Research by the University of Exeter has revealed that ants have a big impact on their local environment as a result of their activity as ‘ecosystem engineers’ and predators.
The study, published in the Journal of Animal Ecology, found that ants have two distinct effects on their local environment. (more…)
*The 5th annual Microsoft Firenze BXT Student Innovation Competition brings together business, design and engineering students to showcase how innovation happens in the real world. This year’s finals take place this weekend on Microsoft’s Redmond campus*
REDMOND, Wash. – Feb. 4, 2011 – Midway through last year’s Microsoft Firenze BXT student innovation competition, James Liu realized something he wasn’t expecting.
He wanted to work at Microsoft. (more…)
Even the most horrible criminals feel guilt, and according to new research from the University of Montreal, playing on that sentiment might be a good way to extract a confession. In order to gain a better understanding of why and how criminals admit to their crimes, Michel St-Yves, a forensic psychologist and lecturer, and lead author Nadine Deslauriers-Varin, both of the university’s School of Criminology, worked with 221 prisoners from a federal penitentiary, analyzing the conditions under which they did or didn’t confess. (more…)
*Research project completes drilling for the year, reaching two miles below West Antarctic Ice Sheet*
On Friday, Jan. 28 in Antarctica, a research team investigating the last 100,000 years of Earth’s climate history reached an important milestone completing the main ice core to a depth of 3,331 meters (10,928 feet) at West Antarctic Ice Sheet Divide (WAIS). The project will be completed over the next two years with some additional coring and borehole logging to obtain additional information and samples of the ice for the study of the climate record contained in the core.
As part of the project, begun six years ago, the team, funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF), has been drilling deep into the ice at the WAIS Divide site and recovering and analyzing ice cores for clues about how changes in the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere have influenced the Earth’s climate over time. (more…)
New study proves the power of hyperlocal online ad targeting in driving sales
SUNNYVALE, Calif.–(BUSINESS WIRE)– Yahoo! Inc. today announced the launch of Yahoo! AdLabs, a group focused on 
providing scientific leadership to the industry and accelerating innovation in digital advertising products through Yahoo! Labs (https://labs.yahoo.com/), one of the world’s premier industrial research organizations. (more…)
*From sound science to sound sleep*
New research from U of T could provide some restful nights for the 18 million North Americans who suffer from obstructive sleep apnea.
In a recent study that appeared in the Journal of Neuroscience, U of T scientists demonstrated that repeated obstruction of the airways requires release of the brain chemical noradrenaline. The release of this chemical helps the brain learn to breathe more effectively and purposefully. (more…)
*Study Finds that Without Proper Adjustments, Site-Server Estimates can Overstate Audience Size by Factor of up to 2.7x*
Sydney, Australia, February 3, 2011 – comScore, Inc., a leader in measuring the digital world, today released its 
white paper, The Impact of Cookie Deletion on Site-Server and Ad-Server Metrics in Australia: An Empirical comScore Study. The study addresses the key sources of discrepancy between server-based and panel-based data and reveals that cookie deletion can lead to large overstatements in servers’ measurement of the size of online audiences. Without appropriate adjustments, site-server measurement of the size of website audiences in Australia can be inflated by up to 2.7 times the actual number of unique visitors. (more…)
PASADENA, Calif. — NASA’s Kepler mission has discovered its first Earth-size planet candidates and its first candidates in the habitable zone, a region where liquid water could exist on a planet’s surface. Five of the potential planets are near Earth-size and orbit in the habitable zone of smaller, cooler stars than our sun.
Candidates require follow-up observations to verify they are actual planets. Kepler also found six confirmed planets orbiting a sun-like star, Kepler-11. This is the largest group of transiting planets orbiting a single star yet discovered outside our solar system. (more…)
