You never know when a frog playing an electronic game will lead to an experiment on the physics of saliva....Alexis C. Noel, a Ph.D. student in mechanical engineering at Georgia Tech, and her supervisor, David L. Hu, were watching a viral YouTube video in which a frog is attacking the screen of a smartphone running an ant-smashing game. It appears to be winning.
Somebody give David Hu's graduate and undergraduate students medals for bravery -- and maybe some hazmat suits. Hu, an associate professor in the School of Biological Sciences and an adjunct associate professor in the School of Physics, is a 2015 Ig Nobel Prize winner for his "urination duration" research, and he and his intrepid fluid dynamics team have also gotten hands-on (yuck) with frog saliva.
This story does indeed sing the praises of the humble honeybee, focusing on special Atlanta projects designed to study and provide homes for our four-winged pollen pals. One of those is the Georgia Tech Urban Honeybee Project, located on the roof of Clough Undergraduate Learning Center. That's where Jennifer Leavey, program director and senior academic professional in the School of Biological Sciences, rules the hives.
New research focusing on the remarkable tower-building abilities of fire ants continues to attract attention from top media outlets, such as this story from the Washington Post. Also, study co-author Craig Tovey, a professor in the H.
It's a story right up Science Friday's alley: the remarkable ability of fire ants to build soaring towers out of their own bodies. The new research from School of Biological Sciences Associate Professor David Hu gives public radio host Ira Flatow a chance to ask Hu not only about ant engineering, but also about what a fellow Tech professor thought when things got a little antsy in his office
When fire ants studied by David Hu escaped his Georgia Tech lab and invaded a nearby professor's office, their method of breaking out – building an Eiffel Tower-shaped structure out of their own bodies – became part of Hu's research.
The word is getting out; Georgia Tech has a full afternoon of activities planned for the solar eclipse on Monday, Aug. 21, which also happens to be the first day of classes for the fall semester.
The school year started with a total solar eclipse that captivated thousands on Tech Green. For some schools, that would be enough to qualify for a memorable year. But this is Georgia Tech, and events before and after Aug. 21's celestial happening also put a spotlight on the Institute.
Legendary physicist/cosmologist Stephen Hawking died on March 14, and the news is already prompting stories about the inspiration he provided to scientists around the world.
"A study spearheaded by scientists at Georgia Tech has found that an obscure class of crystal could improve the way we light and power our world. The subatomic behavior of these crystals is fluid, dynamic and, frankly, bewildering in the context of some established laws of quantum physics. However, this latest study, completed early this month, shows that weirdness doesn’t necessarily mean ineffectiveness.
