Indiana University neuroscientists examined the spontaneous activity of the brain at rest. They demonstrated that the shape and pattern of the fluctuations are determined by the brain's wiring diagram, its neuroanatomy. Their model also can show how slow 5- to 10-second fluctuations of activity emerge naturally from much faster, chaotic neural interactions that typically last only a few milliseconds.
Northeastern University professor Mark C. Williams and colleague Ioana Vladescu have discovered a novel method for studying the DNA binding of small molecules with unprecedented accuracy. Their paper, titled "Quantifying force-dependent and zero-force DNA intercalation by single-molecule stretching," has been published in the May 2007 issue of the prestigious Nature Methods.
University of Utah physicists developed small devices that turn heat into sound and then into electricity. The technology holds promise for changing waste heat into electricity, harnessing solar energy and cooling computers and radars. "We are converting waste heat to electricity in an efficient, simple way by using sound," says Orest Symko, a University of Utah physics professor who leads the effort.
Using what they know about birds' ears, scientists reconstructed what dinosaurs might have heard 65 million years ago.
A team of biomedical engineers has developed a computer model that makes use of more or less predictable "guesstimates" of human muscle movements to explain how the brain draws on both what it recently learned and what it's known for some time to anticipate what it needs to develop new motor skills.
Biologists have found that in addition to promoting an unhealthy lifestyle, the rising use of video games correlates with a reduction in outdoor nature experiences, and experiencing only "virtual nature" has negative implications for conservation efforts.
Dermatologists at UT Southwestern Medical Center are establishing a DNA repository aimed at people with morphea, a poorly understood, incurable and sometimes disfiguring disease that causes patches of skin to thicken and harden.
Scientists have created a synthetic polymer that doesn't burn and doesn't require the flame-retardant chemicals used in most plastics, making it an attractive alternative to materials currently used in bus seats, airplanes, textiles and consumer electronics.
Better magnetic storage devices for computers and other electronics could result from new work by researchers in the United States and Germany.
By studying the addition of sugars to proteins "” a process called glycosylation "” in the nervous system of insects, Temple University researcher Karen Palter believes she may be able to better understand neurodegenerative diseases in humans.
Mice genetically engineered to lack a single enzyme in their brains are more adept at learning than their normal cousins, and are quicker to figure out that their environment has changed, a team led by researchers at UT Southwestern Medical Center has found.
The University of Delaware is helping to build a huge "IceCube" at the South Pole, and it has nothing to do with cooling beverages. "IceCube" is a gigantic scientific instrument--a telescope for detecting illusive particles called neutrinos that can travel millions of miles through space, passing right through planets. UD is building the telescope's surface array of detectors, aptly named "IceTop."
You may not be able to relive your youth, but part of your brain can. Johns Hopkins researchers have found that newly made nerves in an adult brain's learning center experience a one-month period when they are just as active as the nerves in a developing child. The study, appearing this week in Neuron, suggests that new adult nerves have a deeper role than simply replacing dead ones.
Long before animals with limbs came onto the scene about 365 million years ago, fish already possessed the genes associated with helping to grow hands and feet report University of Chicago researchers in the May 24, 2007 issue of Nature.
In order to halt the pollution of streams with fecal bacteria, researchers must first determine the source of the contamination. By using several methods to analyze water, scientists are able to narrow down potential sources of contamination.
A gene that controls the flow of potassium into cells is required to maintain normal sleep in fruit flies, according to researchers at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health (SMPH). Hyperkinetic (Hk) is the second gene identified by the SMPH group to have a profound effect on sleep in flies.
A new study in the May issue of the Journal of Wildlife Management reports that scientists from the New York State Museum, Wildlife Conservation Society and other groups have teamed up with the New York State Department of Criminal Justice to developed a new technique that uses fingerprints to track the fisher"“an elusive member of the weasel family, and the only carnivore species known to have unique fingerprints.
New research by Cornell and Dartmouth researchers explains the biological mechanism behind how circadian clocks sense light through a process that transfers energy from light to chemical reactions in cells.
Scientists are keenly studying how neurons form synapses--the physical and chemical connections between neurons--and the "pruning" of neural circuits during development, not least because synaptic abnormalities may partially underlie many developmental and neurodegenerative diseases. Several key molecules are involved in normal synaptic formation, but their interactions are not well understood. Now MIT neuroscientists have taken an important step toward solving this challenging jigsaw puzzle. They have pieced together a direct linear pathway connecting three molecules involved in synaptic formation, to be reported in the May 21 advance online publication of Nature Neuroscience.
Two University of Oregon researchers are on a multi-institutional 26-member team proposing a startling new theory: that an extraterrestrial impact, possibly a comet, set off a 1,000-year-long cold spell and wiped out or fragmented the prehistoric Clovis culture and a variety of animal genera across North America almost 13,000 years ago.
Greenland's Directorate of Fisheries and Hunting announced that it will seek new whaling quotas during the Annual Meeting of the International Whaling Commission (IWC) to be held in Anchorage, Alaska the last week in May.
Electrical engineers from the University of Delaware and Cambridge NanoTech have demonstrated for the first time how the spin properties of electrons in silicon--the world's most dominant semiconductor, used in electronics ranging from computers to cell phones--can be measured and controlled.
Before farmers can sell carbon credits, they need to be able to reliably measure the amount of carbon in their soil. Researchers believe that the Century soil model can accurately measure soil organic content in certain land regions.
B12"”an essential vitamin for land-dwelling animals, including humans"”also turns out to be an essential ingredient for growing marine plants that are critical to the ocean food web and Earth's climate, scientists have found.
