Portions of powdered rock collected by drilling into a sandstone target last week have been delivered to laboratory instruments inside NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover, and the rover will soon drive on toward its long-term destination on a mountain slope.
Other instruments on the rover have inspected the rock’s interior exposed in the hole and in drill cuttings heaped around the hole. The target rock, “Windjana,” is a sandstone slab within a science waypoint area called “The Kimberley.” (more…)
It’s a guessing game parents like to ponder: What will my child look like when she grows up? A computer could now answer the question in less than a minute.
University of Washington researchers have developed software that automatically generates images of a young child’s face as it ages through a lifetime. The technique is the first fully automated approach for aging babies to adults that works with variable lighting, expressions and poses. (more…)
ANN ARBOR — When we’re strolling down memory lane, our brains recall just as much information while walking as while standing still—findings that contradict the popular science notion that walking hinders one’s ability to think.
University of Michigan researchers at the School of Kinesiology and the College of Engineering examined how well study participants performed a very complex spatial cognitive task while walking versus standing still. (more…)
AUSTIN, Texas — A team of researchers led by astronomer Ivan Ramirez of The University of Texas at Austin has identified the first “sibling” of the sun — a star almost certainly born from the same cloud of gas and dust as our star. Ramirez’s methods will help astronomers find other solar siblings, which could lead to an understanding of how and where our sun formed, and how our solar system became hospitable for life. The work appears in the June 1 issue of The Astrophysical Journal.
“We want to know where we were born,” Ramirez said. “If we can figure out in what part of the galaxy the sun formed, we can constrain conditions on the early solar system. That could help us understand why we are here.” (more…)
ForscherInnen an den Max F. Perutz Laboratories (MFPL) der Universität Wien und der Medizinischen Universität Wien ist ein Durchbruch für das Platynereis-Modellsystem gelungen: Zum ersten Mal beschreiben sie eine Methode, mit der spezifische und vererbbare Mutationen in dieser Spezies erzeugt werden können. Damit rückt dieser marine Wurm in eine exzellente Position, um die Forschung in den Bereichen Neurobiologie, Chronobiologie, evolutionäre Entwicklungsbiologie und Meeresbiologie voranzutreiben. Die Studie sowie ein Überblicksartikel zu den genetischen Methoden, die für Platynereis dumerilii zur Verfügung stehen, sind nicht nur Mai-Highlights des renommierten Fachjournals Genetics, ihnen wurde auch das Titelbild der aktuellen Ausgabe gewidmet.
Auf molekularer Ebene wissen wir von vielen faszinierenden biologischen Phänomenen noch viel zu wenig. Der unscheinbare marine Borstenwurm Platynereis dumerilii stellt für die Erforschung dieser Phänomene einen interessanten Modellorganismus dar: Evolutionär gesehen entwickelte er sich sehr langsam und ist so bestens geeignet, um Vorläufergene und Zelltypen zu analysieren. Er besitzt ein Hormonsystem, das mit jenem der Wirbeltiere vergleichbar ist und er kann große Teile seines Körpers regenerieren. Zudem wird seine Fortpflanzungszeit durch mehrere Uhren gesteuert – ein Merkmal, das wahrscheinlich auch viele andere Organismen aufweisen. Diese Charakteristika machen den Borstenwurm ideal für die Evolutionsforschung, die Chronobiologie und für viele weitere Forschungsgebiete. Da es jedoch bislang keine geeigneten molekularbiologischen Werkzeuge gab, war es sehr schwierig, die Funktionen der Platynereis-Gene in vivo zu analysieren. (more…)
Precise answers to these questions have long eluded scientists. But new research led by Daniel Field of Yale University and the Smithsonian Institution recasts the turtle’s disputed evolutionary history, providing fresh evidence that the familiar reptiles are more closely related to birds and crocodiles than to lizards and snakes. (more…)
A new study in Science reveals that the fundamental wiring of the olfactory system in mice sets up shortly after birth and then remains stable but adaptable. The research highlights how important early development can be throughout life and provides insights that may be important in devising regenerative medical therapies in the nervous system.(more…)
It should be just as easy to use a robotic arm as it is to use your own hand. That’s the thinking behind University of Washington startup BluHaptics, which is taking telerobotics — controlling robots from a distance — to a new level: underwater.
Using technology developed by Howard Chizeck’s lab in the Department of Electrical Engineering, a team of UW scientists and engineers working at the Applied Physics Laboratory is creating a control system for underwater remotely operated vehicles, or ROVs. (more…)
