Humans are among the few animals that step first on the heel when walking. A University of Utah study shows that compared with heel-first walking, it takes 53 percent more energy to walk on the balls of your feet, and 83 percent more energy to walk on your toes.
Two of The Florida State University’s most accomplished scientists recently joined forces on a collaborative research project that has yielded groundbreaking results involving an unusual family of crystalline minerals. Their findings could lay the groundwork for future researchers seeking to develop a new generation of computer chips and other information-storage devices that can hold vast amounts of data and be strongly encrypted for security purposes.
The American Institute of Physics (AIP) announced the three winning entries in the 2009 Science Communication Awards today.
A study by University of Michigan researchers offers new insight into what happens to mercury deposited onto Arctic snow from the atmosphere.
When the biology is applied to engineering principles, the resulting mathematical models and control strategies will be “critical in validating tensegrity applications such as space telescopes, antennas, and robots, thus enabling the jump from feasibility to implementation.”
It is widely known that genetic mutations cause disease. What are largely unknown are the mechanisms by which these mutations wreak havoc at the molecular level, giving rise to clinically observable symptoms in patients. Now a new study using bioinformatics, reports the ability to predict the molecular cause of many inherited genetic diseases. These predictions have led to the creation of a web-based tool available to academic researchers who study disease.
Niobium-based superconducting devices could lead to smaller, more efficient linear colliders.
Researchers at the University of Houston’s department of health and human performance are using an environmental chamber to investigate risk factors of those most susceptible to heat and cold illnesses.
Tackling one of the National Academy of Engineering’s Grand Challenges for engineering, more than 10,000 high school students will learn how they, as engineers, can solve the global crisis of providing access to clean water.
Military agencies wanted a death ray, and they were willing to pay for it. That was one of the forces spurring scientists in a race that ended with the invention of the laser in 1960, fifty years ago this May. A new exhibit on the award-winning Web site of the Center for History of Physics, American Institute of Physics (AIP) tells the remarkable story of the laser's invention using the voices of the scientists themselves.
University of Michigan researchers have shown that tension on DNA molecules can affect gene expression---the process at the heart of biological function that tells a cell what to do.
Neutron scattering experiments performed at the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory give strong evidence that, if superconductivity is related to a material's magnetic properties, the same mechanisms are behind both copper-based high-temperature superconductors and the newly discovered iron-based superconductors.
An international team of researchers has identified a new theoretical approach that may one day make the synthesis of hydrogen fuel storage materials less complicated and improve the thermodynamics and reversibility of the system.
Johns Hopkins scientists believe they may have figured out how genetic snippets called microRNAs are able to shut down the production of some proteins.
An innovative computational technique that draws on statistics, imaging, and other disciplines has the capability to detect errors in sensitive technological systems ranging from satellites to weather instruments. The patented technique, known as the Intelligent Outlier Detection Algorithm, or IODA, is described this month in the Journal of Atmospheric and Oceanic Technology.
New research shows our brains are a lot more chaotic than previously thought, and that this might be a good thing. Neurobiologists at the University of Maryland have discovered information about how the brain processes sound that challenges previous understandings of the auditory cortex, which had suggested an organization based on precise neuronal maps. In the first study of the auditory cortex conducted using advanced imaging techniques, Patrick Kanold, assistant professor of biology, Shihab Shamma, professor of electrical and computer engineering, and Sharba Bandyopadhyay, post-doctoral associate, describe a much more complex picture of neuronal activity.
Natural disasters - like toddlers with crayons - leave a mess all over the map, spilling across federal, state, and local lines. To clean up, different agencies and jurisdictions must come together and share what they know.
Researchers in the Electro-Optics Center (EOC) Materials Division at Penn State have produced 100mm diameter graphene wafers, a key milestone in the development of graphene for next generation high frequency electronic devices.
Practicing clinicians have traditionally played a central role in research, advancing breakthrough treatments for innumerable diseases, from smallpox and cholera to heart disease and cancer. While their insights remain important as ever, recent years have seen the role of the physician-scientist become greatly diminished.
They haven't had sex in some 30 million years, but some very small invertebrates named bdelloid rotifers are still shocking biologists – they should have gone extinct long ago. Cornell researchers have discovered the secret to their evolutionary longevity: these rotifers are microscopic escape artists. When facing pathogens, they dry up and are promptly gone with the wind.
Scientists have devised a way to explore how phase transitions -- changes of matter from one state to another without altering chemical makeup -- function in less than three dimensions and at the level of just a few atoms.
The nectar of the almond tree produces an extraordinary and dangerous poison. This is the only known plant to have this poison in its flowers' nectar. A study carried out at the University of Haifa has revealed that bees are mysteriously drawn to the toxic substance.
NIST has released its final report on the May 2, 2009, collapse during a severe thunderstorm of the fabric-covered, steel frame practice facility owned by the National Football League's Dallas Cowboys.
Researchers at the Joint Quantum Institute can speed up photons to seemingly faster-than-light speeds through a stack of materials by adding a single, strategically placed layer.
In an advance that might interest Q-Branch, NIST and partners from industry and academia have designed and tested experimental antennas that are highly efficient and yet a fraction of the size of standard antenna systems with comparable properties.
