Researchers have debated for more than two decades the likely impacts, if any, of global warming on the worldwide incidence of malaria, a mosquito-borne disease that infects more than 300 million people each year.
Astronomers using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) telescope have discovered the splattered remains of comets colliding together around a nearby star; the researchers believe they are witnessing the total destruction of one of these icy bodies once every five minutes.
Georgia Tech has created a robotic drumming prosthesis with motors that power two drumsticks. The first stick is controlled both physically by the musicians’ arms and electronically using electromyography (EMG) muscle sensors. The other stick “listens” to the music being played and improvises.
Jeanette Wyneken, Ph.D., associate professor of biological science at Florida Atlantic University, and Kate Mansfield, Ph.D., a co-investigator at the University of Central Florida, are the first to successfully track neonate sea turtles in the Atlantic Ocean waters during what had previously been called their “lost years.” Findings from the study appear today in the journal Proceeding of the Royal Society B.
A new study found that neural circuits in the brain rapidly multitask between detecting and discriminating sensory input, such as headlights in the distance. That’s different from how electronic circuits work, where one circuit performs a very specific task. The brain, the study found, is wired in way that allows a single pathway to perform multiple tasks.
Researchers at New York University have identified the nature of brain activity that allows us to bridge time in our memories. Their findings offer new insights into the temporal nature of how we store our recollections and may offer a pathway for addressing memory-related afflictions.
Astronomers at the University of Washington have developed a new method of gauging the atmospheric pressure of exoplanets, or worlds beyond the solar system, by looking for a certain type of molecule. And if there is life out in space, scientists may one day use this same technique to detect its biosignature — the telltale chemical signs of its presence — in the atmosphere of an alien world.
New research, titled “Lift and Wakes of Flying Snakes," appears March 4 in the journal Physics of Fluids. This work is the first to study the lift of a snake's cross-section computationally.
Animal flight behavior is an exciting frontier for engineers to both apply knowledge of aerodynamics and to learn from nature's solutions to operating in the air. Flying snakes are particularly intriguing to researchers because they lack wings or any other features that remotely resemble flight apparatus.
The ruins of Sardis have been a rich source of knowledge about classical antiquity since the 7th century B.C., when the city was the capital of Lydia. Now, Sardis has given up another treasure in the form of two enigmatic ritual deposits, which are proving more difficult to fathom than the coins for which the city was famous.
Study shows the 1970s polynya within the Antarctic sea ice pack of the Weddell Sea may have been the last gasp of what was previously a more common feature of the Southern Ocean, and which is now suppressed due to the effects of climate change on ocean salinity.
A new study from the USDA Animal and Plant Health Inspection Services (APHIS) and the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) demonstrates that it is possible to qualify bison coming from an infected herd as free of brucellosis using quarantine procedures. These bison can then be used to seed conservation herds in other landscapes without the threat of spreading the disease.
Genetic and environmental evidence indicates that after the ancestors of Native Americans left Asia, they spent 10,000 years on a land bridge that once linked Siberia and Alaska. Archaeological evidence is lacking because it drowned when sea levels rose. University of Utah anthropologist Dennis O’Rourke and colleagues make that argument in the Friday, Feb. 28, issue of the journal Science.
By engineering plants that emitted sex pheromones that mimic those naturally produced by two species of moths, researchers have demonstrated that an effective, environmentally friendly, plant-based method of insect control is possible.
UF/IFAS researchers show that low-oxygen environment helps create better suitors in sterile-insect process.
Judging the effects of climate change on extinction may be easier than previously thought, according to a paper published today in the journal Nature Climate Change.
Researchers created new nerve cells in the brains and spinal cords of living mammals without the need for stem cell transplants to replenish lost cells.
Physicists have now proposed a modular quantum computer architecture that promises scalability to much larger numbers of qubits. The components of this architecture have individually been tested and are available, making it a promising approach.
