In the News

Demand for Covid-19 vaccinations has fallen so dramatically in Georgia that the state has been turning down millions of allocated doses, telling the federal government to distribute them elsewhere. Joshua Weitz, Patton Distinguished Professor and Co-Director of the Interdisciplinary Ph.D. in Quantitative Biosciences in the School of Biological Sciences, is part of a team that’s attempted to estimate the level of immunity via prior infection and vaccination in the U.S. and in each state. Weitz estimates about 60% of Georgians have some level of immunity. But millions remain unprotected.

A new international study has cast doubts on the view that variations in the density of some of the deepest currents of the subpolar North Atlantic Ocean are caused by winter surface conditions and represent changes in the strength of the Meridional Overturning Circulation (MOC). The study was co-led by Susan Lozier, Professor in the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, and Dean and Betsy Middleton and John Clark Sutherland Chair in the College of Sciences. Lozier, a physical oceanographer, is president of the American Geophysical Union (AGU.) (The study was also covered on the Subsea UK website.)

New findings in a study by researchers from Georgia Tech and Emory University could point the way to a therapeutic treatment for Alzheimer's with the potential to slow the incurable disease's advance. The study, published this month in the journal Alzheimer’s & Dementia: Translational Research & Clinical Interventions, examined whether a technique of flickering lights and sound - which has been found to reduce Alzheimer's in mice - was viable to try with humans. Qiliang He, a postdoctoral fellow in the School of Psychology, is first author for the study. 

This research team studying problems in tropical geometry includes Bo Lin, a visiting assistant professor/postdoctoral scholar in the School of Mathematics. Lin also researches at  Georgia Tech's Southeast Center for Mathematics and Biology. 

Five Georgia Tech students are helping the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Georgia save over 73,000 pounds of greenhouse gas emissions and  $18,000 each year. The team of undergraduate students included Annie Gillani (third year, School of International Affairs), Catherine Moore (fourth year, School of Public Policy), Marcus Morris (second year, School of Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering), and Sinet Adous (fourth year, School of International Affairs), who developed their carbon-and-cost-cutting proposal as a semester-long class project.

The class, EAS 3110: Energy, Environment and Society is taught by Dr. Kim Cobb (Georgia Power Chair, ADVANCE Professor, and Director of the GT Global Change Program), and incorporates the Carbon Reduction Challenge as an opportunity for students to propose energy-saving solutions to a diverse set of organizational partners, reducing carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions while saving money.

A Georgia Tech-based study published June 2 in the Journal of the Royal Society Interface presents the first evidence that elephants can use suction to pick up small objects as well as vacuum up water. The study's corresponding author, David Hu, is a professor of fluid mechanics in the George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering who holds a joint appointment in the School of Biological Sciences. The study sought to better understand the physics of how elephants use their trunks to move and manipulate air, water, food and other objects. They also sought to learn if the mechanics could inspire the creation of more efficient robots that use air motion to hold and move things.

But only under the right lighting conditions, adds the authors of the study, both from the School of Psychology: professor Randall Engle and graduate student Jason Tsukahara. They gave reasoning, memory, and attention tests to volunteers and found that as well as being linked to arousal and exhaustion, pupil dilation can be used to understand the individual differences in intelligence, discovering that the larger the pupils, the higher the intelligence — except in the brightest lighting conditions. The study says this could be due to people with larger pupils having better results regulation of brain activity in a region linked to intelligence and memory. (Coverage of this study also appears in MSN Australia.) 

This year's first named hurricane — which happened before the official start of hurricane season for the seventh year in a row — prompted this article about climate change's role in extending extreme weather seasons. Susan Lozier, Professor, Dean and Betsy Middleton and John Clark Sutherland Chair in the College of Sciences, is also the president of the American Geophysical Union, and she includes mentions of California's wildfire season and severe droughts in the West. “We've had extreme events way before we had global warming, but it's just the frequency of them,” Lozier said.

Georgia Tech Astrobiology has received generous support from the College of Sciences Betsy Middleton and John Clark Sutherland Dean’s Chair to launch a new program: the Georgia Tech Astrobiology Fellowship. The purpose of the fellowship program is both to recognize the efforts of involved individuals in the astrobiology community, and to recruit new members who serve as leaders into the future. Congratulations to the 2021-2022 GT Astrobiology Fellows: Christina Buffo, Rebecca Guth-Metzler, Jordan McKaig, Taylor Plattner, and Tyler Roche. 

M.G. Finn, Professor and Chair, James A. Carlos Family Chair for Pediatric Technology in the School of Chemistry and Biochemistry, tells WSB anchor Jorge Estevez how the mRNA vaccine technology that has been so effective against Covid-19 could possibly help science deal with other diseases.