Science fiction became reality as one of the University of Essex’s newly born robots made her debut at the London Aquarium.
’Miranda’ appeared at London’s County Hall as part of the Human-Centred Robotics research team’s project to develop advanced, artificially intelligent software for human-robot interaction. The research has been part of an ambitious project, RoboCity, a joint initiative between the University and the London Aquarium which is the first
The earliest “moving picture” of a magician – which was created for a scientific study on magic in the 1890’s – will be shown for the first time tonight, Wednesday 26 July, at the Science Museum’s Dana Centre in South Kensington, London.
The pictures were created during a study by famed psychologist and creator of the IQ test, Alfred Binet, as he investigated the psychology of magic.
Psychologist Professor Richard Wiseman, who discovered the pictures in a Paris archive, wi
A unique ’fingerprint’ formed by microscopic surface imperfections on almost all paper documents, plastic cards and product packaging could be used as a cheaper method to combat fraud, scientists suggest.
This inherent identity code is virtually impossible to modify and can be easily read using a low-cost portable laser scanner, according to research carried out at Imperial College London and Durham University, and published in Nature today.
Researchers beli
British design experts from Sheffield Hallam University are the brains behind a revolutionary robotic arm helping NASA refine its safety in the wake of the Columbia shuttle disaster. The artificial joints of the robot arm exactly replicate the workings of a human limb.
The Discovery space mission, re-scheduled to launch yesterday at 15:39 BST, will carry out vital safety tests using a 50-foot robot arm, designed with help from researchers at Sheffield Hallam University.
Scientists at the MUHC have made progress in understanding what causes migraines. The research, published in the newissue of the Proceedings of National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), reveals how gene mutations known to cause a form of inherited migraine – the kind that cause debilitating headaches and light flashes known as auras – target a cellular process involved in brain cell communication. “A number of mutations have been shown to result in familial migraines,” says Dr. Rhoda Blos
A novel suitcase-sized telescope could revolutionise the way we see the Earth and other planets. ESA has supported the work of a group of students in developing the Dobson Space Telescope, being tested this month aboard ESA’s parabolic flight campaign aircraft.
This experimental prototype launches in a compact configuration and then unfolds to provide a cost-effective space telescope. It could lead to fleets of low-cost telescopes, bigger than the Hubble Space Telescope.
One of the world’s most endangered whales, the North Atlantic right whale (Eubalaena glacialis), is on a path toward extinction due to collisions with ships and entanglements in fishing gear, according to Cornell University whale expert Christopher Clark.
A paper co-authored by Clark in the latest issue of the journal Science (July 22, 2005) urges emergency measures, such as reducing boat speeds, rerouting shipping lanes around the whales’ migratory paths and modifyin
A compact, inexpensive method for stabilizing lasers that uses a new design to reduce sensitivity to vibration and gravity 100 times better than similar approaches has been demonstrated by scientists at JILA in Boulder, Colo. JILA is a joint institute of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and the University of Colorado at Boulder.
The method, described in the July 15 issue of Optics Letters,* stabilizes laser light to a single frequency, so that it can be use
National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and university researchers report a significant step toward sorting out the nanotube “problem”–the challenge of overcoming processing obstacles so that the remarkable properties of the tiny cylindrical structures can be exploited in new polymer composite materials of exceptional strength.
As described in the current issue of Physical Review Letters,* their analysis reveals that, during mixing, carbon nanotubes suspended i
CINCINNATI-Cincinnati scientists have discovered how blood-regenerating stem cells move from bone marrow into the blood stream.
The finding has led to the development of a new chemical compound that can accelerate this process (called stem cell mobilization) in mice–which could eventually lead to more efficient stem cell harvesting for human use.
The researchers, from the Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center and the University of Cincinnati (UC), studi
How alike are you and your husband or wife — or, you and your best friend? Probably more alike than you realize. A study of twins shows that people’s spouses and best friends are much more similar to them than was previously recognized — about as close as brothers and sisters. The research also suggested that the preference for partners who are similar to us is partly due to our genes.
The research was conducted by J. Philippe Rushton and Trudy Ann Bons of the University
Researchers at the University of Illinois at Chicago have identified an elusive subunit of a neurotransmitter receptor found in both humans and the much-studied laboratory nematode C. elegans which may open new pathways of research on muscle function.
The neurotransmitter acetylcholine binds to two different nicotinic receptors at the nematode’s neuromuscular junctions, causing them to contract. Previously, researchers knew the subunit composition only of the levamisole-sensi
Exactly what behavioral mechanisms determine variation in male mating success is important because different mechanisms may have different evolutionary consequences. In addition to competition for mates and mate choice, indirect mate choice can cause sexual selection on male traits. This is when females have preferences for “external traits” determined by male competition.
One suggested example is when females prefer to mate at certain sites that males fight over, claimed to be
A central goal of ecology is to determine the mechanisms that explain large-scale patterns of abundance and distribution of the earth’s organisms. For most organisms, however, these mechanisms remain elusive. In an article in the August 2005 issue of The American Naturalist, Stefan A. Schnitzer reports that the abundance of lianas (woody vines), a taxonomically diverse and important group of plants, actually decreases in tropical forests as mean annual precipitation increases, a pattern prec
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute researchers are developing a tiny, highly efficient heat spreader to be used in a new device to be implanted in the brain of patients who suffer from severe epileptic seizures. The implant device is designed to detect and arrest epileptic seizures as they begin by cooling a small region of the brain, thereby effectively blocking the erratic electrical activity.
G. P. “Bud” Peterson, provost and professor of mechanical, aerospace, and nuclear engineeri
How did University of Alberta researchers discover that animals zig when they were only supposed to zag? A little birdie told them.
In studying the spatial memory of wild-caught mountain chickadees, University of Alberta researchers were surprised to discover the birds contradicting prior research that showed how animals navigate. This study is the first to reveal a different pattern. Previously, only animals that had been raised in human-made enclosures had been tested.
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