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Flies of the World Embrace Vegetarianism

Microbe-eating flies from at least three different locations around the world recently have evolved into herbivores, feeding on some of the most toxic plants on Earth. Fly detectives and UA evolutionary biologists Noah Whiteman and Richard Lapoint are trying to find out what genetic pathways led the flies to such a major change of lifestyle.

For millennia, they buzzed through the woods, contentedly munching yeasts off the surfaces of leaves, bracken and rotting duff on the forest floor. But now, flies in the family Drosophilidae, whose disparate members dwell in areas all across the planet, have evolved into all-out vegetarians with a wicked diet of plants that are deadly to most other organisms.

What, University of Arizona scientists would like to know, has caused these flies, yeast-feeders for nearly 80 million years, to independently go cold turkey with respect to their formerly meaty diets? (more…)

Ridges on Mars Suggest Ancient Flowing Water

Ridges in impact craters on Mars appear to be fossils of cracks in the Martian surface, formed by minerals deposited by flowing water. Water flowing beneath the surface suggests life may once have been possible on Mars.

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — Networks of narrow ridges found in impact craters on Mars appear to be the fossilized remnants of underground cracks through which water once flowed, according to a new analysis by researchers from Brown University.

The study, in press in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, bolsters the idea that the subsurface environment on Mars once had an active hydrology and could be a good place to search for evidence of past life. The research was conducted by Lee Saper, a recent Brown graduate, with Jack Mustard, professor of geological sciences. (more…)

Motion Control Keeps Electric Car’s Four Wheels—and Four Motors—on the Road

COLUMBUS, Ohio — It weighs half as much as a sports car, and turns on a dime—so its no surprise that the electric car being developed at Ohio State University needs an exceptional traction and motion control system to keep it on the road.

With four wheels that turn independently, each with its own built-in electric motor and set of batteries, the experimental car is the only one of its kind outside of commercial carmakers’ laboratories. (more…)

New Research Will Help Shed Light on Role of Amazon Forests in Global Carbon Cycle

Berkeley Lab scientists devise new tools for detecting previously unknown tree mortality.

The Earth’s forests perform a well-known service to the planet, absorbing a great deal of the carbon dioxide pollution emitted into the atmosphere from human activities. But when trees are killed by natural disturbances, such as fire, drought or wind, their decay also releases carbon back into the atmosphere, making it critical to quantify tree mortality in order to understand the role of forests in the global climate system. Tropical old-growth forests may play a large role in this absorption service, yet tree mortality patterns for these forests are not well understood.

Now scientist Jeffrey Chambers and colleagues at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) have devised an analytical method that combines satellite images, simulation modeling and painstaking fieldwork to help researchers detect forest mortality patterns and trends. This new tool will enhance understanding of the role of forests in carbon sequestration and the impact of climate change on such disturbances. (more…)

Effort to Enforce HIV ‘Health Threat’ Law Raises Questions

ANN ARBOR — Michigan health officials are using HIV surveillance technologies to assist in enforcing a “health threat” law that makes it illegal for HIV-positive people to have sex without disclosing their status.

A new University of Michigan study reveals that health officials employ the state’s names reporting database, alongside partner services referrals, for law enforcement purposes. However, this is bad social policy for a variety of reasons, says Trevor Hoppe, the study’s author and a doctoral candidate in sociology and women’s studies. (more…)

Organic Ferroelectric Molecule Shows Promise for Memory Chips, Sensors

At the heart of computing are tiny crystals that transmit and store digital information’s ones and zeroes. Today these are hard and brittle materials. But cheap, flexible, nontoxic organic molecules may play a role in the future of hardware.

A team led by the University of Washington in Seattle and the Southeast University in China discovered a molecule that shows promise as an organic alternative to today’s silicon-based semiconductors. The findings, published this week in the journal Science, display properties that make it well suited to a wide range of applications in memory, sensing and low-cost energy storage. (more…)

Safeguards Needed for Tissue Donors

Donors to biobanks – vast collections of human tissue samples that scientists hope will lead to new treatments for diseases – have a right to basic information about how their donations may be used, a Michigan State University ethicist argues in a new paper.

The idea behind biobanks is that a repository with hundreds of thousands of samples, each linked to medical records and other health information, can yield discoveries smaller data sets can’t match. Once samples are collected, researchers in many fields can use the data repeatedly. (more…)

Reconcilable Differences: Study Uncovers the Common Ground of Scientific Opposites

Searching for common elements in seemingly incompatible scientific theories may lead to the discovery of new ones that revolutionize our understanding of the world.

Such is the idea behind a mathematical framework Princeton University researchers developed that strips away the differences between scientific laws and theories to reveal how the ideas are compatible. In a recent report in the journal Physical Review Letters, the authors explain how the mathematical model finds common ground between the famously at-odds physics equations that govern classical and quantum mechanics. (more…)