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Kansas State University

Women, teenagers seek arsenic-free water

Fri, 10/23/2009 - 23:11 by surajdogra

Kolkata, India -- Women and teenagers living on the India-Bangladesh border are becoming arsenic experts in a quest to find cleaner water, a scientist in Kansas says.

The women and teenagers are given testing kits and information about how sediment traits, such as color and texture, can indicate arsenic contamination,
said Saugata Datta, who teaches geology at Kansas State University.

"We are targeting the women and children 13 to 15 years old because they are the most available people, more so than the men of the family," Datta said.

"These women are not formally educated, but when it comes to this type of suffering, they have a huge voice and they can really articulate the message very clearly to their neighbors and their own families."

Study shows peripheral vision importance

Tue, 10/20/2009 - 02:50 by surajdogra

Manhattan, Kan. -- U.S. scientists say they've discovered human peripheral vision is more important than central vision for determining what type of scene is being viewed.

Two Kansas State University psychology researchers say the most surprising part of their study is that they didn't anticipate peripheral vision to be so important for perceiving scenes.
Assistant Professor Lester Loschky and graduate student Adam Larson said they are attempting to determine how people understand and label what they see.
"We found that your peripheral vision is important for taking in the gist of a scene and that you can remove the central portion of an image, where your visual acuity is best, and still do just fine at identifying the scene," Larson said.

Graphene better with gold 'nanostars'

Thu, 10/15/2009 - 00:01 by surajdogra

Manhattan Beach, Kan. -- U.S. chemical engineers say they have discovered graphene is more useful in electronics applications if a gold ion solution is used as a growth catalyst.

Graphene is a carbon material only a single atom thick and discovered just five years ago, scientists said. In the recent study, Kansas State University Assistant Professor Vikas Berry and doctoral student Kabeer Jasuja said they placed graphene oxide sheets into a gold ion solution that had a growth catalyst.

"Graphene-derivatives act like swimming molecular carpets when in solution and exhibit fascinating physiochemical behavior," Berry said. "If we change the surface functionality or the concentration, we can control their properties."

Snyder signs five-year deal at Kansas St.

Sat, 09/12/2009 - 08:15 by harsheeb

Manhattan, Sept. 11 (UPI) -- Kansas State University officials announced Friday Bill Snyder has agreed to coach the Wildcats football team through the 2013 season.

Snyder, 69, who has more football victories than any coach in school history, retired in 2005 after 17 years. When Ron Prince was not retained for the 2009 season, Snyder agreed to return to the job.

Snyder's contract is retroactive to Feb. 1 and his annual salary will reach almost $10 million for the life of the deal.

Prior to Snyder's first tenure with the Wildcats, the school's football team had gone 27 straight games without win. During Snyder's stay, they had a 136-68-1 record and played in a bowl game for 11 straight seasons.