explaining the dynamics of trampoline bouncing games to her colleague Manoj Srinivasan, an assistant professor in the mechanical and aerospace engineering department.
David Hu wanted to know what it'd be like to change an elephant's nappy. Hu, an assistant professor of mechanical engineering and biology at the Georgia Institute of Technology, has two toddlers, so he's been doing his fair share of diaper work in the past few years. Like any curious teacher would, he turned it into a question forhis fluid mechanicsclass:How long would it take to empty an elephant's bladder, based on the bladder and urethra dimensions of that animal?A couple of his more enthusiastic undergrads grabbed a high speed camera, went to the zoo and measured the process in real life.
Erik Andrulis, an assistant professor of molecular at Case Western University, has published an article in a new peer-reviewed journal called Life. His "theoretical framework," he says, "unifies the macrocosmic and microcosmic realms, validates predicted laws of nature, and solves the puzzle of the origin and evolution of cellular life in the universe."
