Three Universities in State Win $6.9 Million to Set Up Science Research Centers
California universities will host three of 11 new Science and Technology Centers, whose creation was announced Monday by the National Science Foundation, and will participate in a fourth.
UC Berkeley, UC Santa Barbara and Caltech will receive a total of $6.975 million for first-year funding of the new centers, which are designed to promote basic research on complex problems that are of large scale and long duration, and that require special facilities or collaborative relationships.
The three California centers, chosen from among 323 proposals nationwide, will search for the 90% of the matter in the universe that is not visible to astronomers, develop the next generation of components for sophisticated electronic devices and seek new ways to determine the structure of proteins and genes.
Additionally, Caltech researchers will participate in a $4.1-million center at Rice University in Houston that will develop new ways to ease the use of networks of computers in solving complex scientific problems.
Others institutions hosting the centers are the University of Illinois, Michigan State University, Northwestern University in Chicago, the University of Oklahoma, the University of Rochester in New York, Rutgers University in New Jersey and Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University.
“One very important benefit that we hope to see from (the centers) is a much shorter time span between actual discovery and utilization,” said NSF Director Erich Bloch. “The fast transfer of knowledge is critical to our nation’s ability to compete in the world market.”
The $1.825-million Center for Particle Astrophysics at Berkeley will try to find the so-called “dark matter” of the universe that scientists know exists, because of its gravitational effects, but that cannot be seen through conventional telescopes.
Many researchers believe that the bulk of this mass exists in the form of WIMPs, weakly interacting massive particles. WIMPs are theoretical counterparts of conventional particles, such as protons, neutrons and quarks. Although they are believed to be much larger than the conventional particles, they rarely interact with normal matter and are thus difficult to observe.
The chief goal of the new center will be to develop WIMP detectors, said its director, Berkeley astrophysicist Bernard Sadoulet. The center will also be involved in optical studies of the distribution of stars, galaxies and galaxy clusters in the universe, using primarily the Keck Telescope, under construction on Hawaii’s Mauna Kea Peak.
Researchers at the $2.1-million Center for Quantized Electronic Structures at UC Santa Barbara will explore the properties of transistors, lasers and other electronic devices so small that they cause electrons to behave differently from the way they do in normal materials.
A “quantum wire,” for example, is a semiconductor strand so thin that electrons cannot move sideways across the diameter of the wire, but can only move back and forth along its length. Theory predicts that, because of the movement restriction, electrons should encounter less resistance in traveling the length of the wire, making them a form of superconductor.
Researchers have already made quantum lasers and transistors that have higher performance than conventional devices, and the center’s researchers will try to improve these devices and develop others. The ultimate goal is to develop smaller, more powerful computers, as well as to shrink other electronic devices.
Quantum electronics will “revolutionize” electronic devices in the 21st Century, said materials scientist James L. Merz, the center’s director.
The $3.05-million Center for the Development of an Integrated Protein and Nucleic Acid Biotechnology at Caltech will develop technology for use in the Human Genome Initiative, the massive U.S. project to identify each of the 3 billion chemicals present in human genes.
Researchers at the center will also be exploring the relationship between proteins and genes in an effort to determine, for example, what new proteins are formed when chemical messengers in the body interact with cellular membranes. Such research might eventually lead to new therapies for cancer and other diseases, according to the center’s co-director, biologist Stephen B. Kent.
The Center for Research on Parallel Computation at Rice will develop software that will make it easier for scientists to use parallel computing, a process by which large problems are broken down into smaller segments that can be solved simultaneously by many computers linked in a network.
Computer programs designed for use on single computers must be altered substantially before they can be used for parallel computing, and trouble-shooting of such programs is very difficult. The new center will develop core programs for parallel computers that will enable researchers to solve problems much as they would on a single computer, thus making the systems much easier to use.
