University of California, Berkeley, graduate student Allen Liu last Friday donned coveralls, a blindfold, earplugs and gloves, then got down on all fours and sniffed out a 33-foot chocolate trail through the grass.
This was no fraternity initiation, but part of an experiment to find out whether mammals compare information coming from their two nostrils in order to aid scent-tracking performance, much like they compare information from their ears in order to locate a sound.
Science & Technology
Mayo Clinic researchers have successfully isolated nanoparticles from human kidney stones in cell cultures and have isolated proteins, RNA and DNA that appear to be associated with the nanoparticles. Reporting in the Journal of Investigative Medicine, the researchers say the findings could lead to solving the mystery of whether nanoparticles are viable living forms that can lead to disease - in this case, kidney stones.
Computer scientists have used the power of thought to control a humanoid robot.
Wearing a special cap dotted with 32 scalp electrodes, an individual can "order" the robot to move about and pick up objects merely by generating brain waves that reflect the instructions.
Wearing a special cap dotted with 32 scalp electrodes, an individual can "order" the robot to move about and pick up objects merely by generating brain waves that reflect the instructions.
French researchers have discovered a new gene linked to autism, a mental disability which prevents sufferers from communicating and forming relationships normally and whose causes are unknown.
The study, published Sunday online by Nature Genetics journal, found that all of five autistic children studied had anomalies in the SHANK3 gene, responsible for making the connections in the brain necessary for language development.
The study, published Sunday online by Nature Genetics journal, found that all of five autistic children studied had anomalies in the SHANK3 gene, responsible for making the connections in the brain necessary for language development.
BEIJING, Dec. 19 (Xinhuanet) -- Internet search engine Google Inc., and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) signed a collaboration agreement Monday that calls for Google to help make NASA information readily accessible on the Internet.
British researchers using modern medical technology have demonstrated what generations of teachers have told generations of students: Shakespeare is good for you.
Reading parts of Shakespeare's plays causes the brain to become positively excited, researchers from the University of Liverpool said in a release Monday.
Reading parts of Shakespeare's plays causes the brain to become positively excited, researchers from the University of Liverpool said in a release Monday.
Some 10,000 US researchers have signed a statement protesting about political interference in the scientific process.
The statement, which includes the backing of 52 Nobel Laureates, demands a restoration of scientific integrity in government policy.
According to the American Union of Concerned Scientists, data is being misrepresented for political reasons.
It claims scientists working for federal agencies have been asked to change data to fit policy initiatives.
The statement, which includes the backing of 52 Nobel Laureates, demands a restoration of scientific integrity in government policy.
According to the American Union of Concerned Scientists, data is being misrepresented for political reasons.
It claims scientists working for federal agencies have been asked to change data to fit policy initiatives.
Washington - The Bush administration is clamping down on scientists at the U.S. Geological Survey, the latest agency subjected to controls on research that might go against official policy.
New rules require screening of all facts and interpretations by agency scientists who study everything from caribou mating to global warming. The rules apply to all scientific papers and other public documents, even minor reports or prepared talks, according to documents obtained by The Associated Press.
Top officials at the Interior Department's scientific arm say the rules only standardize what scientists must do to ensure the quality of their work and give a heads-up to the agency's public relations staff.
New rules require screening of all facts and interpretations by agency scientists who study everything from caribou mating to global warming. The rules apply to all scientific papers and other public documents, even minor reports or prepared talks, according to documents obtained by The Associated Press.
Top officials at the Interior Department's scientific arm say the rules only standardize what scientists must do to ensure the quality of their work and give a heads-up to the agency's public relations staff.
© University of Nebraska-Lincoln
In this computer image of of the nano-ice double helix, oxygen atoms are blue in the inner helix, purple in the outer helix. Hydrogen atoms are white.
Credit: Image courtesy of
In this computer image of of the nano-ice double helix, oxygen atoms are blue in the inner helix, purple in the outer helix. Hydrogen atoms are white.
Credit: Image courtesy of
Zeng and his colleagues regularly find new and often unanticipated behaviors of matter in extreme environments, and those discoveries have been published several times in major international scientific journals. Their findings, though, have been so far ahead of existing technology that their immediate practical impact was essentially nil -- until now.
Zeng and two members of his UNL team recently found double helixes of ice molecules that resemble the structure of DNA and self-assemble under high pressure inside carbon nanotubes. This discovery could have major implications for scientists in other fields who study the protein structures that cause diseases such as Alzheimer's and bovine spongiform ecephalitis (mad cow disease). It could also help guide those searching for ways to target or direct self-assembly in nanomaterials and predict the kind of ice future astronauts will find on Mars and moons in the solar system.
More than a decade of searching for factors that make the common parasite Toxoplasma gondii dangerous to humans has pinned 90 percent of the blame on just one of the parasite's approximately 6,000 genes.
The finding, reported in this week's issue of Science by researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis and elsewhere, should make it easier to identify the parasite's most virulent strains and treat them. The results suggest that when a more harmful strain of T. gondii appears, approximately 90 percent of the time it will have a different form of the virulence gene than that found in the more benign strains of the parasite.
The finding, reported in this week's issue of Science by researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis and elsewhere, should make it easier to identify the parasite's most virulent strains and treat them. The results suggest that when a more harmful strain of T. gondii appears, approximately 90 percent of the time it will have a different form of the virulence gene than that found in the more benign strains of the parasite.
Comment: Comment: For more on this go to the Signs of the Times Forum to view the current research on psychopathology and discussions on Toxopltoxoplasmosis and other topics.