Polytechnic campus

Driven to distraction

Distracted drivers cause thousands of deaths in car crashes every year. Robert Gray is making driving safer by finding the best ways to bring people's attention back to the road. --by Diane Boudreau

Ideas into action: Real help for developing nations

ASU professors have pooled their intellectual resources to formally tackle some of the developing world's most intractable problems. The result is a social entrepreneurship program called GlobalResolve. --by Adelheid Fischer

Eating mushrooms may boost immune system

Edible fungi, particularly the white button mushroom, may help boost the immune system and reduce inflammation, especially in the colon. --by Christine Lambrakis

A measure of global resolve

Through GlobalResolve, faculty and students from across ASU are tackling public health and environmental problems in developing nations. --by Adelheid Fischer

Video: The skies go green with algal jet fuel

ASU scientists are taking green research to the blue skies. They are developing cost-effective biofuels that can be used to fly airplanes.

Study shows Latinos willing to pay for public services

New research challenges beliefs that the Latino population is only interested in handouts from government. Latinos in Phoenix are willing to pay for local services such as ambulance, library and youth programs--even more so than whites. --by Christine Lambrakis

How to build a better ballplayer

So you want to build a better baseball player. How do you proceed? Maybe you'd combine the hitting eye of Alex Rodriguez with the fielding range of Derek Jeter. ASU robotics expert Tom Sugar is building a better ballplayer with a four-wheel drive transmission and a camera with a zoom lens. --by Skip Derra

Beans, beans, a musical myth?

Beans, beans, the musical fruit. The more you eat, the more you toot! Everyone remembers the childhood rhyme. But is it true? ASU nutritionist Donna Winham tested the theory. --by Melissa Crytzer Fry

Full of beans

Being full of beans might not be such a bad thing. ASU nutritionists say that eating a half-cup of the legumes each day may just keep the doctor away. --by Melissa Crytzer Fry

Can the robot come out to play?

Major league baseball players like Derek Jeter make actions like catching a fly ball look effortless. But if you want to understand the complexity underlying these moves, try teaching them to a robot. By combining expertise in engineering and psychology, ASU researchers have created Catchbot, a baseball-playing robot. In the process, they have learned a lot about how people perceive and respond to a moving target. --by Skip Derra

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