By adjusting water discharges in ways designed to boost salmon productivity, officials at a dam in central Washington were able to more than triple the numbers of juvenile salmon downstream of the dam over a 30-year period.
Field ecologists go to great lengths to get data: radio collars and automatic video cameras are only two of their creative techniques for documenting the natural world. So when a group of ecologists set out to see how wind moves seeds through isolated patches of habitat carved into a longleaf pine plantation in South Carolina, they twisted colored yarn to create mock seeds that would drift with the wind much like native seeds.
With the help of a tiny fragment of zircon extracted from a remote rock outcrop in Australia, the picture of how our planet became habitable to life about 4.4 billion years ago is coming into sharper focus.
The world’s growing fleet of plug-in cars will put strain on aging electrical distribution systems. Now research presents a solution: to prevent the electric grid from crashing, break-up requests for power from each car into packets. The new tool is efficient, fair, and protects drivers’ privacy and freedom.
The brains of jazz musicians engrossed in spontaneous, improvisational musical conversation showed robust activation of brain areas traditionally associated with spoken language and syntax, which are used to interpret the structure of phrases and sentences. But this musical conversation shut down brain areas linked to semantics — those that process the meaning of spoken language, according to results of a study by Johns Hopkins researchers.
In a recent early online edition of Nature Chemistry, ASU scientists, along with colleagues at Argonne National Laboratory, report advances toward perfecting a functional artificial leaf.
Researchers have developed the technology for a catheter-based device that would provide forward-looking, real-time, three-dimensional imaging from inside the heart, coronary arteries and peripheral blood vessels.
New insights into one of the molecular mechanisms behind light harvesting, which enables photosynthetic organisms to thrive, even as weather conditions change from full sunlight to deep cloud cover, will be presented at the 58th Annual Biophysical Society Meeting. Researchers will describe how probing these natural systems is helping us understand the basic mechanisms of light harvesting -- work that could help improve the design and efficiency of devices like solar cells in the future.
In biology, a protein's shape is key to understanding how it causes disease or toxicity. Researchers who use X-rays to takes snapshots of proteins need a billion copies of the same protein stacked and packed into a neat crystal. Now, scientists using exceptionally bright and fast X-rays can take a picture that rivals conventional methods with a sheet of proteins just one protein molecule thick.
A region deep inside the brain controls how quickly people make decisions about love, according to new research at the University of Chicago.
From his decades of skating research, Jim Richards, Distinguished Professor of Kinesiology and Applied Physiology at the University of Delaware, knows that proper air position is critical to successful jumps. A computer simulation developed by Richards’ team at UD in collaboration with Maryland-based C-Motion Inc. enables skaters and their coaches to observe an athlete’s actual movements on a computer screen and then see how those movements can be manipulated to improve jumping technique.
Atomtronics is an emerging technology whereby physicists use ensembles of atoms to build analogs to electronic circuit elements. Using lasers and magnetic fields, atomic systems can be engineered to have behavior analogous to that of electrons, making them an exciting platform for studying and generating alternatives to charge-based electronics. Using a superfluid atomtronic circuit, JQI physicists, led by Gretchen Campbell, have demonstrated a tool that is critical to electronics: hysteresis. This is the first time that hysteresis has been observed in an ultracold atomic gas. This research is published in the February 13 issue of Nature magazine, whose cover features an artistic impression of the atomtronic system.
The first genome sequencing of the Ice Age skeletal remains of a 1-year-old boy has given scientists definitive proof that the first human settlers in North America were from Asia and not Europe, and that these people were the direct ancestors of modern Native Americans, according to research that includes a Texas A&M University professor.
The Wildlife Conservation Society announced today that the Government of Madagascar has approved carbon sales with Microsoft and its carbon offset partner, The CarbonNeutral Company, and Zoo Zurich.
