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Art Detective

*A forgotten artist’s work can help us understand ourselves, says U graduate*

“I am a detective of sorts,” Annika Johnson says. “And I find clues in paintings, documents, and letters that tell me about who the artist was that made them and when, where, and why they made them.”

Johnson, who received her art history degree from the U this past May and is now applying to graduate schools across the country, did undergraduate research on Clara Mairs—a little known Minnesota artist from the depression era. Johnson describes Mairs’ work as “playful yet psychological, monumental yet humble” and says she not only helped activate the state’s modern and avant-garde art movements but also was central in the early development of arts education in St. Paul. (more…)

Deforestation Causes Cooling in northern U.S., Canada

Deforestation, considered by scientists to contribute significantly to global warming, has been shown by a Yale-led team to actually cool the local climate in northern latitudes, according to a paper published Nov. 17 in Nature.

“If you cut trees in the boreal region, north of 45 degrees latitude, you have a net cooling effect,” says Xuhui Lee, the study’s principal investigator and professor of meteorology at the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies. “You release carbon into the atmosphere by cutting down trees, but you increase the albedo effect — the reflection of sunlight.” (more…)

How the Brain Strings Words Into Sentences

Distinct neural pathways are important for different aspects of language processing, researchers have discovered, studying patients with language impairments caused by neurodegenerative diseases. (more…)

Research Sheds New Light on Body Parts’ Sensitivity to Environmental Changes

EAST LANSING, Mich. — Research by a team of Michigan State University scientists has shed new light on why some body parts are more sensitive to environmental change than others, work that could someday lead to better ways of treating a variety of diseases, including Type-2 diabetes.

The research, led by assistant zoology professor Alexander Shingleton, is detailed in the recent issue of the Proceedings of the Library of Science Genetics. (more…)

Yale Researchers Discover Promising Anti-HIV Agents

Researchers at Yale University have discovered new chemical compounds that prevent HIV from replicating in human T-cells. These compounds could result in new, highly effective HIV treatments that are 10 to 2000 times more potent than HIV drugs now on the market.

“The current compounds or slight variants could become drugs,” said Professor William L. Jorgensen, one of two principal investigators behind the research. The other is Karen S. Anderson, a pharmacology professor at Yale School of Medicine. They reported their results online Nov. 15 in the Journal of Medicinal Chemistry. (more…)

Microsoft Acquires Video Content Discovery Company VideoSurf

REDMOND, Wash., and SAN MATEO, Calif. — Nov. 22, 2011 — Microsoft Corp. has announced the acquisition of California-based video discovery technology company VideoSurf Inc.

Founded in 2006, VideoSurf offers a back-end computer vision technology that “sees” frames inside videos to make discovering content fast, easy and accurate. Over time, Microsoft will integrate this technology across its entertainment platform to augment the Xbox 360 ecosystem and evolve search and discovery of entertainment content on Xbox LIVE. (more…)

A Tailored Pair of Genes

*For ancient plants, two genes were definitely better than one*

In the wake of the disaster that killed the dinosaurs, the ancestors of today’s crop plants reinvented themselves.

They doubled their genomes, and in that single act set the stage for feeding the world 60 million years later.

In a study published in the Nov. 16 issue of the journal Nature, researchers from the University of Minnesota and other institutions recount how sequencing the genome of a model, alfalfa-like legume revealed the monumental benefits that flowed when the ancestor of legumes acquired an extra copy of every gene. (more…)

UCLA Team Develops Highly Efficient Method for Creating Flexible, Transparent Electrodes

As the market for liquid crystal displays and other electronics continues to drive up the price of indium — the material used to make the indium tin oxide (ITO) transparent electrodes in these devices — scientists have been searching for a less costly and more dynamic alternative, particularly for use in future flexible electronics. (more…)