Hands-on, innovative educational material is being developed to help blind students learn about evolution. The development of toolboxes for the blind will be presented at the annual conference of the Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology in West Palm Beach, Florida on January 6, 2015.
New research shows rapid evolution has helped to make the venom of black widow spiders so toxic. The results of this study will be presented at the annual conference of the Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology in West Palm Beach, Florida on January 6, 2015.
The largest NASA Hubble Space Telescope image ever assembled, this sweeping view of the Andromeda galaxy (M31) is the sharpest large composite image ever taken of our galactic neighbor. Though the galaxy is over 2 million light-years away, the Hubble telescope is powerful enough to resolve individual stars in a 61,000-light-year-long section of the galaxy's pancake-shaped disk.
At a time when our earliest human ancestors had recently mastered walking upright, the heart of our Milky Way galaxy underwent a titanic eruption, driving gases and other material outward at 2 million miles per hour. Now, at least 2 million years later, astronomers are witnessing the aftermath of the explosion: billowing clouds of gas towering about 30,000 light-years above and below the plane of our galaxy.
Last September, after years of watching, a team of scientists led by Amherst College astronomy professor Daryl Haggard observed and recorded the largest-ever flare in X-rays from a supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way.
In celebration of its 25th anniversary, NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has revisited the famous "Pillars of Creation" region of the Eagle Nebula (M16), providing astronomers with a sharper and wider view. As a bonus, the pillars have been photographed in near-infrared light, as well as visible light.
Diamonds are beautiful and enigmatic. Though chemical reactions that create the highly coveted sparkles still remain a mystery, a professor from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, is studying a rare rock covered in diamonds that may hold clues to the gem's origins.
New research shows that the circadian clock of arctic ground squirrels works differently during the cold of hibernation. The results of this study will be presented at the annual conference of the Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology in West Palm Beach, Florida on January 5, 2015.
New research on bioluminescent ostracods shows how tiny crustaceans are helping scientists to understand evolution by sexual selection. The results of this study will be presented at the annual conference of the Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology in West Palm Beach, Florida on January 5, 2015.
New research shows that being monogamous is an advantage for mantis shrimp, helping them to avoid predators. The results of this study will be presented at the annual conference of the Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology in West Palm Beach, Florida on January 4, 2015.
New research shows that flashes of light from an unusual clam help it to fend off predators and perhaps to attract prey. The results of this study will be presented at the annual conference of the Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology in West Palm Beach, Florida on January 4, 2015.
New research shows rapid evolution has helped to make the venom of black widow spiders so toxic. The results of this study will be presented at the annual conference of the Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology in West Palm Beach, Florida on January 4, 2015.
Many of the worst West Coast winter floods involve heavy rains and melting snow, and UW hydrology experts are using the physics of these events to better predict the risks.
Spinning up a dust devil in the thin air of Mars requires a stronger updraft than is needed to create a similar vortex on Earth, according to research at The University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH). Early results from this research in UAH’s Atmospheric Science Department are scheduled for presentation today at the American Geophysical Union’s fall meeting in San Francisco. “To start a dust devil on Mars you need convection, a strong updraft,” said Bryce Williams, an atmospheric science graduate student at UAH. “We looked at the ratio between convection and surface turbulence to find the sweet spot where there is enough updraft to overcome the low level wind and turbulence. And on Mars, where we think the process that creates a vortex is more easily disrupted by frictional dissipation – turbulence and wind at the surface – you need twice as much convective updraft as you do on Earth.” Williams and UAH’s Dr. Udaysankar Nair looked for the dust devil sweet spot by combining dat
A URI researcher who measured organic pollutants in the air and water around Lake Erie and Lake Ontario has found that airborne emissions are no longer the primary cause of the lakes’ contamination. Instead, most of the lakes’ chemical pollutants come from sources on land or in rivers.
In a finding that meshes well with recent discoveries from the Rosetta mission, Ohio State University researchers have discovered a geochemical pathway by which Earth makes it own water through plate tectonics. This finding extends the planet's water cycle to billions of years—and suggests that enough water is buried in the deep earth right now to fill the Pacific Ocean.
Of the many weather-related phenomena that can promote harmful algal blooms, a new study has revealed that one—the wind—is the most important. The finding suggests that environmental agencies will have to incorporate the threat of extreme weather events caused by climate change into efforts to prevent algal blooms.
