A team involving University of Tennessee, Knoxville, researchers has conducted the first-ever genetic sequencing of a harmful algal bloom (HAB) species, cracking the genome of the micro-organism responsible for the Eastern Seaboard’s notorious brown…
Most galaxies in the universe, including our own Milky Way, harbor super-massive black holes varying in mass from about one million to about 10 billion times the size of our sun. To find them, astronomers look for the enormous amount of radiation em…
A team of UCSF researchers has engineered E. coli with the key molecular circuitry that will enable genetic engineers to program cells to communicate and perform computations.
The work builds into cells the same logic gates found in electronic…
Scientists and engineers seek to meet three goals in the production of biofuels from non-edible sources such as microalgae: efficiency, economical production and ecological sustainability. Syracuse University’s Radhakrishna Sureshkumar, professor an…
GREENBELT, Md. — Newly discovered cliffs in the lunar crust indicate the moon shrank globally in the geologically recent past and might still be shrinking today, according to a team analyzing new images from NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter …
The ancient “terror bird” Andalgalornis couldn’t fly, but it used its unusually large, rigid skull–coupled with a hawk-like hooked beak–in a fighting strategy reminiscent of boxer Muhammad Ali.
The agile creature repeatedly attacked and retrea…
CAMDEN — When kitchens become infiltrated with fruit flies, especially during the dog days of summer, homeowners might wish that the flying pests would just turn to ice.
The fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster does boast a powerful genetic system …
TEMPE, Ariz. — If you have ever felt that your children are your life’s work, then you may in fact be recognizing a high-level psychological need. Caring for your children, feeding them, nurturing them, educating them and making sure they get…
The National Research Council (NRC) has strongly recommended the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA) as one of NASA’s next two major space missions, to start in 2016 in collaboration with the European Space Agency (ESA). LISA will study the un…
New findings from a Candian study may help experts better predict future drought patterns and water availability in the prairies. The researchers investigated records of drought over the past 2000 years from lake sediments in the northern Canadian prairie region (Manitoba to Alberta), as well as from sites in North Dakota and Minnesota. “Our results from the Canadian prairies show a previously unknown and abrupt shift in climatic conditions around AD 700, while in the northern U.S. prairies, the shift occurred 500 years later, at the onset of the Little Ice Age in North America,” says one of the team’s lead scientists.
How do 30,000 genes in our DNA work together to form a large part of who we are? How do one hundred billion neurons operate in our brain? The huge number of factors involved makes such complex networks hard to crack. Now, a study published in the October 25 issue of Science uncovers a strategy for finding the organizing principles of virtually any network ? from neural networks to ecological food webs or the Internet.