EAST LANSING, Mich. — Farmers and field scientists can now instantly identify diseases attacking crops and plants, thanks to a Michigan State University professor’s new invention. (more…)
Iron overload is a common condition affecting millions of people worldwide. Excess iron in the body is toxic, and deposits can cause damage to the liver, heart and other organs. Current treatments, researchers say, are not ideal and have significant side effects.
Iron in the body is regulated by a hormone called hepcidin, and a deficiency in this hormone can cause the iron overload seen in genetic disorders like hereditary hemochromatosis and Cooley’s anemia. (more…)
A team of researchers from UH Mānoa’s Hawai‘i Institute of Marine Biology (HIMB) has developed an interactive global map of corals and zooxanthellae, commonly known as flagellate protozoa, as part of a hybrid web application titled GeoSymbio. This application provides global-scale biological and ecosystem information on symbiotic zooxanthellae called Symbiodinium, which are uni-cellular, photosynthetic dinoflagellates that live inside the cells of other marine organisms like anemones, jellyfish and corals.
The GeoSymbio application provides the genetic identification and taxonomic description of over 400 distinct Symbiodinium subclades or genetic lineages in invertebrate hosts that have been sampled from a variety of marine habitats, thereby providing a wealth of information for symbiosis researchers in a single online location. By utilizing Google Apps, the team was able to develop this web-based tool to discover, explore, visualize and share data in a rapid, cost-effective and engaging manner. (more…)
*A bird duet springs forth from each bird’s knowledge of the entire song*
The site of a volcano isn’t the first place one might think of to study cooperation. But neuroscientist Eric Fortune of Johns Hopkins University and colleagues went to the slopes of Antisana volcano in Ecuador to study cooperation as it plays out with a very special songbird, the plain-tailed wren. Funded in part by the National Science Foundation, the researchers report their observations in the Nov. 4, 2011, issue of Science.
Rapidly alternating their singing back and forth, female and male wrens cooperate to sing a duet that sounds as if a single bird sang it. The researchers assumed that the brain of each bird would have a memory of its own part of the duet, and also have a memory of the cues from its partner. They were surprised to find that both brains had a record of the complete duet–a performance that neither bird can do by itself. (more…)
Berkeley Lab helps develop a Google-like search engine for materials research.
New materials are crucial to building a clean energy economy—for everything from batteries to photovoltaics to lighter weight vehicles—but today the development cycle is too slow: around18 years from conception to commercialization. To speed up this process, a team of researchers from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) teamed up to develop a new tool, called the Materials Project, which launches this month. (more…)
When investigating a murder, every clue helps. New research from North Carolina State University sheds light on how – and whether – blow flies survive when buried underground during their development. It’s an advance that will help forensic investigators understand how long a body may have been left above ground before being buried – or possibly whether remains were moved from one grave to another.
“Blow flies are probably the most important insects to forensic entomology,” says Dr. Wes Watson, a professor of entomology at NC State and co-author of a paper describing the research. “They are usually the first insects to arrive after an animal – or a person – has died.” (more…)
EAST LANSING, Mich. — The discovery of a new gene is helping researchers at Michigan State University envision more-efficient molecular factories of the future. (more…)
*A $2-million award from DOE will help bring down the cost of next-generation fuel cells.*
Fuel cells seem like an ideal energy source—they’re clean, efficient, silent and don’t require transmission lines. The hitch? They can be costly. Now scientists at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) hope to change that equation by building a sophisticated cost model that will take into account the total cost of ownership.
With a $2-million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy, a team of scientists led by Eric Masanet will perform a detailed assessment of fuel cell design and manufacturing that takes into account both intrinsic and external benefits. The aim is to quantify not only traditional manufacturing costs but also benefits that may previously have been overlooked and may ultimately bring down the cost of fuel cells. (more…)