Research on underwater volcanoes, Great Lakes pollution, subseafloor life and much more will be among the 40 projects that will be presented by scientists from the University of Rhode Island’s Graduate School of Oceanography at the American Geophysical Union’s fall meeting in San Francisco from Dec. 15 to 19.
Ever wonder what’s in the black cloud that emits from some semi trucks that you pass on the freeway? Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) scientist Thomas Kirchstetter knows very precisely what’s in there, having conducted detailed measurements of thousands of heavy-duty trucks over months at a time at two San Francisco Bay Area locations.
Computers scientists are tracking tweets to gather important information about common mental illnesses.
Scientists now have an observational framework to help predict solar weather, says physicist Dr. S.T. Wu, distinguished professor emeritus of The University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH) Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering.
In work to be presented at the ASCB/IFCB meeting in Philadelphia, researchers from the Institut Curie in Paris report that they have evidence of a coordinated attack on the basement membrane of human colon cells by cancer cells in situ and CAF cells in the extracellular matrix that begins long before the actual translocation of cancer cells.
Now bioengineering researchers at Temple University in Philadelphia have come up with an experimental workaround—a synthetic pediatric blood-brain barrier on a small chip—and have tested it successfully using rat brain endothelial cells (RBECs) from rat pups and human endothelial cells.
Jae-Won Shin and David Mooney of Harvard University’s Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering in Cambridge, MA, describe building a three-dimensional (3D) hydrogel system with tunable stiffness to see how relative stiffness of the surrounding ECM affected the resistance of human myeloid leukemias to chemotherapeutic drugs.
The average animal cell is 10 microns across but why? Princeton bioengineers take their story of gravity in cells one step further at ASCB, describing how cells manage to support thousands of membrane-less compartments inside the nucleus
A new method uses photoactivatable complementary fluorescent proteins (PACF) to observe and quantify protein-protein interactions in live cells at the single molecule level.
The search for a living laboratory model of Alzheimer’s disease (AD)—the so-called “Alzheimer’s in a dish”—has a new candidate. Håkan Toresson and colleagues at Lund University in Sweden report success in creating induced neurons that model Alzheimer’s by starting with fibroblasts taken from skin biopsies.
Researchers from Harvard and MIT have found that fluctuations in outside temperature create convection currents within termite mounds to ventilate the living space -- work at the 67th annual meeting of the American Physical Society (APS) Division of Fluid Dynamics, held November 23-25 in San Francisco.
Each year, the more than 2 million tractor-trailer trucks that cruise America's highways consume about 36 billion gallons of diesel fuel, representing more than 10 percent of the nation's entire petroleum use. That fuel consumption could be reduced by billions of gallons a year through the use of drag-reducing devices on trucks, according to studies by researchers at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.
Espresso-loving astronauts, rejoice! You may soon be able to enjoy your beloved beverage in space, thanks to a new cup designed specifically to defy the low-gravity environments encountered aboard the International Space Station (ISS).
If you've ever watched a dog drink water, you know that it can be a sloshy, spilly, splashy affair -- in other words, adorable. Behind all of the happy, wet messes, however, lies the mechanical logic of carnivorous compensation -- dogs splash when they drink because they have the cheeks of a predatory quadruped. By studying the drinking habits of various dog breeds and sizes, researchers have recently identified and modeled the fluid dynamics at play when dogs drink water.
For many bacteria and parasites looking to get a load of the fresh nutritional bounty inside your body, the skin is the first and most important gatekeeper. Schistosomas, however, and burrow right on through. These waterborne blood flukes, responsible for 200 million total worldwide cases of Schistosomiasis, are driven by the powerful thrusts of their unique forked tails and chewing enzymes. The parasite's swimming patterns are crucial for its human-seeking chemotactic activity - and are the focus of researchers at Stanford University who ultimately seek to break the chain of infection.
If you've ever looked closely at the dried rings whisky leaves behind in a glass, you may be among the few who've noticed just how stunningly beautiful they can be. But what's behind whisky's "particle patterning"?
Jackson Pollock, one of the greatest American artists of the 20th century, revolutionized abstract expressionist painting in the mid-20th century with his unique "drip" technique -- masterpieces of densely tangled lines of color that Pollock often created from thinned household enamel paints. Now, an experimental technique developed by fluid dynamicists at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México in Mexico City may help reveal exactly how Pollock produced certain features in his paintings.
