Posted by Vicrram Theipanaathan on Monday, November 5, 2012 In : Science
An experimental device converted energy from a beating heart to provide enough electricity to power a pacemaker, in a study presented at the American Heart Association's Scientific Sessions 2012.
The findings suggest that patients could power their pacemakers -- eliminating the need for replacements when batteries are spent. In a preliminary study, researchers tested an energy-harvesting device that uses piezoelectricity -- electrical charge generated from motion. The approach is a promising te... Continue reading...
Posted by Vicrram Theipanaathan on Saturday, November 3, 2012 In : Science
The Vienna research team led by Anton Zeilinger has achieved a new milestone in the history of quantum physics: The scientists were able to generate and measure the entanglement of the largest quantum numbers to date.
To this end, the researchers developed a new method for entangling single photons which gyrate in opposite directions. This result is a first step towards entangling and twisting even macroscopic, spatially separated objects in two different directions. The researchers at the Vie... Continue reading...
Posted by Vicrram Theipanaathan on Thursday, November 1, 2012 In : Science
Screenshot of the virtual environment. Three of the four posters are visible in the image as well as the two avatars representing both the participant and the rat. (Credit: Normand et al. Beaming into the Rat World: Enabling Real-Time Interaction between Rat and Human Each at Their Own Scale. PLoS ONE, 2012; 7 (10): e48331 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0048331)
Using cutting-edge virtual reality technology, researchers have 'beamed' a person into a rat facility allowing the rat and human to inte... Continue reading...
Posted by Vicrram Theipanaathan on Wednesday, October 31, 2012 In : Science News
This illustration depicts the food web for ecological groups in the late Cretaceous Period as reported in a new paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Each ecological group includes a set of species that share the same set of potential predators and prey. Silhouettes show iconic members of each group. Arrows show who eats whom. (Credit: Courtesy of Jonathan Mitchell, Peter Roopnarine and Kenneth Angielczyk)
The Cretaceous Period of Earth history ended with a ... Continue reading...
Posted by Vicrram Theipanaathan on Monday, October 29, 2012 In : Science
A second look at data from NASA's Hubble Space Telescope is reanimating the claim that the nearby star Fomalhaut hosts a massive exoplanet. The study suggests that the planet, named Fomalhaut b, is a rare and possibly unique object that is completely shrouded by dust.
Fomalhaut is the brightest star in the constellation Piscis Austrinus and lies 25 light-years away. In November 2008, Hubble astronomers announced the exoplanet, named Fomalhaut b, as the first one ever directly imaged in visible ... Continue reading...
Posted by Vicrram Theipanaathan on Sunday, October 28, 2012 In : Science News
Social animals usually congregate for protection or mating or to capture bigger prey, but a University of California, Berkeley, biologist has found that the terrestrial hermit crab has a more self-serving social agenda: to kick another crab out of its shell and move into a larger home.
All hermit crabs appropriate abandoned snail shells for their homes, but the dozen or so species of land-based hermit crabs -- popular terrarium pets -- are the only ones that hollow out and remodel their shells... Continue reading...
Posted by Vicrram Theipanaathan on Sunday, October 28, 2012 In : Science News
New imaging technology has revealed how the molecular machines that remodel genetic material inside cells 'grab onto' DNA like a rock climber looking for a handhold.
The experiments, reported in this week's Science, use laser light to generate very bright patches close to single cells. When coupled with fluorescent tags this 'spotlight' makes it possible to image the inner workings of cells fast enough to see how the molecular machines inside change size, shape, and composition in the presenc... Continue reading...
Posted by Vicrram Theipanaathan on Friday, October 26, 2012 In : Science News
Most of the more than 6,000 species of frogs in the world lay their eggs in water. But many tropical frogs lay their eggs out of water. This behavior protects the eggs from aquatic predators, such as fish and tadpoles, but also increases their risk of drying out. Justin Touchon, post-doctoral fellow at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, discovered that climate change in Panama may be altering frogs' course of evolution.
By analyzing long-term rainfall data collected by the Panama Can... Continue reading...
Posted by Vicrram Theipanaathan on Thursday, October 25, 2012 In : Science News
One of the lowest mass supermassive black holes ever observed in the middle of a galaxy has been identified, thanks to NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory and several other observatories. The host galaxy is of a type not expected to harbor supermassive black holes, suggesting that this black hole, while related to its supermassive cousins, may have a different origin.
The black hole is located in the middle of the spiral galaxy NGC 4178, shown in this image from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. The ... Continue reading...
Posted by Vicrram Theipanaathan on Wednesday, October 24, 2012 In : Science News
Artificial muscles and self-propelled goo may be the stuff of Hollywood fiction, but for UC Santa Barbara scientists Omar Saleh and Deborah Fygenson, the reality of it is not that far away. By blending their areas of expertise, the pair have created a dynamic gel made of DNA that mechanically responds to stimuli in much the same way that cells do.
The results of their research were published online in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. "This is a whole new kind of responsive g... Continue reading...
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