NASA, Microsoft Collaboration Will Allow Scientists to 'Work on Mars'
Washington DC (SPX) Jan 23, 2015 -
NASA and Microsoft have teamed up to develop software called OnSight, a new technology that will enable scientists to work virtually on Mars using wearable technology called Microsoft HoloLens.
Developed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California, OnSight will give scientists a means to plan and, along with the Mars Curiosity rover, conduct science operations on the ...
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Blended ecological systems yield insight for managing beargrass
Portland OR (SPX) Jan 23, 2015 -
In a study that blended tribal cultural knowledge with scientific methods, U.S. Forest Service researchers identified the ecological conditions of forest sites preferred by harvesters of beargrass for use in traditional weaving.
The study, which is among the first to merge traditional ecological knowledge with scientific ecological knowledge to understand how different knowledge systems ca ...
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Helicopter Could be 'Scout' for Mars Rovers
Pasadena CA (JPL) Jan 23, 2015 -
Getting around on Mars is tricky business. Each NASA rover has delivered a wealth of information about the history and composition of the Red Planet, but a rover's vision is limited by the view of onboard cameras, and images from spacecraft orbiting Mars are the only other clues to where to drive it. To have a better sense of where to go and what's worth studying on Mars, it could be useful to h ...
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Gene sequencing offers insight into how species adapt to climate change
Washington DC (SPX) Jan 23, 2015 -
Environmental scientists have a new tool for studying the responses of species to climate change. Next-generation sequencing (NGS) has made it possible to analyze enormous numbers of short pieces of DNA very quickly, and this technology is already revolutionizing the biomedical sciences.
The hope is that NGS may prove similarly useful in ecological studies by providing researchers fresh in ...
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Microcapsules have potential to repair damage caused by osteoarthritis
London, UK (SPX) Jan 23, 2015 -
A new 'microcapsule' treatment delivery method developed by researchers at Queen Mary University of London (QMUL) could reduce inflammation in cartilage affected by osteoarthritis and reverse damage to tissue. The research was funded by Arthritis Research UK and the AO Foundation.
A protein molecule called C-type natriuretic peptide (CNP), which occurs naturally in the body, is known to re ...
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Biological safety lock for genetically modified organisms
Boston MA (SPX) Jan 23, 2015 -
The creation of genetically modified and entirely synthetic organisms continues to generate excitement as well as worry. Such organisms are already churning out insulin and other drug ingredients, helping produce biofuels, teaching scientists about human disease and improving fishing and agriculture.
While the risks can be exaggerated to frightening effect, modified organisms do have the p ...
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Greenland Ice: The warmer it gets the faster it melts
University Park PA (SPX) Jan 23, 2015 -
Melting of glacial ice will probably raise sea level around the globe, but how fast this melting will happen is uncertain. In the case of the Greenland Ice Sheet, the more temperatures increase, the faster the ice will melt, according to computer model experiments by Penn State geoscientists.
"Although lots of people have thought about sea level rise from the ice sheets, we don't really kn ...
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Antarctic drill team first to reach where ice sheet, ocean and land converge
Washington DC (SPX) Jan 23, 2015 -
Using a specially designed hot-water drill to cleanly bore through a half mile of ice, a National Science Foundation (NSF)-funded team of researchers has become the first ever to reach and sample the "grounding zone," where Antarctic ice, land and sea all converge. Data gathered from samples of sediment taken in the grounding zone will provide clues about the mechanics of ice sheets and their po ...
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Climate change does not bode well for picky eaters
Baton Rouge LA (SPX) Jan 23, 2015 -
In a part of the world that is experiencing the most dramatic increase in temperature and climate change, two very similar species of animals are responding very differently. New research published this week suggests that how these species have adapted to co-exist with one another might be to blame.
Chinstrap penguins whose namesake describes the black stripe under their chins are decreasi ...
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Endangered chimps may experience drastic habitat loss within 5 years
Washington DC (SPX) Jan 23, 2015 -
Dramatic habitat loss by 2020 threatens the population of the planet's most endangered chimp subspecies, according to research published in BMC Evolutionary Biology. The work suggests that climate change could do more harm to chimpanzee populations than previously realised.
The Nigeria-Cameroon Chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes ellioti) is the most endangered of all chimpanzee subspecies in the ...
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Australian boy, 4, gets 'world first' artificial pancreas
Sydney (AFP) Jan 22, 2015 -
A four-year-old Australian boy has been fitted with an artificial pancreas in what researchers said was a world first treatment for managing type 1 diabetes.
Xavier Hames became the first patient following clinical trials to use the new device, which looks like an mp3 player and is attached to his body using several tubes inserted under the skin.
The insulin pump system is meant to repla ...
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Hong Kong financiers challenge China in newspaper advert
Hong Kong (AFP) Jan 22, 2015 -
A group of pro-democracy financiers in Hong Kong took out an advert in the Wall Street Journal Thursday challenging China to respect the city's autonomy and introduce free elections.
The advert which appeared in the newspaper's Asia edition takes up a quarter page and lists "10 requests" to the Chinese Communist Party.
They include asking it to "refrain from interfering in the administra ...
