University of Illinois materials scientists have developed a new reactive silver ink for printing high-performance electronics on ubiquitous, low-cost materials such as flexible plastic, paper or fabric substrates. Jennifer Lewis, the Hans Thurnauer Professor of [...]
Tag Archives | national science foundation
Prehistoric Predators With Supersized Teeth Had Beefier Arm Bones
The toothiest prehistoric predators also had beefier arm bones, according to results of a study published today in the journal Paleobiology. Saber-toothed tigers may come to mind, but these extinct cats weren’t the only animals [...]
It came from below: Bathroom sinks causing human infections
A study examining the prevalence of the fungus Fusarium in bathroom sink drains suggests that plumbing systems may be a common source of human infections. In the first extensive survey of its kind, researchers in [...]
Scientists model brain structure to help computers recognize objects
An essential question confronting neuroscientists and computer vision researchers alike is how objects can be identified by simply “looking” at an image. Introspectively, we know that the human brain solves this problem very well. We [...]
Gene discovery explains how fruitflies retreat from heat
A discovery in fruit flies may be able to tell us more about how animals, including humans, sense potentially dangerous discomforts. Researchers at Duke University Medical Center uncovered naturally occurring variations of a gene named [...]
Simpler Way to Assess Risk for Chemicals
Approximately 80,000 industrial chemicals are in use and about 700 new chemicals are introduced to commerce each year in the United States, according to the U.S. Government Accountability Office. To assess human health risks from [...]
Cheating cells are destined to fail
It took former Rice University graduate student Jennie Kuzdzal-Fick a long time to confirm it, but now she knows: Cheaters may win the battle but are destined to lose the war. During her Ph.D. studies [...]
Physicists report nanotech feat with proteins
UCLA physicists have made nanomechanical measurements of unprecedented resolution on protein molecules. The new measurements, by UCLA physics professor Giovanni Zocchi and former UCLA physics graduate student Yong Wang, are approximately 100 times higher in [...]
Elemental ‘cookbook’ guides efficient thermoelectric combinations
A repository developed by Duke University engineers that they call a “materials genome” will allow scientists to stop using trail-and-error methods for combining electricity-producing materials called “thermoelectrics.”
Thermoelectri…
New conductivity technique could cool computer chips, lasers
The surprising discovery of a new way to tune and enhance thermal conductivity — a basic property generally considered to be fixed for a given material — gives engineers a new tool for managing thermal effects in smart phones and computers, laser…
Stretchy Electronic Skin Could Detect, Respond to Touch
Imprinting electronic circuitry on backplanes that are both flexible and stretchable promises to revolutionize a number of industries and make “smart devices” nearly ubiquitous. Among the applications that have been envisioned are electronic pads that [...]
New path to flex and stretch electronics
Imprinting electronic circuitry on backplanes that are both flexible and stretchable promises to revolutionize a number of industries and make “smart devices” nearly ubiquitous. Among the applications that have been envisioned are electronic pads that …
Vision scientists demonstrate innovative learning method
New research published today in the journal Science suggests it may be possible to use brain technology to learn to play a piano, reduce mental stress or hit a curve ball with little or no conscious effort. It’s the kind of thing seen in Hollywood’s “M…
Small step for lungfish, a big step for evolution of walking
The eel-like body and scrawny “limbs” of the African lungfish would appear to make it an unlikely innovator for locomotion. But its improbable walking behavior, newly described by University of Chicago scientists, redraws the evolutionary route of life…
Researchers create Alzheimer’s antibodies
Troy, N.Y. — Researchers at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute have developed a new method to design antibodies aimed at combating disease. The surprisingly simple process was used to make antibodies that neutralize the harmful protein particles that …
Slow road to stability for emulsions
By studying the behavior of tiny particles at an interface between oil and water, researchers at Harvard have discovered that stabilized emulsions may take longer to reach equilibrium than previously thought. Much longer, in fact.
…
Lipid-modifying enzyme: New target for pan-viral therapeutics
Three different disease-causing viruses — poliovirus, coxsackievirus, and hepatitis C — rely on their unwilling host for the membrane platforms enriched in a specific lipid, phosphatidylinositol 4 phosphate (PI4P) on which they can replicate, Rutgers…
Researchers find best routes to self-assembling 3-D shapes
Material chemists and engineers would love to figure out how to create self-assembling shells, containers or structures that could be used as tiny drug-carrying containers or to build 3-D sensors and electronic de…
How cells remove bits of RNA from DNA strands
When RNA component units called ribonucleotides become embedded in genomic DNA, which contains the complete genetic data for an organism, they can cause problems for cells. It is known that ribonucleotides in DNA can potentially [...]
New horned dinosaur announced nearly 100 years after discovery
A new species of horned dinosaur was announced today by an international team of scientists, nearly 100 years after the initial discovery of the fossil.
The animal, named Spinops sternbergorum, lived approximately 76…
Powerful mathematical model greatly improves predictions for species facing climate change
UCLA life scientists and colleagues have produced the most comprehensive mathematical model ever devised to track the health of populations exposed to environmental change.
The research, federally funded by the National Science Foundation, is publis…
Are doing harm and allowing harm equivalent? Ask fMRI
People typically say they are invoking an ethical principle when they judge acts that cause harm more harshly than willful inaction that allows that same harm to occur. That difference is even codified in crimin…
Abrupt permafrost thaw increases climate threat
As the Arctic warms, greenhouse gases will be released from thawing permafrost faster and at significantly higher levels than previous estimates, according to survey results from 41 international scientists published in the Nov. 30 issue [...]
They call it guppy love
Guppies in the wild have evolved over at least half-a-million years — long enough for the males’ coloration to have changed dramatically. Yet a characteristic orange patch on male guppies has remained remarkably stable, though [...]
Share of black S&E degrees from HBCUs declines in 2008
More than 45 years after the Civil Rights Act of 1964, National Science Foundation (NSF) statistics show minority academic institutions still enroll a substantial number of minority students, but the percentage of minorities earning bachelor’s d…
Ancient catastrophic drought leads to question: How severe can climate change become?
How severe can climate change become in a warming world?
Worse than anything we’ve seen in written history, according to results of a study appearing this week in the journal Science.
An international team of scientists led by Curt Stager of…
Homoplasy: A good thread to pull to understand the evolutionary ball of yarn
With the genetics of so many organisms that have different traits yet to study, and with the techniques for gathering full sets of genetic information from organisms rapidly evolving, the “forest” of evolution can be easily lost to the “trees”…
Redesign of US donor-liver network could boost transplants by several hundred per year
PITTSBURGH — A redesign of the nation’s donor-liver distribution network developed by University of Pittsburgh researchers could result in several hundred more people each year receiving the transplants they need.
The team reports in the jour…
Kent State geology professor and research team present findings studying drought
A group of researchers have studied the history of drought in the Pacific Northwest during the last 6,000 years, a time that spans the mid-Holocene geological epoch to the present. The goal of the research was to improve the understanding of d…
Oldest fossils of large seaweeds, worm-like animals tell story of ancient oxygen
Almost 600 million years ago, before the rapid evolution of life forms known as the Cambrian explosion, a community of seaweeds and worm-like animals lived in a quiet deep-water niche near what is now Lantian, a small village in south China.
T…