New research from the University of Maryland shows that termite offspring not only stay to help in their birth colony, but may join with other colonies when the king and queen parents die to form a stronger group. It's social insect evolution at its best.
A collaboration between scientists at Vanderbilt University and the University of California, San Francisco has led to the first direct information about the molecular structure of prions revealing surprisingly large structural differences between natural prions and the closest synthetic analogs that have been created.
While the human brain responds very differently to religious and nonreligious propositions, the process of believing or disbelieving a statement, whether religious or not, seems to be governed by the same areas in the brain.
The Quantum Tamers: Revealing Our Weird and Wired Future is a new television documentary that will air October 20th and shares the coming quantum technological revolution.
The brain’s neural mechanisms keep straight which color belongs to what object, so one doesn’t mistakenly see a blue flamingo in a pink lake. But what happens when a color loses the object to which it is linked? Research shows for the first time, that instead of disappearing along with the lost object, the color latches onto a region of some other object in view.
A new book, Tall Fescue for the Twenty-first Century, documents the history, science, and applications of tall fescue, a cultivated pasture grass that is playing an increasing role in protecting soil and water and enhancing animal agriculture.
Worldwide, thousands of workers die every year from mining accidents, and instantaneous coal outbursts in underground mines are among the major killers. But although scientists have been investigating coal outbursts for more than 150 years, the precise mechanism is still unknown.
Tiny organisms known as archaea play a central role in the planet's nitrogen cycle, according to new research. Experiments suggest archaea play a key ecological role in upper- and deep-ocean ecosystems. This could affect global climate model calculations.
Researchers at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute have received a grant for $792,000 from the U.S. Air Force to create a new laboratory for developing and testing next-generation radar systems that can be used in crowded cities and other urban environments.
A new study of microscopic marine microbes, called phytoplankton, by researchers at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) and the University of South Carolina has solved a ten-year-old mystery about the source of an essential nutrient in the ocean.
The Department of Energy's Spallation Neutron Source (SNS), already the world's most powerful facility for pulsed neutron scattering science, is now the first pulsed spallation neutron source to break the one-megawatt barrier.
Convective oxygen supply into waste rock piles may result in extreme environmental pollution. Recent research has shown that oxidation of sulfides in mining wastes produces high concentrations of sulfate, iron, and other metals, and frequently also very low pH values.
University of Michigan physicists have created the first atomic-scale maps of quantum dots, a major step toward the goal of producing "designer dots" that can be tailored for specific applications.
Researchers at the University of Arkansas and University of California-Los Angeles have discovered a new kind of quantum state of material at the nanoscale level that appears at low temperatures.
Stop signs are supposed to be traffic safety tools, but how effective are they? According to one Ryerson University researcher, intersections with stop signs can be some of the deadliest places on the road.
When the ancestors of living cetaceans—whales, dolphins and porpoises—first dipped their toes into water, a series of evolutionary changes were sparked that ultimately nestled these swimming mammals into the larger hoofed animal group. But what happened first, a change from a plant-based diet to a carnivorous diet, or the loss of their ability to walk?
Van Gogh cut off his ear. Sylvia Plath stuck her head in the oven. Were they simply mad or brilliant? According to new research, maybe both: Volunteers with a specific variant of neuregulin 1 scored higher on a creativity assessment than volunteers with a different form of neuregulin 1.
Emphasizing cross-disciplinary concepts in teaching soil science courses, such as mass-volume relationships, can help undergraduates learn real-world, problem-solving skills that are crucial to their success in soil science careers.
A new international group of natural and social scientists, philosophers, historians, physicians, rabbis, theologians and educators — The Judaism, Science and Medicine Group — is working together to promote and facilitate a close relationship between the Jewish religion, its cultures and values, and the sciences.
Vikas Nanda, PhD, assistant professor of biochemistry and a member of the Center for Advanced Biotechnology and Medicine at UMDNJ-Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, is one of this year’s recipients of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Director’s New Innovator Award. Dr. Nanda will receive $1.5 million over five years to support his novel approach to creating a synthetic network of proteins resembling the extracellular matrix of mammalian cells.
Researchers from Mount Sinai School of Medicine and two other academic institutions have received federal funding to systematically assemble functional human kidney tissue from tissue modeled on a computer. If successful, the research—which ties together several emerging technologies including virtual tissue modeling and nanofabrication—could lead to a more predictable way for researchers to engineer tissue outside the body and, consequently, to screen for new drugs.
The following news briefs are from the Institute of Food Technologists (IFT), a nonprofit scientific society with more than 20,000 individual members working in food science, food technology, and related professions in industry, academia, and government. The briefs are derived from a variety of IFT publications, including the Journal of Food Science, Comprehensive Reviews in Food Science and Food Safety, and Food Technology magazine. The monthly media update also includes information on science and policy and IFT events.
From household appliances to prescription drugs, nanotechnology will have an impact on everyday lives. Nanotechnology is the science and technology of the production and manipulation of materials at nanoscale levels of approximately 100 nanometers or smaller. A new paper in the October 2009 issue of Comprehensive Reviews in Food Science and Food Safety, published by the Institute of Food Technologists, discusses the emerging challenges and potential solutions generated by nanotechnology.
A new study from the Journal of Food Science, published by the Institute of Food Technologists, shows that microwave reheating of hotdogs for 75 seconds at high power may decrease risks from pathogens that cause food-borne illness.
The October 2009 issue of the Journal of Food Science reviews the key concepts of RFID technology and its food safety applications to the food industry.
A Washington and Lee University philosophy who wrote the definition of lying for the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy says that, strictly speaking, there is far less real lying in society than we might think.