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UNL drillers help make new Antarctic discoveries
Lincoln NE (SPX) Jan 23, 2015 -
Using a hot-water drill and an underwater robotic vehicle designed, built and operated by a University of Nebraska-Lincoln engineering team, scientists have made new discoveries about Antarctica's geology and biology.
In addition to new observations about how Antarctica's ice sheets are affected by rising temperatures, the expedition also uncovered a unique ecosystem of fish and invertebra ...
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What has gone wrong with the IPCC models?
Beijing (SPX) Jan 23, 2015 -
A major peer-reviewed climate physics paper in the first issue of the prestigious Science Bulletin (formerly Chinese Science Bulletin), the journal of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and, as the Orient's equivalent of Science or Nature, one of the world's top six learned journals of science, exposes elementary but serious errors in the general-circulation models relied on by the UN's climate pan ...
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Scientists develop strategy to contain GMOs to the lab
Boston (UPI) Jan 22, 2015 -
The term GMO, short for "genetically modified organism," comes with a lot crippling baggage - it's a bloated word full of foreboding futures. The truth is, GMOs are already everywhere. But even if their dangers are often exaggerated, they don't come without risks.
Some GMOs do have the potential to disrupt the natural order of things - cause havoc in rivers and other ecosystems. To pr ...
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New method to generate arbitrary optical pulses
Southampton, UK (SPX) Jan 23, 2015 -
Scientists from the University of Southampton have developed a new technique to generate more powerful, more energy efficient and low-cost pulsed lasers.
The technique, which was developed by researchers from the University's Optoelectronics Research Centre (ORC), has potential applications in a number of fields that use pulsed lasers including telecommunications, metrology, sensing and ma ...
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UNL drillers help make new Antarctic discoveries
Lincoln NE (SPX) Jan 23, 2015 -
Using a hot-water drill and an underwater robotic vehicle designed, built and operated by a University of Nebraska-Lincoln engineering team, scientists have made new discoveries about Antarctica's geology and biology.
In addition to new observations about how Antarctica's ice sheets are affected by rising temperatures, the expedition also uncovered a unique ecosystem of fish and invertebra ...
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Nano-beaker offers insight into the condensation of atoms
Basel, Switzerland (SPX) Jan 23, 2015 -
An international team of physicists has succeeded in mapping the condensation of individual atoms, or rather their transition from a gaseous state to another state, using a new method.
Led by the Swiss Nanoscience Institute and the Department of Physics at the University of Basel, the team was able to monitor for the first time how xenon atoms condensate in microscopic measuring beakers, o ...
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Breakthrough lights up metamaterials
New York NY (SPX) Jan 23, 2015 -
A City College of New York led-team has successfully demonstrated how to both enhance light emission and capture light from metamaterials embedded with light emitting nanocrystals. The breakthrough, headed by physicist Dr. Vinod Menon, could lead to a range of applications including ultrafast LEDs, nanoscale lasers and efficient single photon sources.
In the demonstration, the team used me ...
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Rice-sized laser, powered one electron at a time, bodes well for quantum computing
Princeton NJ (SPX) Jan 23, 2015 -
Princeton University researchers have built a rice grain-sized laser powered by single electrons tunneling through artificial atoms known as quantum dots. The tiny microwave laser, or "maser," is a demonstration of the fundamental interactions between light and moving electrons.
The researchers built the device - which uses about one-billionth the electric current needed to power a hair d ...
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Solving an organic semiconductor mystery
Berkeley CA (SPX) Jan 24, 2015 -
Organic semiconductors are prized for light emitting diodes (LEDs), field effect transistors (FETs) and photovoltaic cells. As they can be printed from solution, they provide a highly scalable, cost-effective alternative to silicon-based devices. Uneven performances, however, have been a persistent problem.
Scientists have known that the performance issues originate in the domain interface ...
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Two or one splashing... It's different
Bonn, Germany (SPX) Jan 23, 2015 -
If two children splash in the sea high water waves will emerge due to constructive superposition. Different observations are made for the microscopic world in an experiment at the University of Bonn, where physicists used a laser beam to generate light waves from two cesium atoms.
The light waves were reflected back from two parallel mirrors. It turned out that this experimental arrangemen ...
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Optimizing optimization algorithms
Boston MA (SPX) Jan 23, 2015 -
Optimization algorithms, which try to find the minimum values of mathematical functions, are everywhere in engineering. Among other things, they're used to evaluate design tradeoffs, to assess control systems, and to find patterns in data.
One way to solve a difficult optimization problem is to first reduce it to a related but much simpler problem, then gradually add complexity back in, so ...
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Optic fiber for recording temps in extreme industrial environments
Madrid, Spain (SPX) Jan 23, 2015 -
The system they have developed is able to measure the temperature of mechanical or cutting processes in areas where conventional techniques do not have access.
In these environments, thermographic infrared cameras cannot be used because there is not a clear line of vision to the tool's cutting point, nor can thermocouples or other sensors be applied because of the deterioration they will s ...
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Only the lonely...(reveal the secrets of atomic nuclei)
Warsaw, Poland (SPX) Jan 23, 2015 -
Individual protons and neutrons in atomic nuclei turn out not to behave according to the predictions made by existing theoretical models. This surprising conclusion, reached by an international team of physicists including staff members from the Faculty of Physics at the University of Warsaw (UW), forces us to reconsider how we have been describing large atomic nuclei for the past several decade ...
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