A study of influenza infection in animals broadens understanding of the immune response to flu virus, showing that the process is more dynamic than usually described. The findings may offer key insights for developing better vaccines.
Using nanometer-scale components, researchers have demonstrated the first optical rectenna, a device that combines the functions of an antenna and a rectifier diode to convert light directly into DC current.
More than half of older adults with clinical depression don’t get better when treated with an antidepressant. But results from a multicenter clinical trial that included Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis indicates that adding a second drug — an antipsychotic medication — to the treatment regimen helps many of those patients.
Research into human fossils dating back to approximately two million years ago reveals that the hearing pattern resembles chimpanzees, but with some slight differences in the direction of humans. Rolf Quam, assistant professor of anthropology at Binghamton University, led an international research team in reconstructing an aspect of sensory perception in several fossil hominin individuals from the sites of Sterkfontein and Swartkrans in South Africa. The study relied on the use of CT scans and virtual computer reconstructions to study the internal anatomy of the ear. The results suggest that the early hominin species Australopithecus africanus and Paranthropus robustus, both of which lived around 2 million years ago, had hearing abilities similar to a chimpanzee, but with some slight differences in the direction of humans.
By using powerful photon beams generated by the Advanced Photon Source, a DOE User Facility, researchers have shown that they can now control the chemical environment and provide nanoscale structural detail while simultaneously imaging the mineral calcite as it is pushed to its extremes.
University of Vermont chemists have invented a nanoscale wrench that allows them to precisely control nanoscale shapes. Their use of “chirality-assisted synthesis” is a fundamentally new approach for controlling the shape of large molecules--one of the foundational needs for making complex synthetic materials, including new polymers and medicines.
Astronomers are comparing new images of the Veil Nebula, taken by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope in April 2015 with Hubble images taken in 1997, to study how the nebula has expanded since it was photographed over 18 years ago. The supernova that created the Veil Nebula would have been briefly visible to our very distant ancestors thousands of years ago as a bright "new star" in the northern sky. Learn even more about the Veil Nebula in a discussion with Hubble Heritage Team scientists during the live Hubble Hangout at 3pm EDT today (Thurs., Sept. 24) at http://hbbl.us/z7f .
Why do babies smile when they interact with their parents? Could their smiles have a purpose? In the Sept. 23 issue of PLOS ONE, a team of computer scientists, roboticists and developmental psychologists confirm what most parents already suspect: when babies smile, they do so with a purpose—to make the person they interact with smile in return. To verify their findings, researchers programmed a toddler-like robot to behave like the babies they studied and had the robot interact with undergraduate students.
Neuroscientists have uncovered the brain malady responsible for tinnitus and for chronic pain — the uncomfortable, sometimes agonizing sensations that persist long after an initial injury.
As much as 47 percent of the edible U.S. seafood supply is lost each year, mainly from consumer waste, new research from the Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future (CLF) suggests.
Women react differently to negative images compared to men, which may be explained by subtle differences in brain function. This neurobiological explanation for women’s apparent greater sensitivity has been demonstrated by researchers.
A new study from The Scripps Research Institute has shown that a specific molecule controls morphine receptor signaling in a small group of brain cells. The findings could lead to a new drug target for developing less-addictive pain medications.
Researchers around the globe are on a quest for materials capable of capturing and storing greenhouse gases. This shared goal led researchers in Germany and India to team up to explore the feasibility of vertically aligned carbon nanotubes (VACNTs) to trap and store two greenhouse gases in particular: carbon dioxide (CO2) and sulfur dioxide (SO2). They report their findings in this week’s The Journal of Chemical Physics.
A research team has discovered the northernmost dinosaur known to have ever lived.
Smokey Bear has spent decades reminding picnickers “only you can prevent forest fires” and has even been known to cry over the devastation they leave in their wake. University of Delaware researchers say the cartoon bear illustrates how mascots can most effectively protect the environment – by threatening disappointment.
An international team of scientists has discovered a new lineage of extinct plankton-feeding sharks, Pseudomegachasma, that lived in warm oceans during the age of the dinosaurs nearly 100 million years ago. The fossil sharks had tiny teeth very similar to a modern-day, plankton-eating megamouth shark.
Light, sound, and now, heat -- just as optical invisibility cloaks can bend and diffract light to shield an object from sight, and specially fabricated acoustic metamaterials can hide an object from sound waves, a recently developed thermal cloak can render an object thermally invisible by actively redirecting incident heat. The system, designed by scientists in Singapore and described in this week’s Applied Physics Letters, has the potential to fine-tune temperature distribution and heat flow in electronic and semiconductor systems.
Cyberbullying? 1 in 5 parents say students who post online rumors about sex should be referred to police.
This monkey puzzle tree (Araucaria araucaria) is one of the stranger trees growing in the Smithsonian’s Enid A. Haupt Garden in Washington, D.C. Its triangular leaves, which cover the entire tree, both branches and trunk, are thick, tough, and scale-like, with sharp edges and tips. Each leaf can last 10 to 15 years.
A University of Georgia study using a new method for calculating urban heat island intensities clarifies the conflict on whether urban density or sprawl amplify these effects more. It also provides a ranking of the top urban heat island cities among the 50 largest metropolitan statistical areas.
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