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DENA HEADLEE: New research shows that more than 90 percent
of the U.S. could eat food grown or raised within 100 miles of
their homes. Using data from a farmland-mapping project funded
by the National Science Foundation, UC Merced professor
Elliott Campbell mapped the potential of every American city
to obtain food locally. His models simulate land
availability from the years 1850 through 2000, and account for
things such as range of diets, food waste, population and
croplands. The popularity of farm to table has jumped in the
past few years as many now flock to farmers markets to take
advantage of home grown freshness, supporting local
farmers they know and trust. While growing populations and
suburbanization have caused a decline in local farmland,
Campbell found there is still enough land to assure that
eating locally doesn't have to be a passing fad, especially in
major coastal cities. New York City for example, could feed
just 5 percent of its population within 50 miles, but up to 30
percent within 100 miles. The greater Los Angeles area could
feed as much as 50 percent within 100 miles. In some
cities, the numbers vary depending on plant-or-
animal based diets.
Campbell says one important aspect of food sustainability is
recycling nutrients, water and energy. He feels that using
compost from cities to fertilize our farms would make us less
reliant on fossil-fuel-based fertilizers. His maps provide a
foundation for discovering how recycling could work. The team
says that careful planning and policies are needed to protect
farmland from development and encourage future local farming.
It seems humans aren't the only ones to learn by trial and
error, now robots can too. National Science
Foundation-funded researchers at UC Berkeley have developed
algorithms that help a robot learn to master simple motor
skills on its own through repetition, inspired
by human learning.
Humans are not programmed from birth to successfully complete
routine tasks. Instead, we learn from our life experiences
and mistakes, calling upon learning deeply rooted in our
nervous system. For this test, the team had a Willow Garage
Personal Robot 2 named BRETT perform a series of tasks. . .
stacking blocks, building a toy plane and screwing on a
water bottle cap. The team did not program the
robot with details about its surroundings in order to
simulate a constantly changing, real-world environment. Without
examples to solve the problems, the robot scored each movement
that brought it closer to achieving the task and was able
to learn which movements worked best through trial and error.
The exact same software, which encodes how the robot can learn,
was used to allow the robot to learn all of the different tasks
given. The team feels these deep learning techniques which
enable robots to complete complex tasks from scratch,
could someday lead to significant advances in
robot learning capabilities.
Today, some 95% of children in the U.S. play video games. Now,
researchers have found a way to bring video games into
classrooms that are not only educational, but more fun too.
National Science Foundation-funded University of
Wisconsin-Madison researcher Kurt Squire and his team create
educational games based on what excites and engages people when
playing games. Squire and his team had students test the
games, monitoring how players interacted with each other
and adjusted the games to make them more engaging,
effective tools of learning.
Two of the video games, based on fundamental science, challenge
players to think like scientists. The first is
"Citizen Science", a game that lets players explore a virtual
landscape and take samples making observations of a real
polluted lake in Wisconsin. Players can also interact with
a virtual stakeholder about the problem. The game is designed
to foster critical thinking skills,
encouraging players to use science to make a difference in
the world. The scientific accuracy of this game model has
made it ideal for use even in graduate school courses.
Duke Forest in central North Carolina is a little patch of
heaven, at least to the researchers flocking here from
across the country to collect samples. Running continuously
for over five years, this is one of the largest, most
collaborative studies of any patch of forest. What makes
this site unique are the heat chambers scattered throughout
the forest. The site houses a dozen warming chambers. Nine
are warmer than the surrounding forest temperature, while the
other 3 are kept at current levels. Scientists collect
samples of everything from soil, to leaves and ants. They are
already gaining insight into how organisms respond to
the changing temperature.
This National Science Foundation-funded NC State
University project has also enabled researchers to identify
important features of many species that help them cope with
the warming climate. These shifts in temperature could
change every aspect of a forest. The team predicts they will be
seeing discoveries from this project for years to come.
For more information about these stories, visit us at NSF.gov.
This is NSF Science Now, I'm Dean Headlee.
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