Fractals — endlessly repeating patterns that are self-similar at different scales and are found throughout nature (see: seashells, trees, leaves, and the Romanesco broccoli above) — also frequently appear in design in Africa, from fabric to buildings to entire villages, as Rensselaer Science and Technology Studies professor Ron Eglash explained in his fascinating 2007 TED […]
A century ago, American audiences were shocked by an armory filled with controversial new works from the most interesting European artists. Artists including Marcel Duchamp, Pablo Picasso and Henri Matisse, already established in Europe, were brought to the forefront of American culture by way of the Armory Show of 1913. By today’s standards, much of […]
Today marks the first day of the new school year here at Rensselaer! We at The Approach would like to take this opportunity to welcome our first-year students, welcome back our returning students, and applaud our ever-outstanding faculty and staff! Here’s to another great year! What better way to mark the occasion than with some […]
Liping Huang is an assistant professor in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at Rensselaer. We ask Liping about her work: Q: What problems are you trying to solve? A: Glasses are everywhere in our daily lives, functioning with excellent optical, electronic, mechanical, and bio-related properties. Yet, glasses are usually brittle; their service lifetime […]
Here’s a knotty problem: There is a relationship between human activity, damage to the environment, and harm to people (greenhouse gases leads to sea level rise which threatens coastal populations), but the cause-and-effect isn’t always clear. And while environmentalists collect stats on damage to the environment (pollutants in air and water, deforestation, species loss), policy […]
All hands on deck! It’s Rensselaer biology professor Sandra Nierzwicki-Bauer, with partners Harry Kolar (right) from IBM and Eric Siy (left) from the FUND for Lake George. They were on the water yesterday celebrating the launch of the Jefferson Project, an exciting new research effort to turn Lake George into the world’s biggest and most […]
Now here is something really fun! The School of Science just posted a gallery of images from their Research Photo Contest. These are photos that chronicle the work of researchers within the School of Science at Rensselaer, and they run the gamut from a glorious shot of twilight on an Adirondack lake — taken in the […]
(In our last report, Daniel Angerhausen, a postdoctoral fellow in the lab of Jon Morse, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute professor of physics, was poised to fulfill a longtime dream and fly about NASA’s flying observatory, SOFIA. Alas, the path to science is often paved with setbacks and … well, we’ll let him tell you about it himself.) Recently I wrote […]
(Later this week, Daniel Angerhausen, a postdoctoral fellow in the lab of Jon Morse, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute professor of physics and associate vice president for research for physical sciences and engineering, will be flying aboard the airborne telescope SOFIA. Angerhausen, a native of Uerdingen, Germany [about 30 minutes from Cologne], sent us this excellent post […]
More than 1,000 light years from Earth, a giant gaseous planet is in a tight and fast orbit around a star larger than the Sun, and, between the two of them, there’s something funny going on. The star is known as HAT-P-7 or Kepler 2, the planet is Kepler 2b, and Rensselaer physics and astronomy student Emily DeLarme has […]