One of the objectives of the Foundation's Indoor Environment program is to improve the cohesiveness of the community and its ability to communicate internally and externally by developing data visualization and imaging techniques and repositories. This grant to the University of Chicago supports a joint project with the University of California, Riverside, the Marine Biological Laboratory, and the University of Colorado, Boulder to develop MoBE DAC, a data analysis core for the Indoor Environment program. The overarching goal for this collaborative effort is to provide tools and a data archive for analyzing molecular sequence data and for visualizing ecological and functional similarities between microbial communities in the indoor environment. The team plans to integrate the functional capabilities of the websites of MG-RAST, VAMPS, QIIME, and the genome database, FungiDB, through a common database structure. This project will facilitate comparisons of molecular ecology data and contextual information across laboratories and study sites, providing a platform for accelerating publication of results and training of students for environmental microbiology laboratories.

Funds from this grant provide three years of support for Studio 360, an hour-long weekly public radio show on culture and the arts, in its continuing efforts to include coverage of science and technology as a regular, integral feature of the show through its Science and Creativity Series. Studio 360 has developed a solid infrastructure for integrating science and technology into their arts show. They have assembled a core group of eight to ten scientists who work closely with producers and host Kurt Anderson to generate new ideas and vet existing shows. As of now, 13%-four hours out of an annual total of 30 hours of programming-are devoted to science and technology (S&T) subjects, making S&T a regular and recognizable part of the program. Grant funds will also support a brainstorming forum at the beginning of the grant to bring science advisers and other scientists together with radio producers to highlight the latest research and discuss new ideas for the series.

This grant to WNYC provides three years of renewed support for the production and distribution of Radiolab, the innovative, award-winning, and increasingly popular science series about "discovery and wonder" produced in conjunction with National Public Radio (NPR). Helmed by hosts Robert Krulwich and Jad Abrmarad, each hour-long episode centers on a core scientific theme (words, animal minds, tumors) and uses rich audio production techniques (musical, documentary, and illustrative) and a range of forms (conversation, theater, and story). In addition to core funding for three years, funds from this grant will support two new innovation strategies: one is to enhance distribution efforts by segmenting and customizing shows for educators and classrooms by using listener guides, by holding listening parties with live blogging, and by partnering with museums and planetariums; a second effort is aimed at developing additional revenue and getting Radiolab on a more solid financial footing.

Funds from this grant support a team at the Dolan DNA Learning Center (DNALC) of Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory to conduct a pilot program-called DNA Barcode New York City (DNAbcNYC)-to bring DNA barcoding to New York City high school students through DNALC's facility in East Harlem. The DNALC-started in 1988-is the world's first science center devoted entirely to genetics education. The DNAbcNYC team plans a pilot program to get New York City high school students-especially those underrepresented in science-to use DNA barcoding to explore their urban environment. They plan to organize student work around several key campaigns that encourage a coordinated effort to sample the biodiversity of urban ecosystems around the city, including city parks and gardens, neighborhood markets, and detecting food fraud. The project includes support for teacher training in DNA barcoding, student teams, a dedicated DNAbcNYC micro-site, kits and supplies, assistance for in-school DNA barcoding "footlocker kits," and a new Urban Barcode Competition. Using methods established by DNALC, the students will collect samples, extract DNA, and then amplify it using the appropriate primers (CO1 for animals, rbcL for plants). The amplified DNA will be shipped to a vetted sequencing lab, where the barcode sequence will be determined. The sequences will be uploaded to a new dedicated DNAbcNYC micro-site where the sequence data can be accessed and analyzed. The micro-site will support all phases of the DNAbcNYC project. The site will include video instructions, online lab notebook, downloadable lab protocols, teacher preparation, multimedia resources, a barcode sequence database, and a suite of simplified bioinformatics tools. Novel sequences will be submitted to the Barcode of Life database. The teachers and students will be invited to participate in the Urban Barcode Competition. The top three teams will be awarded cash prizes. In addition, the top three projects will be subjects of videos posted on DNAbcNYC's micro-site as well as on Cablevision's MSG Varsity Channel. The DNAbcNYC expects to reach at least 300 students in this pilot, assuming each trained teacher engages one team of three students. The project represents a unique opportunity to bring the excitement of scientific discovery through DNA barcoding to New York City high school students.

This grant to WGBH Educational Foundation provides two years of support for the award-winning broadcast series NOVA scienceNow and for the Emmy-nominated Web series The Secret Life of Scientists and Engineers. Launched with exclusive Sloan funding, The Secret Life of Scientists and Engineers enhances the public understanding of science by producing compelling stories about the life and work of contemporary working scientists and engineers and has already garnered an impressive list of achievements, garnering 600,000 visitors in the first year, major press coverage, and a much-coveted Emmy nomination in the category New Approaches to News and Documentary Programming. The NOVA scienceNow prime time television series has continued to perform well with three million viewers per episode, plus an additional 1.3 million video downloads. The profiles that the Foundation supports are a popular part of the show, and in response, the new profiles funded under this grant will be longer and compose a bigger fraction of each hour-long show. Additional grant funds will support series promotion, new content, and outreach.

The New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene (NYC DOHMH) is a world leader in the use of electronic data for disease surveillance. The syndromic surveillance systems maintained by the Bureau of Communicable Disease process nearly four million emergency department encounters, 1.5 million calls for emergency medical service ambulance dispatch, 14 million pharmacy transactions, and over one million school health nurse visits annually. Sloan provided early support in 2002 ($700,000) and 2003 ($697,000) to the New York Academy of Medicine to help the NYC Department of Health to develop and disseminate the SATSCAN syndromic surveillance software which was very successful. Since that time, new tools and methods applicable to syndromic surveillance have been developed elsewhere, and NYC DOHMH would like to put them into practice. Funds from this grant will allow NYC DOHMH to make their system "state of the art", share their improvements with other public health departments across the country, and expand the applicability of electronic data for disease surveillance by incorporating novel statistical approaches and additional data streams for outbreak and cluster detection. Over the next three years, the NYC DOHMH team will conduct three main activities. First, they will review the literature of recent research and syndromic applications in other local jurisdictions. Second, they will analyze and evaluate select statistical methodologies that can be applied to existing data to determine if they prove more useful and informative for disease surveillance. Third, they plan to apply selected methodologies to everyday practice and prepare a user's guide-a basic how-to guide-that includes their code and examples of data visualizations.

This grant supports a project by Michael Levy, Director of the Council on Foreign Relations' program on Energy Security and Climate Change, to institute a major research program on challenges facing the United States at the intersection of energy and national security and the policy options available for addressing them, with a particular focus on oil. Funds will support the work of a full-time fellow at the Council, one to two adjunct fellows, and several outside scholars commissioned to do analysis and research. Other funds will support a series of roundtables and workshops designed to facilitate information sharing among the community of researchers and to expose interested younger scholars to work in the field, and outreach efforts designed to educate journalists, government officials, industry stakeholders, and the public. The proposed research agenda will cover several areas, including: ? understanding the security consequences of oil production, consumption, and trade; ? analyzing U.S. policies that could promote reduced demand for oil, including in developing countries; ? understanding major oil producing countries, especially Iraq and Iran; and ? assessing policies that maintain or strengthen the functioning of oil markets and the geopolitics of natural gas. In total, this project promises to make a major contribution to the ongoing discussions of energy security in the United States and should raise the quality of this discussion significantly.