Author Archives: Guest Post

Earthquake Engineers Shift Focus to Ensure Structural Safety

UA researchers and collaborators have turned their attention to lateral force transfer, to design buildings that can better withstand seismic forces.

An award-winning team of researchers at the University of Arizona and partnering universities is working to develop buildings that will not collapse under the force of major earthquakes, such as last year’s 7.1-magnitude quake in central Mexico and 7.3-magnitude quake near the Iran-Iraq border. The two earthquakes were the deadliest of 2017, killing approximately 900 people combined, flattening hundreds of buildings and leaving tens of thousands of people homeless. (more…)

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New Sustainable Production Method Could Advance Plastics and Pharmaceuticals

AUSTIN, Texas — A team of chemical engineers at The University of Texas at Austin has developed a new, cost-effective method for synthetically producing a biorenewable platform chemical called triacetic acid lactone (TAL) that can be used to produce innovative new drugs and sustainable plastics at an industrial scale, as described in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. (more…)

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Erste historische Syphilis-Genome entziffert

Forscher bergen drei Genome des Bakteriums Treponema pallidum aus menschlichen Überresten der Kolonialzeit in Mexiko – Unterarten in Erreger der Syphilis und der Frambösie unterschieden

Ein internationales Forscherteam des Max-Planck-Instituts für Menschheitsgeschichte in Jena, der Universität Tübingen, der National School of Anthropology and History in Mexiko-Stadt sowie der Universität Zürich hat die bisher ältesten Genome des Bakteriums Treponema pallidum entdeckt, das Syphilis verursacht. Es wurde bisher nicht für möglich gehalten, das Bakterium aus alten Proben zu bergen. Der neue Fund eröffnet die Möglichkeit, die Herkunft und Evolution dieser wieder in Ausbreitung befindlichen Krankheit direkt zu untersuchen. (more…)

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Students of innovation

At UD, engineering students are making next-generation consumer products

When a Maryland-based boat kit company wanted help designing a component that rowers sit in, they contacted a University of Delaware engineer with ideal expertise. Jenni Buckley, an associate professor of mechanical engineering and a rower in the UD Athletics Hall of Fame, advises students in Senior Design, a one-semester capstone engineering design program. (more…)

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Surprise: A virus-like protein is important for cognition and memory

A protein involved in cognition and storing long-term memories looks and acts like a protein from viruses. The protein, called Arc, has properties similar to those that viruses use for infecting host cells, and originated from a chance evolutionary event that occurred hundreds of millions of years ago. (more…)

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Zirbeldrüse in neuem Licht

Freiburger Biologen identifizieren Gen für Links-Rechts-Asymmetrie des Gehirns und Schlaf-Wach-Rhythmus

Fehlt Zebrafischen ein bestimmtes Protein, entwickeln sich beide Gehirnhälften symmetrisch und das so genannte Schlafhormon Melatonin wird nicht mehr gebildet. Diese Ergebnisse publizieren die Freiburger Biologen Theresa Schredelseker und Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Driever in der Fachzeitschrift „Development“. Ihre Untersuchungen rund um die zum Gehirn gehörende Zirbeldrüse zeigen eine genetische Verbindung von Links-Rechts-Asymmetrie und Tag-Nacht-Rhythmus. (more…)

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Microsoft tests a datacenter under the sea

Microsoft is leveraging technology from submarines and working with pioneers in marine energy for the second phase of its moonshot to develop self-sufficient underwater datacenters that can deliver lightning-quick cloud services to coastal cities. An experimental, shipping-container-size prototype is processing workloads on the seafloor near Scotland’s Orkney Islands, Microsoft announced today. (more…)

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Die Evolution des Hodens

Wale ohne Beine, Menschenaffen ohne lange Schwänze – im Laufe der Evolution kommt es immer wieder zum Verlust von anatomischen Merkmalen. Beweise für deren einstiges Vorhandensein liefern Fossilien. Bei Fossilienfunden sind allerdings überwiegend nur harte Strukturen wie Knochen oder Zähne erhalten. Wie sich allerdings Weichteile evolutionär entwickelt haben, ist ungleich schwerer herauszufinden, da diese nur äußerst selten in Fossilien erhalten sind. (more…)

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