The patient — a young man — is bleeding from his forearm. His pupils are dilated, and his blood pressure is dropping. His student nurse quickly assesses his condition and decides her first priority is to stop the bleeding. She applies pressure to the wound.
With a growth rate of nearly 10 percent annually, sales projected to reach $6.55 billion this year, and an estimated 100,000 jobs, the medical plastics sector in the United States is a flourishing industry.
Engineers don’t normally find themselves being drooled on at work, but it comes with the territory when your “client” is a 1,900-pound draft horse with a sweet tooth. The horse, Fargo, thought Joseph Hirn, the software engineering student standing next to him, might have a peppermint in his hand; Fargo reached down to find out. Software engineering senior Joseph Hirn worked on a program that will help Frog Pond Farm rescue draft horses, like Fargo, above, from slaughter.
Presque Isle State Park in Erie is under siege. Invasive plant species are pushing out the native species and that spells trouble for the insects, animals, and microorganisms that rely on native plants. It’s an epic battle that has ensnared the park’s trees in the vines of Oriental bittersweet, filled the wetlands with Phragmitesaustralis, and clogged paths with garlic mustard.