Although most people think of bats as stealthy mammals that flit about in the night sky, at least one species has evolved a terrestrial trot never before seen in bats, according to a recent Cornell University study.
It’s known that the common vampire bats of Central and South America behave much more like four-legged terrestrial mammals, in that they like to walk around on the ground; other bat species fumble helplessly when left to walk. But researchers in Cornell’s C
Although NASA’s X-43A and other hypersonic airplanes use air-breathing engines and fly much like 747s, there’s a big difference between ripping air at Mach 10 (around 7,000 mph) and cruising through it at 350 mph.
These differences are even more pronounced when hypersonic aircraft sip rarified air at 100,000 feet, while commercial airliners gulp the much thicker stuff at 30,000. Aero-thermodynamic heating is a very big deal at Mach 10. The critical point comes where air changes f
American Society of Plastic Surgeons Reports Annual Statistics
Hispanics had nearly 553,000 cosmetic plastic surgery procedures in 2004, an increase of 49 percent from 2000 and a 7 percent increase from 2003, according to statistics released today by the American Society of Plastic Surgeons (ASPS). Hispanics led all minority groups in the number of procedures performed, comprising 6 percent of the 9.2 million cosmetic surgery procedures performed in 2004, followed by African Americ
University of California scientists working at Los Alamos National Laboratory have developed a novel machining technique that uses a jet of solid carbon dioxide (CO2) to cool/lubricate the surface of metal parts and remove the cut material during machining. Called Snow-Machining, the process could someday eliminate the use of oil-based or synthetic chemical fluids for metal cutting and metal parts cleaning in industry.
The Snow-Machining technology creates a high velocity stream
Images of brain activity may hold clues to the onset of schizophrenia in people at high risk for the disease, according to a study headed by psychiatry researchers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Medicine.
The new findings appear in the March issue of the Archives of General Psychiatry, a journal of the American Medical Association.
A decline in function in the prefrontal cortex, the “executive” or front part of the brain, is present in high-ris
New source of larvae could make large-scale lobster farms feasible
Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institution has begun a new program scientists hope will make large-scale culturing of spiny lobster economically feasible. The project is based on the serendipitous discovery that lobster larvae are settling on open water fish cages in Puerto Rico by the thousands.
“Spiny lobsters are one of the most highly-prized fisheries species in the world, and especially in Florida wa
RNA loops and knots guide genetic modifications
University of Connecticut Health Center scientist, Robert Reenan, has uncovered new rules of RNA recoding–a genetic editing method cells use to expand the number of proteins assembled from a single DNA code. According to his work, the shape a particular RNA adopts solely determines how editing enzymes modify the information molecule inside cells. The study may help explain the remarkable adaptability and evolution of animal nervou
New York University biologists have uncovered how the innate immune system in mice’s brains fights viral infection of neurons. The findings, published as the cover study in the latest issue of Virology, show that proteins in neurons fight the virus at multiple stages–by preventing the formation of viral RNA and proteins, and blocking the virus’ release, which could infect other cells in the brain.
“There is no magic bullet in fighting viral infections in neurons,” sai
The cells that line the arteries are able to produce C-reactive protein, according to a study funded by the National Institutes of Health and published in the April issue of American Journal of Pathology.
C-reactive protein is a risk marker for heart disease and is known to be produced in the liver, but UC Davis School of Medicine researchers Ishwarlal Jialal and Sridevi Devaraj found that endothelial cells also produce C-reactive protein, a key finding that helps to explain how
Astrophysicists in recent years have found evidence for a force they call dark energy in observations from the farthest reaches of the universe, billions of light years away.
Now an international team of researchers has used data from powerful computer models, supported by observations from the Hubble Space Telescope, to find evidence of dark energy right in our own cosmic neighborhood.
The data paint a picture of the universe as a virtual sea of dark energy, with billi
The presence of drug-resistant, pathogenic bacteria on uncooked poultry products varies by commercial brand and is likely related to antibiotic use in production, according to researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Their study is the first to directly compare bacterial contamination of poultry products sold in U.S. supermarkets from food producers who use antibiotics and from those who claim they do not. The study focused on antibiotic resistance, specifically fluoroq
To understand the formation of the brain-clogging deposits that cause such disorders as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases, Duke University chemists have figured out how to capture and “micromanipulate” the single molecular building blocks of the deposits.
Their aim is to understand the detailed assembly process for the toxic protein called amyloid plaque. Such basic understanding, they said, could lead to approaches to preventing plaque formation.
The resear
It’s possible to grow thin films of mother of pearl in the laboratory that are even stronger than the super-strong material that naturally lines the inside of abalone shells. The trick is to add compounds normally found in insect shells and fungi cell walls to the recipe.
Materials scientists have long been fascinated by mother of pearl, also known as nacre, (NACK-er) because it is several times stronger than nylon, said Nicholas Kotov, associate professor at the U-M College
North Carolina scientists have found that “thinnest” is not necessarily “best” in rating structure and function of carbon nanotubes, the molecule-sized cylinders that show promise for futuristic technology scaled at a billionths of a meter.
During an American Chemical Society national meeting, researchers at Duke University and Xintek, Inc. of Research Triangle Park, N.C., will report on the synthesis and testing of a new class of nanotubes made up of two to five layers of carbon
Plants native to the Mojave Desert may one day help provide relief to millions of people who suffer from two prominent tropical diseases.
Scientists at Ohio State University found that extracts of the dotted dalea (Psorothamnus polydenius) and the Mojave dalea (Psorothamnus arborescens) can kill the parasites, which are a kind of protozoa that cause the diseases leishmaniasis and African sleeping sickness. While both diseases are rare in North America, they are prevalent in dozen
Mars isn’t as sleepy as scientists suspected. An international research team, which includes Brown University planetary geologist James Head, has found evidence of recent glacial movement and volcanic eruptions in 3-D images from the Mars Express mission. The team’s latest work, laid out in three Nature papers, also includes evidence of a frozen sea close to the equator. These and other Mars Express findings are stoking debate about the possibility of life on the Red Planet.
Shi
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