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Author: Nicole Lam

YALE ANNOUNCES 2009-2010 WORLD FELLOWS

On April 23, Yale University announced next year's Yale World Fellows. The fellows include an advisor to the president of South Africa, a United Nations television producer and the opinions editor of leading Russian business daily, Vedemosti. These international professionals will spend the fall semester in New Haven attending classes, giving lectures and acting as a resource for students.

"The objective is to elevate international dialogue on campus," said Program Director Michael Cappello.

Each professional will be assigned a residential college and two undergraduate liaisons who will help network with other students. In turn, many fellows award their student liaisons with internships.

- Yale Daily News

HARVARD LAB FINDS 1 MILLION YEAR-OLD MICROBES

A Harvard University lab recently discovered single-celled microbes living in isolation for over one million years beneath the Taylor Glacier in Antarctica. This finding refutes the long-held theory that subglacial environments that lack light, oxygen or food cannot support life.

The National Science Foundation, NASA and Harvard's Microbial Sciences Initiative sponsored a team of researchers to lead an expedition to the McMurdo Dry Valleys in Antarctica. The research team discovered that roughly a dozen species of prokaryotic microbes about the size of bacteria were living in the iron-rich water that they were using for their experiments.

At Harvard's Hoffman Laboratory, the scientists discovered that these anaerobic microorganisms survive on the iron that leaks out from the bedrock with the help of a sulfur catalyst. Without any light for photosynthesis, the microbes have been feeding on the organic matter in isolation under the massive Taylor Glacier for an estimated 1.5 million to 2 million years.

- Harvard Crimson

NOTRE DAME PUTS HOT COMPUTERS TO WORK

Notre Dame and its Center for Research Computing recently received the 2009 Green Enterprise IT Award, co-sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy, for their innovative work with the South Bend Wastewater Treatment Plant. The students are planning to transport the heat emitted from the university's computing equipment to the plant to break down waste. Typically, the plant creates its own heat by burning gas to break down the waste stream. The university students have thought of using heat released from computers to do the job instead of letting it go into the atmosphere to waste.

"I'm producing a lot of waste heat in my research computing