Scientists at Umeå University in Sweden are putting forward an entirely new picture of climate change and the first immigration of trees following the last Ice Age. Research shows that 8,000-14,000 years ago the climate was considerably warmer than was previously thought. When it was at its warmest 9,000-10,000 years ago, the timberline was 500 m higher than today, and leafy trees grew in the mountains. The spruce immigrated considerably earlier that was assumed until now, and it probably came from t
Gloves are coming off in ancient bacteria bust-up.
A claim to have found evidence of the oldest living things on Earth is being fiercely contested. The argument looks set to run and run, and no one may win, but it may lead to a better understanding of the origins of life on our planet.
The debate is academic, but its implications are not. The ’fossil bacteria’ in question are around 3.5 billion years old. That’s roughly one billion years older than the only confirmed fossil
Early humans came out of Africa again and again.
There were at least three major waves of early human migration out of Africa, our DNA suggests. Apparently the wanderers made love, not war: gene patterns hint that later emigrants bred with residents.
Human origins are contentious. Most researchers agree that there have been several major migrations out of Africa. Some hold that human populations in many regions evolved in parallel after Homo erectus left Africa around two mi
New algorithm exploits community structure of the web.
The web has spontaneously organized itself into communities. A new search algorithm that pinpoints these could help surfers find what they want and avoid offensive content.
Page builders can link anywhere. But they don’t, Gary Flake, of the NEC Research Institute in Princeton, and his colleagues have found. Instead, pages congregate into social groups that focus most of their attention on each other.
Web dir
Fruit’s hidden colour reveals whether it will ripen.
Some green tomatoes have a rosy future; others do not. A sensor that picks up subtle differences in the light the fruits reflect could sort future salads from greens.
Many tomatoes are picked green and bathed in ripening gas ethylene. Fruit picked too early will never ripen. Discerning consumers avoid them and growers lose out.
A scanner that analyses the wavelengths green tomatoes bounce back can predict th
Jumps in space-time might explain the curious survival of energetic particles.
Space and time must be grainy, not smooth. Otherwise high-energy particles produced in astrophysical processes would not be detectable on Earth.
So says Richard Lieu of the University of Alabama in Huntsville. Many agree that jumps in space-time occur on scales that are far too small to measure, but the idea has not yet been proved. Lieu now shows that using this hypothesis can explain how highly
Salt is critical to the brain development of premature babies, suggests research in the Fetal and Neonatal Edition. Language, memory, intelligence and coordination were all better in children, who had been born premature but whose diets had been supplemented with salt shortly after birth.
The study focused on 37 children who had been monitored since birth. All had been born before or at 33 weeks of pregnancy. Between the ages of 10 and 13 the children were tested for competency in movement a
Since its successful launch into sun synchronous orbit on the morning of the first of March, Envisat has been getting ready to start observing the Earth.
Its 70 m2 of solar arrays are fully deployed, thus enabling it to obtain power from the Sun, and the ASAR antenna is now extending to its full 10 m, ready for its deployment in space. This will bring to an end the Launch and Early Orbit Phase.
The next step is the Switch on and Data Acquisition Phase that starts today. One by on
The power for Hubble’s scientific discoveries comes from solar cells. Designing and constructing Hubble’s first two sets of solar cell arrays constituted a huge technological achievement for the European Space Agency and European industry. After an in-orbit life of more than 8 years, this example of pioneering space technology was this morning (European time) replaced by new, more powerful arrays.
For the last week a dedicated team of engineers, technicians and scientists from the European
Under the agreement, the two companies will work to develop affinity-based products for use in the production processes for protein-based pharmaceuticals. The development of these products will be based on Affibodies™, a novel class of small, robust affinity proteins designed to bind desired protein targets. Financial details of the agreement were not disclosed.
“The use of Affibodies™ opens up new possibilities for large-scale protein purification for production of protein based pharmaceuti
Sci-fi experts know that many seemingly impossible technologies materialise years later, but unfortunately this may not to be the case for warp-drive – travelling through space faster than the speed of light. The favourite science fiction theory of space contracting in front of spacecraft, and expanding behind it to form warp-drive is under threat according to new work by a researcher in Portugal published today in the Institute of Physics journal, Classical and Quantum Gravity.
General re
Materials scientists at the University of Wales Aberystwyth (UWA) are taking ceramics to new heights in order to determine the structure and stability of the materials which are used to construct aeroplane engines and the tiles for the space shuttle.
Dr Rudi Winter and colleagues from the Department of Physics at UWA are using a unique combination of techniques to study the materials at extreme temperatures which simulate those experienced when aircraft travel at high speed or when they dec
European research co-ordinated by TU Delft
Offshore wind technology ready for application
The technology for the construction and operation of offshore windfarms is ready for large-scale application. Companies in the fields of engineering and services are preparing to take part. This can be seen in the conclusions of the project Concerted Action on Offshore Wind Energy in Europe (CA-OWEE) of the European Union, in which seventeen parties from thirteen European countries have brou
Physicists design material that conducts one way and insulates the other.
European physicists have sketched out a blueprint for a valve that lets heat pass only one way. The proposed material conducts heat flowing in one direction, but also behaves as an insulator, stopping it going the other way 1 .
In theory, a heat valve could keep parts of microelectronic circuitry cool or channel heat to chip-sized chemical reactors, which are currently being developed fo
A team including scientists at UCMP (Umeå Center for Molecular Pathogenesis), a research unit at Umeå University, shows in last week’s issue of the journal Science that the protein PGRP-LC plays a crucial role in so-called innate immunity.
Professor Dan Hultmark, post-doctoral fellow Svenja Stöven, and doctoral candidate Thomas Werner at UCMP are focusing their attention on the mechanisms behind natural, or innate, immunity, and they are using the fruit-fly, Drosophila melanogaster, as a mod
The reindeer`s antlers make the beauty and the pride of a male, being a reliable weapon during spring tournaments. In autumn the antlers are no longer needed, so reindeers shed the antlers and grow them up anew in the next season. With the majority of the reindeer types, the male sex hormones control the growth of the antlers. But the reindeer`s doe has also got antlers. A pregnant doe carries antlers throughout winter, as the antlers help a doe to get food from under the snow, to keep off predators
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