Where to go if you want to clone mules, hunt aliens, or just build a better videogame

A Geek's Guide to West Coast Colleges Dave Helfrey

A. Find "Them"

University of California at Berkeley
Where: Berkeley, Calif.
Department: Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI)

SETI@home taps the power of thousands of ordinary PCs over the Web to create, in effect, one of the most powerful supercomputers anywhere. It analyzes data from radio telescopes looking for signals from intelligent life. Berkeley students help improve the search algorithms and refine the software that ties all the computers together.
seti.berkeley.edu

B. Shoot Particles

Stanford University
Where: Palo Alto, Calif.
Department: Stanford Linear Accelerator Center

Every summer, undergrads join Nobel Prize–winning scientists here to send electrons down the longest linear accelerator in the world at close to 670 million mph, producing superpowerful x-rays. One of the latest projects uses the x-ray beam to create 3-D images of individual molecules.
slac.stanford.edu

C. Clone Life

Utah State University
Where: Logan, Utah
Department: Center for Integrated BioSystems

In 2003, scientists at Utah State were the first in the world to clone a hybrid animal—a mule, the typically sterile offspring of a donkey and a horse. The research ultimately spawned commercial equine-cloning labs. Now students and faculty churn out up to 600 cloned embryos a week, primarily for genetics research.
biosystems.usu.edu

D. Enter The Deep Freeze

Montana State University
Where: Bozeman, Mont.
Department: Subzero Science and Engineering Laboratory

This fall, students will step into a –80°F laboratory to study stuff in deep freeze. One project will look for life in 250,000-year-old ice cores taken from two miles underneath the Antarctic. Others will study the best way to keep winter roads ice-free, and research the flow of snow to better predict avalanches.
www.coe.montana.edu

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15 Comments

Any geek's guide to colleges that mentions neither Caltech nor MIT is simply not to be taken seriously.

I disagree with the MIT/Caltech assertion. MIT is largely irrelevant in the current environment, especially when compared to India Institute of Technology and Chinese Universities. MIT is resting on it's laurels, much like other Ivy League schools who have not produced anything of significance in years. I would say that many of the schools listed are more aggressive in their work and more innovative than MIT. Certainly, Carnegie Mellon has some exciting and innovative research. As for Caltech... it's a great teaching school. Technology and Science are constantly changing and advancing. A motivated dean can easily take the lead in those areas.

"I travel the road less traveled by most people in this world" Ok you need to realize that they are not talking sbout super geeks(the smart ones) they are talking about all those guys that are absolute let downs to society because all they do with their lives is comic books, tv, and video games that have high hopes for their future careers. you really need to learn how to look at things in context.....i hope i didnt upset anyone. sorry if i did.

Regarding your comments of MIT...its a WEST coast guide...where did you guys get edjumacated :P

Now if we are talking globally, I think you guys should look up TUDelft, its the mothership for most most universities mentioned.

"Regarding your comments of MIT...its a WEST coast guide...where did you guys get edjumacated :P"

uh, are you sure about that. as far as i know, wisconsin and new york are not on the west coast.

I love video games, but I want to build a robot. Not in college but I'm a systems programmer and an engineer at electrical circuitry and a wiz at computer science. I just want to make giant robot, know any places that can let me do that? Some funds would be nice!

Lot's of rocket science going on at the University of Iowa in Iowa City if you are into that sort of thing.Hell of a good party school as well.To bad their football team sucks.

No where on the Utah State website will they claim to be the first to clone an equine... That's because the University of Idaho did it. google it.

cornell is east coast so where is MIT

look again bobloftus if you hit i'm feeling lucky on google on the iowa website reading the whole thing it says utah did it first out of a few schools trying

I want to build a robot. Not in college but I'm a systems programmer and an engineer at electrical circuitry and a wiz at computer science. I just want to make giant robot.
http://www.perfectwriting.co.uk/

look again bobloftus if you hit i'm feeling lucky on google on the iowa website reading the whole thing it says utah did it first out of a few schools trying

http://www.aglik.com/vb/

No where on the Utah State website will they claim to be the first to clone an equine... That's because the University of Idaho did it. google it.

http://www.aglik.com/vb/t15114.html

Texas A&M at the time of my graduation from there had cloned more species than any other institute or organization. I'm surprised that Utah State was chosen over my alma mater, although I don't mean to diminish their accomplishment, of which they should be proud.

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