Engineer Your Life

"Imagine what life would be like without pollution controls to preserve the environment, life-saving medical equipment, or low-cost building materials for fighting global poverty. All this takes engineering," states the National Academy of Engineering's Web site for high-school girls and the adults in their lives.

Engineering is vital to problem solving and, as a career, offers an opportunity to make a real difference in the world. Using stories of real women and student peers engaging in these activities, the program encourages more young women to enter the field in all its varieties, such as civil, aeronautic, biomedical, environmental, industrial, and computer engineering.

Resources for counselors, teachers, parents, and adult engineers are also available at the site.

"In very real and concrete ways, women that become engineers save lives, prevent disease, reduce poverty, and protect our planet," it states. "Dream Big. Love what you do. Become an engineer."

http://www.engineeryourlife.org

Source: WFS

Rapid Virus Detection

It's easy enough to avoid people who are obviously sick, but what if they've just been infected and aren't showing symptoms yet? An infection could spread and endanger many before anyone's been diagnosed.

A portable, ultrasensitive virus detector could perceive a virus within just five minutes, using samples of an individual's saliva, blood, or other body fluid. The device, under development at the University of Twente in the Netherlands, contains an array of receptors such as antibodies that will bind to microorganisms in the sample, thus creating a detectable interference pattern, like a fingerprint.

The ability to detect viruses almost instantly in clinics or other places without access to laboratories and trained personnel could be a boon to preventing future epidemics. The device can also detect bacteria, proteins, and DNA molecules. The university's spin-off company, Ostendum, plans to introduce the first detector to market in late 2010.

SOURCE: University of Twente, www.utwente.nl/en/ via WFS