Bizarre bone worms emit acid to feast on whale skeletons
Only within the past 12 years have marine biologists come to learn about the eye-opening characteristics of mystifying sea worms that live and thrive on the bones of whale carcasses.
View ArticleBird fossil sheds light on how swift and hummingbird flight came to be
A tiny bird fossil discovered in Wyoming offers clues to the precursors of swift and hummingbird wings. The fossil is unusual in having exceptionally well-preserved feathers, which allowed the...
View ArticleFirst land animals kept fishlike jaws for millions of years, says biologist
Scientists studying how early land vertebrates evolved from fishes long thought that the animals developed legs for moving around on land well before their feeding systems and dietary habits changed...
View ArticleNew simulation speed record on Sequoia supercomputer
(Phys.org) —Computer scientists at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute have set a high performance computing speed record that opens the way to the...
View ArticleSeahorse's armor gives engineers insight into robotics designs (w/ video)
(Phys.org) —The tail of a seahorse can be compressed to about half its size before permanent damage occurs, engineers at the University of California, San Diego, have found. The tail's exceptional...
View ArticleShattered glass: New theory explains how things break
(Phys.org) —Shattering a glass is a completely different experience than breaking a seashell, and Cornell physicists offer a notion – at the microscale – to explain why.
View ArticleThe day NASA's Fermi dodged a 1.5-ton bullet (w/ video)
(Phys.org) —NASA scientists don't often learn that their spacecraft is at risk of crashing into another satellite. But when Julie McEnery, the project scientist for NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space...
View ArticleX-rays paint a picture of Picasso's pigments
(Phys.org) —Pablo Picasso is widely regarded as one of the most influential artists of the twentieth century, having pioneered a variety of new styles in painting, sculpture, and other artistic forms....
View ArticleDoubt over 'volcanic winter' after Toba super-eruption
(Phys.org) —New research from Oxford University casts doubt on the theory that the Mount Toba super-eruption, which took place at the Indonesian island of Sumatra 75,000 years ago, could have plunged...
View ArticleCombination of crowdsourcing and computer vision could identify individuals...
Keeping track of individuals in an endangered population of animals is a cumbersome and time-consuming task. Conservationists physically tag animals in the wild to better follow them over time. But...
View ArticleHow the ice ages ended
A study of sediment cores collected from the deep ocean supports a new explanation for how glacier melting at the end of the ice ages led to the release of carbon dioxide from the ocean.
View ArticleValuing versatility
It's often said that we live in an age of increased specialization: physicians who treat just one ailment, scholars who study just one period, network administrators who know just one operating system.
View ArticleResearchers use gait primitives from real animals to simulate movement in...
(Phys.org) —Researchers at the Italian Institute of Technology (IIT) have used stop-motion technology to capture gait primitives of real animals—the data captured was then used to allow a small...
View ArticleStudy reveals consequences of a lifetime of sexual competition
Males that spend all their time reacting to their rivals die earlier and are less able to mate later in life according to new research from the University of East Anglia. The research is the first...
View ArticleSolar-powered nanofilters pump in antibiotics to clean contaminated water
Using the same devious mechanism that enables some bacteria to shrug off powerful antibiotics, scientists have developed solar-powered nanofilters that remove antibiotics from the water in lakes and...
View ArticleResearchers propose new old way to purify carbon nanotubes
(Phys.org) —An old, somewhat passé, trick used to purify protein samples based on their affinity for water has found new fans at the National Institute of Standards and Technology, where materials...
View ArticleScientists improve biomass-to-fuel process
(Phys.org) —Los Alamos scientists published an article in the scientific journal Nature Chemistry that could offer a big step on the path to renewable energy.
View ArticleBotObjects announces first full color 3D printer— ProDesk3D
(Phys.org) —Co-founders of a company called botObjects have announced on their website, the development of a full color 3D printer, the first of its kind. Until now, most 3D printers have been either...
View ArticleSideWays eye-tracking system shown at Paris conference (w/ video)
(Phys.org) —Marketers partnering with software innovators are thinking up new ways to know customers better, to take the guesswork out of product targeting. Technologies hold out hope that companies...
View ArticleBennu: NASA spacecraft will visit asteroid with new name
(Phys.org) —An asteroid that will be explored by a NASA spacecraft has a new name, thanks to a third-grade student in North Carolina. NASA's Origins-Spectral Interpretation-Resource...
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