As early vertebrates emerged from the water, their tails may have played a crucial role in helping them move across land, a new study reports. The results, based on animal and robot models, as well as mathematical analysis, may shed light on the origins of terrestrial life on Earth. Life first dwelled in the watery depths of the oceans - until roughly 385 to 360 million years ago when early tetrapods made a move to land.
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AMES, Iowa -- The adolescent years can be full of changes, whether physical, emotional, or familial. A new study by Iowa State University researchers suggests that when these years include prolonged periods of food insecurity coupled with harsh parenting practices, females are prone to obesity in early adulthood.
Aging, deterioration and extreme events like earthquakes and hurricanes can take a toll on roads, bridges and other structures. With damage and defects often invisible, the search is on for systems that can monitor the health of structures and alert their owners to potential problems and even impending catastrophic failure.
Several years ago, Erik Thostenson and Thomas Schumacher, both affiliated faculty members in the University of Delaware's Center for Composite Materials, began to explore the use of carbon nanotube composites as a kind of "smart skin" for structures.
Chewed bark, leaves and fruit discarded by mountain gorillas provide a simple way to test the endangered apes for viruses without disturbing them, according to scientists from the University of California, Davis, studying mountain gorillas and golden monkeys in East-Central Africa.
Boston (July 6, 2016) - Neurons in the brain that control hunger are regulated by AMPK, a protein activated during fasting, report researchers from Tufts University School of Medicine, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Harvard Medical School in Neuron on July 6, 2016.
Lasers have become indispensable to modern life since they were invented more than fifty years ago. The ability to generate and amplify light waves into a coherent, monochromatic and well-focused beam has yielded applications too numerous to count: laser scanners, laser printers, laser surgery, laser-based data storage, ultrafast data communications via laser light, and the list goes on.
An international team of researchers has demonstrated a new way to increase the robustness and energy storage capability of a particular class of "lithium-rich" cathode materials -- by using a carbon dioxide-based gas mixture to create oxygen vacancies at the material's surface. Researchers said the treatment improved the energy density -- the amount of energy stored per unit mass -- of the cathode material by up to 30 to 40 percent.
BROOKLYN, New York - Individuals and corporations spend millions of dollars every year on software that sniffs out potentially dangerous bugs in computer programs. And whether the software finds 10 bugs or 100, there is no way determine how many go unnoticed, nor to measure the efficacy of bug-finding tools.
Boston, MA - Consuming higher amounts of unsaturated fats was associated with lower mortality, according to a study from Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. In a large study population followed for more than three decades, researchers found that higher consumption of saturated and trans fats was linked with higher mortality compared with the same number of calories from carbohydrates. Most importantly, replacing saturated fats with unsaturated fats conferred substantial health benefits.
Mimicking nature is not easy, but new insights by researchers at the Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) could help create a viable artificial system of photosynthesis.
New research has found that green turtles hatching en masse from their nests 'swamp' predators, allowing more individuals to reach the safety of the sea.
The study, by the Universidade Federal de Alagoas in Brazil and the University of Bristol in the UK, was carried out on a pristine and remote island near Brazil where there are 3,600 green turtle nests (Chelonia mydas) per year and very little human disturbance.
A research group led by Project Professor Morioka Ichiro (Kobe University Graduate School of Medicine, Department of Pediatrics) and Assistant Professor Iwatani Sota (Kobe University Hospital, Center for Perinatal Care) in collaboration with Doctor Miyawaki Atsushi (team leader at the Brain Science Institute, RIKEN) have clinically proven that a fluorescent protein sourced from Japanese eel muscles can be used to accurately detect unconjugated bilirubin in newborns.
RIVERSIDE, Calif. (http://www.ucr.edu) -- Graphene has emerged as one of the most promising two-dimensional crystals, but the future of electronics may include two other nanomaterials, according to a new study by researchers at the University of California, Riverside and the University of Georgia.
Researchers in the Cockrell School of Engineering at The University of Texas at Austin have been able to quantify fundamental physical limitations on the performance of cloaking devices, a technology that allows objects to become invisible or undetectable to electromagnetic waves including radio waves, microwaves, infrared and visible light.
Scientists from the Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) have discovered a possible secret to dramatically boosting the efficiency of perovskite solar cells hidden in the nanoscale peaks and valleys of the crystalline material.