The Goualougo Triangle, nestled between two rivers in a Central African rain forest, is so remote that primate researchers who traveled 34 miles, mostly by foot, from the nearest village through dense forests and swampland to get there, have discovered a rare find: chimpanzees that have had very little or no contact at all with humans.
The chimpanzees’ behavior when first coming in contact with the researchers was a telltale sign of lack of human exposure — the chimpanzees didn’t run and
A highly sensitive, inexpensive “lab-on-a-chip” that provides warning within seconds of even trace amounts of toxic chemicals in water was designed and demonstrated recently by National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) scientists and collaborators.
The prototype sensor system monitors the natural response of bacterial cells bound within the microscopic channels of a plastic microfluidics device–a miniaturized chemical and biochemical analysis system. In the presence of certain
Penn study find people respond poorly, while feeling only ’slightly’ tired
Sleep: Don’t be too sure you’re getting enough of it.
Those who believe they can function well on six or fewer hours of sleep every night may be accumulating a “sleep debt” that cuts into their normal cognitive abilities, according to research conducted at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. What’s more, the research indicates, those people may be too sleep-deprived to know it.
New data suggests that a novel molecule appears to be involved in the intestine’s response to infection. The study was a collaboration between researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis and the Institut Curie in Paris. It appears in the March 13 issue of the journal Nature.
“This is the first identified function for this molecule,” says co-senior author Susan Gilfillan, Ph.D., research instructor in pathology and immunology at the School of Medicine. “Our findings s
Forests form an integral part of the Kyoto Protocol on climate change because they act as terrestrial “sinks” to soak up the carbon emissions that are contributing to global warming. Countries that have ratified the protocol can offset their carbon emissions quota by planting trees, either at home or in developing countries. But how efficient is this “carbon trading” and how good are forests at absorbing these extra carbon emissions?
Nearly one hundred of the world’s leading experts on globa
The melting of an Antarctic ice sheet roughly 14,000 years ago triggered a period of warming in Europe that marked the beginning of the end of the Earth’s last ice age, says a new study.
A paper in the March 14 issue of the journal Science suggests that a catastrophic collapse of an Antarctic ice sheet dumped roughly a million cubic litres per second of freshwater into the southern oceans, changing the climate thousands of kilometres to the north and ushering in a dramatic climate shift kn
Researchers attack 100-year-old puzzle, learn how a single layer of particles can pack on the surface of a sphere ARLINGTON, Va. – In a discovery that is likely to impact fields as diverse as medicine and nanomanufacture, researchers have determined how nature arranges charged particles in a thin layer around a sphere. The leap forward in understanding this theoretical problem may help reveal structural chinks in the outer armor of viruses and bacteria (revealing potential drug targets
The United Nations World Water Development Report: Water for People, Water for Life considers the water in Finland cleanest in the world. The secret is not only in the quality of raw water, but also in the water treatment methods.
The report, published last week, ranked 122 countries based on the quality of their water and their ability and willingness to improve it. Finland also scored the highest number of points on the overall Water Poverty Index which graded 147 countries according to th
When were the mountains of Wales pushed up?
It was well before the dinosaurs roamed the earth. And it happened in the aftermath of a gigantic continental collision, when England and Wales (then attached to southern Newfoundland) crashed into Scotland (then attached to north America). The muds of the sea floor were converted, then, into the hard grey slates of the Welsh hills.
Until now it has been very hard to tell exactly when these slates were formed, because the miner
In a major breakthrough for understanding what one of them calls “the most exotic environment in the Universe,” a team of astronomers has discovered that powerful radio bursts in pulsars are generated by structures as small as a beach ball.
“These are by far the smallest objects ever detected outside our solar system,” said Tim Hankins, leader of the research team, which studied the pulsar at the center of the Crab Nebula, more than 6,000 light-years from Earth. “The small size of these regi
Study featured on cover of the journal Nature
Hormones and neurotransmitters secreted from cells via bubble-like vesicles are released using age-related criteria, with the youngest vesicles getting first shot at releasing their contents, according to research led by a University of Southern California (USC) physiologist. This is a “complete reverse” from what had previously been presumed to be the process behind hormone secretion, notes Robert Chow, M.D., Ph.D., associate professor of
To study the genetic components of disease, researchers rely on mice or other research models in which particular genes are silenced, or turned off. In recent years, researchers discovered that they can selectively silence genes using small pieces of RNA called siRNA (short interfering RNA).
Unfortunately, sorting out which siRNA sequences block expression of which genes has proven to be truly daunting. Researchers at Whitehead Institute, however, recently released for public use a new comp
Binghamton University electronics engineering center charts new directions at ’micro’ and ’nano’ scale
Imagine a diagnostic “pill” that doctors can navigate through your system to collect video and chemical data about what’s going on in your body. Or how about a space age, two-ply, self-assembling organic-inorganic thin film that makes expensive mirrors and lenses such as those used by NASA virtually indestructible.
Each of these items is at the hear
Computer experts at the University of Southampton have just released a new version of their hugely popular free-to-use email security system MailScanner, offering a high level of protection to companies and institutions wanting to safeguard their computer networks from viruses and the potential threat of cyberterrorism.
Developed by Julian Field of the University of Southampton’s world-renowned Department of Electronics and Computer Science, MailScanner processes over 500 million email mes
Using the Hubble Space Telescope, for the first time, astronomers have observed the atmosphere of an extrasolar planet evaporating off into space. Much of this planet may eventually disappear, leaving only a dense core. The planet is a type of extrasolar planet known as a ’hot Jupiter’. These giant, gaseous planets orbit their stars very closely, drawn to them like moths to a flame.
The scorched planet called HD 209458b orbits ‘only’ 7 million kilometres from its yellow Sun-like st
The EU’s innovation information channel CORDIS reveals today the new thinking on innovation policy by the European Commission. Ahead of the Spring European Council (20-21 March 2003), CORDIS is publishing the new Innovation Policy Communication, adopted yesterday by the Commission. The Communication launches a new vision for EU’s innovation policy and gives a new impetus to the drive of making Europe the world’s most competitive and dynamic knowledge-based economy by 2010. It calls for broadening the
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