A recent nationwide online survey of U.S. consumers by Kansas State University found that freshness and safety were the most important values consumers placed on buying popular livestock products, including milk, ground beef, beef steak and chicken breast. Consumers felt environmental impact, animal welfare, origin and convenience were least important when making food purchasing decisions.
Prions can be notoriously destructive, spurring proteins to misfold and interfere with cellular function as they spread without control. New research, published in the open access journal PLOS Biology on February 11 2014, from scientists at the Stowers Institute for Medical Research reveals that certain prion-like proteins, however, can be precisely controlled so that they are generated only in a specific time and place. These prion-like proteins are not involved in disease processes; rather, they are essential for creating and maintaining long-term memories.
A pair of Georgia Tech studies take a closer look at puzzling summertime streak, trying to understand the nature of these features: water-related or not?
Among polar bears, only pregnant females den up for the colder months. So how do the rest survive the extreme Arctic winters? New research points to one potential answer: genetic adaptations related to production of nitric oxide, a compound cells use to help convert nutrients into energy or heat.
WCS and Uganda Wildlife Authority (UWA) announced today an online tool that will allow law enforcement officials to access a database that tracks offenders of wildlife crime in real-time and across the country.
Genetic adaptations for life at high elevations found in residents of the Tibetan plateau likely originated around 30,000 years ago in peoples related to contemporary Sherpa. These genes were passed on to more recent migrants from lower elevations via population mixing, and then amplified by natural selection in the modern Tibetan gene pool, according to a new study by scientists from the University of Chicago and Case Western Reserve University, published in Nature Communications on Feb. 10. The transfer of beneficial mutations between human populations and selective enrichment of these genes in descendent generations represents a novel mechanism for adaptation to new environments.
A scientific team from Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center has made a surprising discovery about the brain's hunger-inducing neurons, a finding with important implications for the treatment of obesity
An international team of researchers has discovered that a process that turns on photosynthesis in plants likely developed on Earth in ancient microbes 2.5 billion years ago, long before oxygen became available.
Using electrons more like photons could provide the foundation for a new type of electronic device that would capitalize on the ability of graphene to carry electrons with almost no resistance even at room temperature – a property known as ballistic transport.
Minimizing a person’s sight for as little as a week may help improve the brain’s ability to process hearing.
Humans living in densely populated urban areas have a profound impact not only on their physical environment, but also on the health and fitness of native wildlife. For the first time, scientists have found a direct link between the degree of urbanization and the prevalence and severity of two distinct parasites in wild house finches.
A team of Woods Hole Research Center (WHRC) scientists created maps of habitat corridors connecting protected areas in the tropics to incorporate biodiversity co-benefits into climate change mitigation strategies. Drs. Patrick Jantz, Scott Goetz, and Nadine Laporte describe their findings in an article entitled, “Carbon stock corridors to mitigate climate change and promote biodiversity in the tropics,” available online in the journal Nature Climate Change on January 26.
Imagine living on a planet with seasons so erratic you would hardly know whether to wear Bermuda shorts or a heavy overcoat. That is the situation on a weird, wobbly world called Kepler-413b found by NASA's planet-hunting Kepler space telescope.
All creatures great and small, including fruitflies, need sleep. The timing of when we sleep versus are awake is controlled by cells in tune with circadian rhythms of light and dark. Most of the molecular components of that internal clock have been worked out. On the other hand, what drives how much we sleep is less well understood. Researchers report a new protein involved in the homeostatic regulation of sleep in the fruitfly.
The capacity of our working memory is better explained by the quality of memories we can store than by their number, a team of psychology researchers has concluded.
Researchers from UT and the University of Arizona, Tucson, studied how forces such as volatile market conditions and technological substitutes affect the value of pest control services provided by Mexican free-tailed bats on cotton production in the U.S. They found the services are impacted by the forces to the tune of millions of dollars.
A study has found that the time it takes neural networks in the brain to make decisions is remarkably stable regardless of size: a finding that could make it easier to achieve the goal of the President's BRAIN Initiative established last spring.
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