Olympic sailors tip their masts precariously close to the water's surface while turning, right their vessels at what looks like the last possible moment, and bounce up and down over the edge of their boats on the straightaways. Every aspiring Olympic sailor must master these unsteady sail propulsion techniques, but there is no scientific literature that explains exactly how the moves increase a boat's speed. A team of researchers from Cornell University is working to change that.
Journalists are invited to participate in as interactive webcast streamed live from the 67th annual meeting of the American Physical Society’s Division of Fluid Dynamics (APS-DFD), held November 23-25, 2014 in San Francisco, Calif.
Dragonflies can easily right themselves and maneuver tight turns while flying. Each of their four wings is controlled by separate muscles, giving them exquisite control over their flight. Researchers are investigating the physics behind this ability by recording high-speed video footage of dragonflies in flight and integrating the data into computer models, and they will present their findings at the 67th annual meeting of the American Physical Society (APS) Division of Fluid Dynamics.
Ice poses major impediments to winter travel, accumulating on car windshields and airplane wings and causing countless unsuspecting pedestrians to dramatically lose their balance. A team of researchers from Arizona State University (ASU) has developed a new way to prevent ice buildup on surfaces like airplane wings, finding inspiration in an unusual source: the poison dart frog.
If you’ve ever raised a glass of champagne in celebration, you may have noticed tiny bubbles bursting on its surface. But did you know this little event, which is commonly seen in much greater scale on the ocean’s surface, involves a fascinating facet of physics?
1) A Blood Pressure Hormone Implicated in Psychosis 2) Nutrient Deficiency Linked to Brain Wasting in Huntington’s Disease 3) Autistic Mice Become Social with Drug Treatment
Georgia Tech studies mid-air orientation and impact behavior in both cats and humans as it applies to reduced impact in falling robots, especially those that one day may be used for search-and-rescue missions in hazardous conditions.
University of Washington electrical engineers have developed a way to automatically track people across moving and still cameras by using an algorithm that trains the networked cameras to learn one another’s differences.
Imagine being fortunate enough to get to study historical art up close, examining the details of every paint stroke applied to the canvases to gain knowledge about artists’ preferred materials and techniques. Then add a team of art scholars and scientists who can provide historical details or even help you to “see” beneath the painting to reveal anything hidden or painted over on its canvas and you will have a sense of the rich collaborations that some museum professionals enjoy every day.
Conservation science is helping make big decisions about preservation methods to protect and save unique and historic U.S. government records—including the iconic and priceless Declaration of Independence—for future generations. During the AVS 61st International Symposium & Exhibition, Jennifer Herrmann, a research chemist and conservation scientist for the National Archives and Records Administration, will describe the role science plays in the preservation of the nation's documents.
Geologist Timothy Rose of the Smithsonian Institution’s Analytical Laboratories is accustomed to putting his lab’s high-tech nanoscale scanning electron microscope (nanoSEM) to work evaluating the mineral composition of rocks and meteorites. Lately, though, the nanoSEM has been enlisted for a different kind of task: determining the authenticity of ancient Mesoamerican artifacts.
A team of University of Maryland researchers is growing vertically aligned “forests” of carbon nanotubes on three-dimensional (3-D) conductive substrates to explore their potential use as a cathode in next-gen lithium batteries.
New technology allows you to print electronic devices in the same way your inkjet printer prints a document or photo. Now researchers at Palo Alto Research Center have used this technique to build a portable X-ray imager and small mechanical devices.
UAB researchers identify problems with secure voice communication over the Internet.
A recently awarded grant will fund a human clinical trial in type 1 diabetes beginning in early 2015 to see if verapamil will have an effect in humans by attacking the disease where it occurs. Meanwhile, more small molecule drugs at UAB are in development.
The soundtrack to a wild rhinoceros’s life is wind passing through the savannah grass, birds chirping and distant animals moving across the plains. But a rhinoceros in a zoo listens to children screaming, cars passing and the persistent hum of urban life. A group of researchers from Texas believes that this discrepancy in soundscape may be contributing to rhinos’ difficulties thriving and reproducing in captivity.
RSS
Medicine keyboard_arrow_right
Sciencekeyboard_arrow_right
Life keyboard_arrow_right
Business keyboard_arrow_right
Journal News keyboard_arrow_right
By Location keyboard_arrow_right
Meetings, Grants, and Events keyboard_arrow_right