Researchers devise formula to examine just what types of change occur over time among complex and integrated structures.
A new study reported in Investigative Ophthalmology & Visual Science found that UV-blocking contact lenses can reduce or eliminate the effects of the sun’s harmful UV radiation.
A team of Florida State University researchers will use a five-year, $1.3 million grant from the National Institutes of Health to develop a way to measure levels of the trace metal zinc in the human body.
Two UIC geoscientists have built a device for laboratory simulations of deep-sea pressure and temperature conditions that allows X-ray sample analysis. They've received an $85,000 National Science Foundation grant to improve the device, which may be used for a range of scientific tests.
People's preferences for current versus later rewards may be influenced by fluctuating blood glucose levels: Volunteers who drank a regular soda containing sugar were more likely to select receiving more money at a later date while the volunteers who drank a diet soda were likelier to opt for receiving smaller sums of money immediately.
Formula increases publication rates and faculty collaborations without requiring more funding.
During the Paleozoic era, the evolution of complex land plants forced the evolution of rivers from nothing but vast braided streams to the variety of different forms and sizes we see today according to researchers at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia.
Shark pups born to virgin mothers can survive over the long-term, according to new research published Jan. 25 in the Journal of Heredity. The study shows for the first time that some virgin births can result in viable offspring.
A new assay capable of examining hundreds of proteins at once and enabling new experiments that could dramatically change our understanding of cancer and other diseases has been invented by a team of University of Chicago scientists.
When University of Utah scientists discovered a new kind of laser generated by an electrically conducting polymer, no one knew how it worked. Now, researchers have found “random lasers” occur because of mirror-like cavities in the polymers. Such lasers may prove useful for diagnosing cancer.
Meet Kenny Twist and the DNA girl. They are the stars of a new animated film, "Cell Side Story," developed by students at Atkins Academic and Technology High School in cooperation with Wake Forest University and other community partners.
The University of Chicago and four partner universities have established a center for chemical innovation to pursue a broad range of similar research aimed at spurring innovation and economic competitiveness.
Farmers who use herbicide-tolerant crops face a growing challenge from herbicide-tolerant and herbicide-resistant weeds, which are evolving and spreading across cropland.
Food-packaging products made from dairy ingredients could provide a viable alternative to petroleum-based packaging products, according to Agricultural Research Service (ARS) scientist Peggy Tomasula.
To make thin films for semiconductors in electronic devices, layers of atoms must be grown in neat, crystalline sheets. But while some materials grow smooth crystals, others tend to develop bumps and defects – a serious problem for thin-film manufacturing. Cornell researchers shed new light on how atoms arrange themselves into thin films. (Science, Jan. 22, 2010).
A microbe commonly found in the Chesapeake Bay and other waterways emits a poison not just to protect itself but to stun and immobilize the prey it plans to eat.
A study published 21 January 2010 ahead of print in the peer-reviewed journal Environmental Health Perspectives (EHP) for the first time links thyroid disease with human exposure to perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA), a persistent organic chemical used in industrial and consumer goods, including nonstick cookware and stain- and water-resistant coatings for carpets and fabrics.
Researchers at the Virginia Tech Center for Technology, Security, and Policy in the National Capital Region, doing a FEMA- funded study to determine the social impacts and disaster response requirements of a catastrophic earthquake on the New Madrid Seismic Zone, found that such a disaster would result in 80,000 injuries and 3,500 fatalities.
There’s more to the eye makeup that gave Queen Nefertiti and other ancient Egyptians royals those stupendous gazes and legendary beauty than meets the eye. Scientists in France are reporting that the alluring eye makeup also may have been used to help prevent or treat eye disease by doubling as an infection-fighter. Their findings are scheduled for the Jan. 15 issue of ACS’ Analytical Chemistry, a semi-monthly journal.
A new mobile weather radar that is the first of its kind in the Southeast will help scientists at The University of Alabama in Huntsville study bands of rain and snow that follow some large storm systems.
Gently rocking embryos while they grow during in vitro fertilization (IVF) improves pregnancy rates in mice by 22 percent, new University of Michigan research shows. The procedure could one day lead to significantly higher IVF success rates in humans.
The American Mathematical Society will award several major prizes on Thursday, January 14, 2010, at the Joint Mathematics Meetings in San Francisco. The AMS prizes are among the world's most important honors given for outstanding contributions to mathematics.
Bones, muscles, and tendons work together to provide the perfect balance between stability and movement in the skeleton. Scientists have now shown that this partnership begins in the embryo. The new study describes a previously unrecognized interaction between tendons and bones that drives the development of a strong skeletal system.
Studying animals in behavioral experiments has been a cornerstone of psychological research, but whether the observations are relevant for human behavior has been unclear. Weill Cornell Medical College researchers have identified an alteration to the DNA of a gene that imparts similar anxiety-related behavior in both humans and mice, demonstrating that laboratory animals can be accurately used to study these human behaviors. The findings may help researchers develop new clinical strategies to treat humans with anxiety disorders, such as phobias and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
Researchers at the University of Illinois at Chicago College of Medicine have discovered how cells in the body flatten out as they adhere to internal bodily surfaces, the first step in a wide range of important processes including clot formation, immune defense, wound healing, and the spread of cancer cells.
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