Latest University of Houston Stories
By Jeannie Kever, Houston Chronicle Jul. 25--The names and Social Security numbers of 259 University of Houston students were inadvertently posted on the Internet for more than two years, removed only after a Washington, D.C.-based advocacy group discovered the breach. The university removed the information from its servers as soon as it was notified in May, school officials said in a statement released Thursday. It took almost two months longer to ensure it had been removed from other...
By Lorence, Jon Data based on all eligible Texas public school students reveals that scores from the Texas Assessment of Academic Skills (TAAS) reading and mathematics tests are more valid than Klein, Hamilton, McCaffrey, and Stecher (2000) implied. New analyses based on both individual student and school-level scores support the concurrent validity of the TAAS. TAAS scores are moderately to highly correlated with answers from the Stanford-9 reading and mathematics tests. In addition,...
Geologist Shuhab Khan addresses vulnerability of city's roads, buildings in light of recent earthquakesAfter finding more than 300 surface faults in Harris County, a University of Houston geologist now has information that could be vitally useful to the region's builders and city planners.This information "“ the most accurate and comprehensive of its kind "“ was discovered by Shuhab Khan, assistant professor of geology, and Richard Engelkemeir, a geology Ph.D. student, using advanced...
Uncovering a rare, two-billion-year-old window into the Earth's mantle, a University of Houston professor and his team have found our planet's geological history is more complex than previously thought. Jonathan Snow, assistant professor of geosciences at UH, led a team of researchers in a North Pole expedition, resulting in a discovery that could shed new light on the mantle, the vast layer that lies beneath the planet's outer crust. These findings are described in a paper titled "Ancient,...
Optometry professor finds unexpected link between prenatal lead exposure and obesity in malesScientists know exposure to low levels of lead can result in learning disabilities, hearing loss, language impairments and vision loss, but a newly discovered side effect may be adult-onset obesity in men, according to a University of Houston professor. Donald Fox, a UH professor of vision sciences, biology and biochemistry, and pharmacology, uncovered the link between lead exposure and obesity while...
Space suits for astronauts may get a new and better design following a University of Houston doctoral student's locomotion stability research. Melissa Scott-Pandorf is a Fellow of the Texas Space Grant Consortium."NASA's mission to send humans back to the Moon is closer to a reality every day," Scott-Pandorf, a doctoral student in the UH Department of Health and Human Performance, said. "Astronauts will need to travel easily over the planet's terrain, meaning their mobility...
HOUSTON, Aug. 11, 2005 -- Researchers at Rice University, the Baylor College of Medicine, the University of Houston and the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne in Switzerland have created a new class of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) contrast agents that are at least 40 times more effective than the best in clinical use. The new agents -- dubbed gadonanotubes -- use the same highly toxic metal, gadolinium, that is given to more than a quarter of MRI patients today, but the metal...
HOUSTON, June 9, 2005 "“ A University of Houston student has made an award-winning breakthrough in biosensors that could help bioterrorism researchers in their ability to quickly and accurately detect toxic biological agents. Mrinal Shah, a doctoral student in chemical engineering at UH, has developed new methods in the use of biosensors that could provide one of the first steps in developing a protein-based biosensor that would help the government in safeguarding the nation. Working under...
