Researchers get a handle on what made Typhoid Mary's infectious microbes tick
Stanford University School of Medicine scientists have shown how salmonella—a bacterial menace responsible for hundreds of thousands of deaths each year from typhoid fever and food poisoning—manages to...
View ArticleExtreme weather events fuel climate change
When the carbon dioxide content of the atmosphere rises, the Earth not only heats up, but extreme weather events, such as lengthy droughts, heat waves, heavy rain and violent storms, may become more...
View ArticleA strong magnetic field around the Milky Way's black hole
(Phys.org) —Astronomers have made an important measurement of the magnetic field emanating from a swirling disk of material surrounding the black hole at the center of our Milky Way Galaxy. The...
View ArticleEarth orbit changes key to Antarctic warming that ended last ice age
For more than a century scientists have known that Earth's ice ages are caused by the wobbling of the planet's orbit, which changes its orientation to the sun and affects the amount of sunlight...
View ArticleBiophysicists zoom in on pore-forming toxin
A new study by Rice University biophysicists offers the most comprehensive picture yet of the molecular-level action of melittin, the principal toxin in bee venom. The research could aid in the...
View ArticleRaising the IQ of smart windows
Researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) have designed a new material to make smart windows even smarter. The material is a thin coating of...
View ArticleTeleported by electronic circuit: Physicists 'beam' information
ETH-researchers cannot "beam" objects or humans of flesh and blood through space yet, a feat sometimes alluded to in science fiction movies. They managed, however, to teleport information from A to B –...
View ArticleResearchers define role of protein vinculin in cell movement
Researchers at the University of North Carolina and the National Institutes for Health have defined the role of the protein vinculin in enabling cell movement.
View ArticleCan solar energy help save Greece?
What happens to renewable energy programs in a country that gets whacked by a full-scale debt crisis, like the one that struck Greece beginning in 2009—do the programs whither and die in the winds of...
View ArticleReview: Phantom quadcopter a fun consumer drone
Unmanned aircraft, also known as drones, are revolutionizing warfare. Now, some of that technology is coming home from the war, to amuse us and give us an aerial perspective on our surroundings.
View ArticleResearchers use nanoparticles to fight cancer
Researchers at the University of Georgia are developing a new treatment technique that uses nanoparticles to reprogram immune cells so they are able to recognize and attack cancer. The findings were...
View ArticleFacebook use predicts declines in happiness, new study finds
Facebook helps people feel connected, but it doesn't necessarily make them happier, a new study shows. Facebook use actually predicts declines in a user's well-being, according to a University of...
View ArticleOstrich necks reveal sauropod movements, food habits
A new analysis of ostriches reveals that a computer model of long-necked sauropods used to simulate the dinosaurs' movements, featured in BBC's Walking with Dinosaurs and the focus of an installation...
View ArticleAround the world in four days: NASA tracks Chelyabinsk meteor plume
Atmospheric physicist Nick Gorkavyi missed witnessing an event of the century last winter when a meteor exploded over his hometown of Chelyabinsk, Russia. From Greenbelt, Md., however, NASA's Gorkavyi...
View ArticleMysterious magnetar boasts one of strongest magnetic fields in Universe
(Phys.org) —A team of astronomers including two researchers from UCL's Mullard Space Science Laboratory has made the first ever measurement of the magnetic field at a specific spot on the surface of a...
View ArticleDwarf galaxy caught ramming into a large spiral
Observations with NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory have revealed a massive cloud of multimillion-degree gas in a galaxy about 60 million light years from Earth. The hot gas cloud is likely caused by a...
View ArticleHeat waves to become more frequent and severe, research says
Climate change is set to trigger more frequent and severe heat waves in the next 30 years regardless of the amount of carbon dioxide (CO2) we emit into the atmosphere, a new study has shown.
View ArticleIn Peru, drones used for agriculture, archeology
Drones are most often associated with assassinations in remote regions of Pakistan and Yemen but in Peru, unmanned aircraft are being used to monitor crops and study ancient ruins.
View ArticleTyphoid Mary case may be cracked, a century later
When Typhoid Mary died in 1938, in medical exile on a tiny New York island, she took untold numbers of Salmonella typhi to her grave. No one knew how the bacteria managed to thrive and not kill her.
View ArticleLaptop clip-on is on a mission to outdo mouse
(Phys.org) —Haptix is a newly announced gesture-based controller that launched this week on Kickstarter. Haptix looks like a sleek ice cream bar with its anodized bead-blasted aluminum casing. The...
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