Germany
They gracefully swim through the complete darkness of submarine caves, constantly on the lookout for prey. Instead of eyes, predatory crustaceans of the class Remipedia rely on long antennae which search the lightless void in all directions. Like some type of science fiction monster, their head is equipped with powerful prehensile limbs and poisonous fangs.
With nothing to guide their way, people attempting to walk a straight course through unfamiliar territory really do end up walking in circles, according to a report published online on August 20th in Current Biology, a Cell Press publication. Although that belief has pervaded popular culture, there has been no scientific evidence to back it up until now, according to the researchers.
Quantum mechanics and Einstein's theory of general relativity are both extremely accurate theories of how the universe works, but all attempts to combine the two into a unified theory have ended in failure.
PHILADELPHIA -- "A biologist, a physicist, and a nanotechnologist walk into a ..." sounds like the start of a joke. Instead, it was the start of a collaboration that has helped to decipher a critical, but so far largely unstudied, phase of how cells divide.
Language is a central element of social life. It is not only a prerequisite for personal relationships, but also for employment prospects. If a child's language development is impaired, this can have far-reaching negative consequences. Thus, it would be beneficial if those children who would benefit from targeted help could be identified at a very early stage.
WASHINGTON, Aug. 16, 2009 -- Deep in Africa's Kalahari Desert lies the "Devil's claw," a plant that may hold the key to effective treatments for arthritis, tendonitis and other illnesses that affect millions each year.
GALVESTON, Texas -- Imagine that you're working on your back porch, hammering in a nail. Suddenly you slip and hit your thumb instead -- hard. The pain is incredibly intense, but it only lasts a moment. After a few seconds (and a few unprintable words) you're ready to start hammering again.
Our genome is constantly under attack from things like UV light and toxins, which can damage or even break DNA strands and ultimately lead to cancer and other diseases.
Sewage plants remove organic matter from wastewater. If the accumulating sludge decays, biogas is generated as a by-product. However, only 1156 of the 10,200 sewage plants in Germany have a digestion tank. Smaller operations, especially, baulk at the costs of a new digestion tank. Instead, they enrich the sludge with oxygen in the existing activation basin, and stabilize it.
SANTA CRUZ, CA--The stellar explosions known as type 1a supernovae have long been used as "standard candles," their uniform brightness giving astronomers a way to measure cosmic distances and the expansion of the universe.
Munich, Germany, Amsterdam, The Netherlands, August 11, 2009 -- Researchers at the Department of Psychiatry, Klinikum rechts der Isar, Technische Universität München, investigated the effects of formal education on the symptoms of Alzheimer's disease.
One single atom of a certain isotope of hafnium found on Earth would prove that a supernova once exploded near our solar system. The problem is how to find such an atom - among billions of others. Researchers at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden, have developed a laser technique that, in combination with standard techniques, may be able to do the job.
Hinxton, 07 August 2009 -- Researchers at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory's European Bioinformatics Institute (EMBL-EBI) and their colleagues in 30 labs worldwide have released a new set of standards for graphically representing biological information -- the biology equivalent of the circuit diagram in electronics.
Men are far more interested in casual sex than women. While men need to be exceptionally at-tractive to tempt women to consider casual sex, men are far less choosy.
New York, NY, August 6, 2009 -- In findings that add to the prospects of regenerating insulin-producing cells in people with type 1 diabetes, researchers in Europe -- co-funded by the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation -- have shown that insulin-producing beta cells can be derived from non-insulin-producing cells in the pancreas.
