Technology Transfer, Innovation and Economic Impact

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UO physics professor Dave Soper is a 2009 winner of the J.J. Sakurai Prize for Theoretical Physics. He will share the prize with John Collins (Penn State) and Keith Ellis (Fermilab) when presented formally in May during the American Physical Society's annual meeting in Denver. Soper was cited for his "work in perturbative quantum chromodynamics, including applications to problems pivotal to the interpretation of high-energy particle collisions." Quantum chromodynamics is a theory of strong nuclear interactions among quarks -- fundamental constituents of matter.

The prize honors J.J. Sakarai, a Japanese-American particle physicist who authored leading textbooks on quantum mechanics and the principles of elementary particles during a career at the University of Chicago and UCLA. This year's winners bring the total numbers of honorees to 36, including three who later won the Nobel Prize.

Check out Jim Hutchison's participation in an American Chemical Society production of its "Global Challenges/Chemistry Solutions" Podcast, in which the society says: "Faced with concerns about dwindling petroleum supplies and environmental pollution, we must begin to consume in a new and more sustainable way." (Listen in)

Also, still available is a report featuring Hutchison by ScienCentral: Some are calling it a revolution in manufacturing technology. But, will nanotechnology be a "green" industry? It’s a question that some scientists are saying needs to be answered now, before nanotech goes big-time. (Check it out)

National Public Radio’s science correspondent Richard Knox reported on new research by the UO’s Scott Frey, who has found that a hand-transplant recipient’s brain is re-mapping its connection – to a donor’s hand the recipient received 35 years after losing his in an industrial accident. Knox talked to the patient, and Frey. (Read and Listen)

Since 2001, investors’ comfort zone with their stocks has nose-dived from little worry about negative returns to growing worry about their stocks going nowhere for maybe a decade, reports UO psychologist Paul Slovic in an interview with Wall Street Journal columnist Jason Zweig about today’s economy. In same article, UO psychologist Ellen Peters notes that American investors are spending a lot of time following, especially on TV news, the economic turmoil. Zweig’s column, however, carries the message that those who have some cash and can conquer their stock-phobia may be a good position, likening their potential investments to a venture in emerging markets. (Read story – may require paid subscription)