Tech
Unlike Derek Zoolander, ants don't have any difficulty turning left. New research from the University of Bristol has now found rock ants often have one eye slightly better than the other, which could help explain why most of them prefer to turn left, given the choice.
It's still easy to tell computer-simulated motions from the real thing - on the big screen or in video games, simulated humans and animals often move clumsily, without the rhythm and fluidity of their real-world counterparts.
Commercial adherence to the United States (US) Food and Drug Administration (FDA) 2016 sodium reformulation targets for processed foods will cost-effectively reduce cardiovascular disease (CVD), according to a modeling study published this week in PLOS Medicine.
Silent marine robots that record sounds underwater are allowing researchers at the University of East Anglia (UEA) to listen to the oceans as never before.
The robots are about the same size as a small human diver, but can reach depths of 1000 metres and travel the ocean for months, covering thousands of kilometres. They communicate by satellite with their pilot to build an underwater soundscape of the world's oceans.
UPTON, NY--Scientists studying plant biochemistry at the U.S. Department of Energy's Brookhaven National Laboratory have discovered new details about biomolecules that put the brakes on oil production. The findings suggest that disabling these biomolecular brakes could push oil production into high gear--a possible pathway toward generating abundant biofuels and plant-derived bioproducts. The study appears in in the journal Plant Physiology.
Blocking the activity of an enzyme that interferes with the blood-brain barrier, contributing to the generation of recurring seizures, may provide a new way to treat epilepsy that is resistant to anti-seizure drugs, according to a study of rats and mice published in JNeurosci.
Philadelphia, April 9, 2018 - Angiogenesis, the formation of new blood vessels, is essential for tumor growth. A new study reported in The American Journal of Pathology describes a vascular stabilization biomarker that can visualize blood vessel activity, thus optimizing the timing of anticancer therapies including anti-angiogenics.
University of Groningen physicists have induced magnetism in platinum with an electric field created by a paramagnetic ionic liquid. As only the surface of the platinum is affected, this creates a switchable 2D ferromagnet. The study was published in Science Advances on 6 April.
Parkinson's disease, a progressive brain disorder, is often tough to treat effectively because symptoms, such as tremors and walking difficulties, can vary dramatically over a period of days, or even hours.
To address this challenge, Johns Hopkins University computer scientists, working with an interdisciplinary team of experts from two other institutions, have developed a new approach that uses sensors on a smartphone to generate a score that reliably reflects symptom severity in patients with Parkinson's disease.
When you plug in an appliance or flip on a light switch, electricity seems to flow instantly through wires in the wall. But in fact, the electricity is carried by tiny particles called electrons that slowly drift through the wires. On their journey, electrons occasionally bump into the material's atoms, giving up some energy with every collision.
Heidelberg, 6 April 2018 - There is, as yet, no cure for Alzheimer's disease. It is often argued that progress in drug research has been hampered by the fact that the disease can only be diagnosed when it is too late for an effective intervention. Alzheimer's disease is thought to begin long before patients show typical symptoms like memory loss. Scientists have now developed a blood test for Alzheimer's disease and found that it can detect early indicators of the disease long before the first symptoms appear in patients.
Hematopoietic stem cells, that form mature blood cells, require a very precise amount of protein to function -- and defective regulation of protein production is common in certain types of aggressive human blood cancers. Now, a research team at Lund University in Sweden has uncovered a completely new mechanism that controls how proteins are produced to direct stem cell function.
Cells possess an internal skeleton, which enables them to alter their form and actively migrate. This 'cytoskeleton' is composed of a number of filament systems, of which microtubules are one. As the name suggests, a microtubule is a cylinder. Its wall is made up of 13 protofilaments, each consisting of heterodimeric subunits containing two related tubulin proteins. Microtubules not only confer mechanical stability on cells and help to dictate their forms, they also serve as an intracellular transport network.
Despite their appearance solar tornadoes are not rotating after all, according to a European team of scientists. A new analysis of these gigantic structures, each one several times the size of the Earth, indicates that they may have been misnamed because scientists have so far only been able to observe them using 2-dimensional images.
Philadelphia, April 6, 2018 - While school lunches in the UK are subject to food standards, the contents of packed lunches are not as closely scrutinized, and studies have raised concern regarding the nutritional quality of packed lunches.