This week's research rundown features听a new engineering technique that could help clean up lingering radioactive waste, the legal and ethical issues surrounding big data research and social media, and the shapeshifting behavior of bacterial cells treated with a common antibiotic at the International Space Station.
Engineering technique could help clean up lingering radioactive waste
In the western U.S., a toxic relic of World War II and the Cold War remains: radioactive groundwater caused by former uranium ore mining and processing sites. Seven of these sites are found along Colorado鈥檚 western slope, and engineers at CU Boulder are testing out a new technique that has shown promising results in removing other contaminants.
Scientists are analyzing your tweets and FB posts: Is it ethical?
Did you know researchers are reading and analyzing your tweets and Facebook posts in the name of science? Social computing researcher Casey Fiesler, of the College of Media, Communication and Information, has been awarded a National Science Foundation grant to study legal and ethical issues surrounding big data research.
Why bacteria 'shapeshift' in space
CU Boulder researchers听designed an experiment to culture the common听E. coli听bacteria on the International Space Station,听treating it with the antibiotic gentamicin sulfate, a drug that kills them on Earth. But in the near-weightlessness of space, the cells responded with some clever shapeshifting that likely helped them survive, findings with implications for both astronauts and people on Earth.