Navy's Technology Transfer Program Wins 1998 $100,000 Innovations in American Government Award

The Navy's Best Manufacturing Practices (BMP) database now contains over 3,000 validated, cutting-edge developments in the manufacturing sector that are available for adoption by other U.S. industries. Sponsored by the Office of Naval Research (a reinvention lab), this BMP program has saved American industry more than $6.1 billion. Now it's one of three federal reinvention efforts to win the 1998 Innovations in American Government Award.

America's Space Program Is Out of This World, but Its By-products Are Down-to-Earth
You can follow John Glenn, Commander Curt Brown, Jr., and the crew of space shuttle Discovery from the NASA website. As we salute their heroic efforts, we should also remember the many medical by-products of several decades of space flight. For example, NASA's two-way communication technology, first used to communicate with satellites, allows doctors to fine-tune the pacemaker from outside the body to better regulate the heart rate in keeping with the patient's lifestyle.

US Geological Survey Delivers 3-D Science with Web-Based Technology
"The students I've worked with are really drawn to the VRML models," said Maura Hogan at the US Geological Survey. "The combination of the computer, the Internet, and highly illustrative graphics captures their imagination and their interest." Virtual Reality Modeling Language (VRML 2.0) is a new environment for visualizing 3-D information spaces and is accessible through the Internet with current browser technologies. Researchers from the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) are using VRML as a scientific visualization tool to help convey complex scientific concepts to various audiences.

The New National Atlas of the United States Covers It All
Put aside your book maps and even your CD-ROMs. More than a dozen federal agencies, led by the U.S. Geological Survey, have produced an electronic product that will make any mapmaker wannabe drool. You can produce your own maps, featuring not only the standard terrain, roads, lakes, and rivers, but also population, income, climate, historical evolution, whatever. And of course you can zoom in on any locality you want, even your own neighborhood. In other words, you can select, combine, symbolize, and display data sets that interest only you. You will need the latest version of your browser.

Help Find These Missing Children
You don't have to store those empty milk cartons or file those flyers that come in the mail. On this site, you'll find a photo gallery of missing children, search a database, and report what you know. This is just one of many programs coordinated by the Department of Justice's Missing and Exploited Children's Program.