For two decades, scientists have puzzled over why vast blooms of microscopic plant life grow in the middle of otherwise barren mid-ocean regions. Now a research team led by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) has shown that episodic, swirling current systems known as eddies act to pump nutrients up from the deep ocean to fuel such blooms.
Researchers have found that hair follicles in adult mice regenerate by re-awakening genes once active only in developing embryos. These findings provide unequivocal evidence for the first time that mammals have the power to regenerate.
Researchers at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute have developed a new method to bond materials that don't normally stick together. The team's adhesive, which is based on self-assembling nanoscale chains, could impact everything from next-generation computer chip manufacturing to energy production.
A team of American and Ugandan researchers worked with local farmers to test low-cost soil management alternatives in eastern Uganda. While each alternative soil treatment increased crop output, findings suggest that the best treatment plan varies from farmer to farmer as it is dependent on other factors.
By building upon previous studies of bacteria, UC-Davis researchers have created a formula that quantifies bacterial gene transfer under natural conditions. Scientists believe that these findings will help to increase knowledge about the rates of potentially beneficial and harmful bacterial adaptation in the environment.
In the past few years, two scientific projects have focused on research to help prevent eutrophication in the Baltic Sea. A summary of the work and management of the projects is published in the latest issue of Ambio.
Researchers from Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Whitehead Institute have developed a cell culture test for assessing a compound's genetic toxicity that may prove dramatically cheaper than existing animal tests.
Looking at a rainforest it's easy to see that there are hundreds of different tropical plant species that inhabit the forest. Although the patterns of plant distributions in tropical forests have been widely studied, the reasonings behind these patterns are not as well known. This study, published in Nature, explores these patterns.
The discovery of a new brain neurormarker may prove to be a sensitive probe of neuropsychiatric disorders such as autism and schizophrenia where the inability to have harmonious social interactions is problematic. This research also opens up untapped possibilities to identify the neural mechanisms of real-time social behavior between humans.
A new study from the University of Wisconsin-Madison suggests that attention does not have a fixed capacity - and that it can be improved by directed mental training, such as meditation.
Scientists at Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research have found that small regions within prion proteins are responsible for their infectious properties. Moreover, these regions regulate the ability of prions to cross species barriers.
Like any new kid on the block that tries to fit in, newborn brain cells need to find their place within the existing network of neurons. The newcomers jump right into the fray and preferentially reach out to mature brain cells that are already well connected within the established circuitry, report scientists at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in the online edition of Nature Neuroscience.
Queen Elizabeth II will learn about NASA education tomorrow, May 8, when she visits NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. Bonnie Eisenhamer, the Hubble Space Telescope Formal Education Manager at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, Md., will lead an education workshop for local middle school students during the Queen's visit to Goddard.
Johns Hopkins scientists have discovered to their surprise that nerves in the mammalian brain's white matter do more than just ferry information between different brain regions, but in fact process information the way gray matter cells do.
For the first time, scientists have found that water ice lies at variable depths over small-scale patches on the Red Planet. The discovery draws a much more detailed picture of underground ice on Mars than was previously available. Findings come from data sent back to Earth by the Thermal Emission Imaging System (THEMIS) on NASA's Mars Odyssey orbiter.
A research team composed of electrochemists and materials scientists from two continents has produced a new form of the industrially-important metal platinum: 24-facet nanocrystals whose catalytic activity per unit area can be as much as four times higher than existing commercial platinum catalysts.
Forget about cooking classes--forks, knives, and spoons can provide a rich lesson in physics.
A student designer and fiber scientists have teamed up to make a dress that prevents colds and a jacket that destroys noxious gases. The garments were featured at the April 21 Cornell Design League fashion show.
Chemical engineers from the University at Buffalo have collaborated with scientists from other institutions to solve a critical bottleneck in the transport and capture of virus nanoparticles, making possible a device that could rapidly sample and detect infectious biological agents, such as viruses.
In efforts that may improve diagnoses of many eye diseases, optics researchers will introduce a new type of laser for providing high-resolution 3-D images of the retina.
As part of a larger consortium, a team of researchers from the University of Missouri-Rolla has developed a test that will, for the first time, allow scientists to accurately gauge the impact jet aircraft emissions have on global climate change.
The proposed US missile defense shield system in Europe is an unproven defense against a long-range ballistic missile attack, says a leading physicist who has studied missile defense systems. The existing system has been tested fewer than a dozen times.
Researchers in Italy have created an ultrashort light pulse--a single isolated burst of extreme-ultraviolet light that lasts for only 130 billionths of a billionth of a second. The achievement will help scientists understand and control extremely rapid processes involving electrons in atoms and molecules.
A new study finds that exposure to a chemical component of diesel exhaust particles can compromise the ability of resistance arteries to regulate blood flow to bone marrow. Post-menopausal females, the elderly and males are most likely to be impacted, according to a new vascular biology study using an animal model.
New study using laboratory rats provides strong evidence that the effects of maternal smoking during the prenatal period of life can lead to cardiac vascular dysfunction beyond the formative years -- and into adulthood. The effect of nicotine shows a gender dichotomy with females being more susceptible than males.
Four pathologists, all medical examiners and professors, are presenting their insights & uncertainties about deaths that happen as struggling individuals are arrested, as infants sleep in their cribs, and following years of drug abuse. This Physiology in Focus program, entitled "Forensic Medicine," is part of the 120th Annual Meeting of the American Physiological Society (APS).
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