Researchers found that a common kitchen spice contains an active component that reduces the deadliness of the Escherichia coli O157 toxin, according to a new study in the Journal of Food Science, published by the Institute of Food Technologists. E. coli O157 toxins cause abdominal cramps, bloody diarrhea, acute renal failure and gastrointestinal bleeding.
Foodborne pathogens like Salmonella enterica, Escherichia coli O157:H7 and Listeria monocytogenes are serious safety issues for food processors and consumers alike. However, meat and poultry products may be rendered safer with the use of edible apple film wraps, according to a new study in the Journal of Food Science, published by the Institute of Food Technologists.
Researchers discuss legumes as a nutritional powerhouse to help overcome malnutrition in an estimated 800 million undernourished people throughout developing counties in the October 2009 issue of Comprehensive Reviews in Food Science and Food Safety, published by the Institute of Food Technologists.
Color plays a crucial role in the way consumers taste and perceive the food they eat. In the October 2009 issue of Comprehensive Reviews in Food Science and Food Safety, an article discusses the rooted history of food coloring and looks into the future of the food industry’s move toward all-natural food coloring.
Human activities have already pushed the Earth system beyond three of the planet's biophysical thresholds, with consequences that are detrimental or even catastrophic for large parts of the world, conclude 29 European, Australian and U.S. scientists in an article in the Sept. 24 issue of the scientific journal Nature.
Researchers at NIST, in collaboration with private industry and other government agencies, have produced a new standard reference material for beryllium, an exotic metal used as a hardener in high-performance alloys and ceramics. The metal can cause berylliosis, a chronic, incurable and sometimes fatal illness, and the new reference material is expected to dramatically improve methods used to monitor workers' exposure.
Diamonds, it has long been said, are a girl's best friend. But a research team including a physicist from NIST has recently found that the gems might turn out to be a patient's best friend as well.
Scientists expect a new mathematical model of chronic wound healing could replace intuition with clear guidance on how to test treatment strategies in tackling a major public-health problem.
Investigators at Burnham Institute for Medical Research have identified novel cleavage sites for the enzyme caspase-3 (an enzyme that proteolytically cleaves target proteins). Using an advanced proteomic technique called N-terminomics, researchers determined the cleavage sites on target proteins and found, contrary to previous understanding, that caspase-3 targets α-helices as well as unstructured loops.
A five-year, $18.5 million grant from the National Science Foundation one year ago established the NSF Engineering Research Center for Biorenewable Chemicals at Iowa State University. The center's 24 researchers from nine academic institutions are working toward a goal of transforming the chemical industry from one based on petroleum to one based on biorenewable resources.
Researchers have long known of the brain’s ability to learn based on visual motion input, and a recent study has uncovered more insight into where the learning occurs.
Scientists have ample evidence that individuals use a variety of cues to identify their own kin. People can also detect resemblances in families other than their own. A new study shows that their success in doing so is the same, whether or not those families are the same race as themselves.
“Smart Trash,” an approach developed by Prof. Valerie Thomas has caught the attention of major corporations and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Smart Trash systems not only provide sustainable and productive ways for discarding items, but also can redefine the relationship people have with their garbage.
Imagine a car that runs on hydrogen from solar power and produces water instead of carbon emissions. While vehicles like this won’t be on the market anytime soon, University of Wisconsin-Madison researchers are making incremental but important strides in the fuel cell technology that could make clean cars a reality.
Investigators at Burnham Institute for Medical Research, University of California, San Diego, The Scripps Research Institute, Genomics Institute of the Novartis Research Foundation and other institutions have constructed a complete model, including three dimensional protein structures, of the central metabolic network of the bacterium Thermotoga maritima (T. maritima).
A 9-foot dinosaur from northeastern China had evolved all the hallmark anatomical features of Tyrannosaurus rex at least 125 million years ago.
Challenging conventional wisdom, new research finds that the number of sunspots provides an incomplete measure of changes in the Sun's impact on Earth over the course of the 11-year solar cycle. The Sun can bombard Earth with high-speed streams of energy even in the virtual absence of sunspots.
A neutron detector created at Kansas State University has been named one of the top 100 technologies of the year.
Jianmin Wang, a professor of civil, architectural and environmental engineering at Missouri S&T, has created a wastewater system "in a box." Each system, built by re-purposing a shipping container, is low power, low maintenance and highly efficient. It could be deployed anywhere – from small, rural communities to forward operating bases, like those in Iraq or Afghanistan.
While the cost of fuel has put a damper on the travel plans of many Americans, one father-son engineering duo with a passion for RV travel has decided to combat the problem by creating a concept for an electric-hybrid passenger vehicle with the ability to improve fuel economy and increase the acceleration of the motor home towing it.
The massive December 2007 explosion and fire at T2 Laboratories in Jacksonville Florida was caused by a runaway chemical reaction that likely resulted from an inadequate reactor cooling system, investigators from the U.S. Chemical Safety Board (CSB) said in a final draft report released today. The Board is to vote on the report findings and recommendations at a public meeting in Jacksonville this evening.
Publishing in the journal Nature Materials, researchers report measuring different friction forces when a carbon nanotube slides along its axis compared to when it slides perpendicular to its axis. The observation could provide a new tool for assembling and sorting nanotubes.
Two UIC geoscientists will lead an exploration of Antarctica's perpetually ice-covered Lake Vida, site of one of the most extreme environments on Earth for living organisms. The team will drill through the lake's ice cap and take the first-ever samples of the underlying brine and sediment.
Wounds trigger regeneration in planaria, a flatworm studied for its regenerative capabilities. Until now, no molecular connection between wounding and the onset of regeneration of an entire head or tail in planaria had been identified. Understanding of regeneration could benefit patients with traumatic injuries, such as amputation or nerve damage.
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