Xerox to offer 'Ignite' software upgrade for copiers to let them grade school...
(Phys.org) —Xerox, the copy-machine giant, has announced that it will be selling a software upgrade for its copiers that will turn many of them into test grading machines. Called Ignite, the software...
View ArticleGoogle Glass a hit with early adopters
Back when she was in college, software developer Monica Wilkinson says, she used to dream of "being able to carry a computer in my head," instead of lugging her books and laptop all over campus. As she...
View ArticlePower plants: Researchers explore how to harvest electricity directly from...
(Phys.org) —The sun provides the most abundant source of energy on the planet. However, only a tiny fraction of the solar radiation on Earth is converted into useful energy.
View ArticleHubble finds dead stars 'polluted' with planetary debris
(Phys.org) —The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has found signs of Earth-like planets in an unlikely place: the atmospheres of a pair of burnt-out stars in a nearby star cluster. The white dwarf stars...
View ArticleTesla Model S gets Consumer Reports' top score
The Tesla Motors Inc. Model S electric car has tied an older Lexus for the highest score ever recorded in Consumer Reports magazine's automotive testing.
View ArticleStudies generate comprehensive list of genes required by innate system to...
Two teams of investigators led by Professor Gregory Hannon of Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) today publish studies revealing many previously unknown components of an innate system that defends...
View ArticleTeam finds key to gene-silencing activity, opens door to new class of therapies
A team led by scientists at The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) has found how to boost or inhibit a gene-silencing mechanism that normally serves as a major controller of cells' activities. The...
View ArticleGenes define the interaction of social amoeba and bacteria
Amoeba eat bacteria and other human pathogens, engulfing and destroying them – or being destroyed by them, but how these single-cell organisms distinguish and respond successfully to different...
View ArticleDad's genome more ready at fertilization than mom's is—but hers catches up
Researchers from Huntsman Cancer Institute (HCI) at the University of Utah have discovered that while the genes provided by the father arrive at fertilization pre-programmed to the state needed by the...
View ArticleIce-free Arctic may be in our future, says research
Analyses of the longest continental sediment core ever collected in the Arctic, recently completed by an international team led by Julie Brigham-Grette of the University of Massachusetts Amherst,...
View ArticleThe secret lives of bubbles: Mathematicians describe evolution, dissolution...
Bubble baths and soapy dishwater, the refreshing head on a beer and the luscious froth on a cappuccino. All are foams, beautiful yet ephemeral as the bubbles pop one by one.
View ArticleCirrus clouds form around mineral dust and metallic particles, study finds
At any given time, cirrus clouds—the thin wisps of vapor that trail across the sky—cover nearly one-third of the globe. These clouds coalesce in the upper layers of the troposphere, often more than 10...
View ArticleWater on Moon and Earth came from same primitive meteorites, analysis shows
The water found on the moon, like that on Earth, came from small meteorites called carbonaceous chondrites in the first 100 million years or so after the solar system formed, researchers from Brown and...
View ArticleBacterial infection in mosquitoes renders them immune to malaria parasites
Scientists funded by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health, have established an inheritable bacterial infection in...
View ArticleSifting through the atmospheres of far-off worlds
(Phys.org) —Gone are the days of being able to count the number of known planets on your fingers. Today, there are more than 800 confirmed exoplanets—planets that orbit stars beyond our sun—and more...
View ArticleSalk researchers chart epigenomics of stem cells that mimic early human...
Scientists have long known that control mechanisms known collectively as "epigenetics" play a critical role in human development, but they did not know precisely how alterations in this extra layer of...
View ArticleNew advance in biofuel production: Researchers develop enzyme-free ionic...
(Phys.org) —Advanced biofuels – liquid fuels synthesized from the sugars in cellulosic biomass – offer a clean, green and renewable alternative to gasoline, diesel and jet fuels. Bringing the costs of...
View ArticleUK budget airline to test ash cloud detector
A U.K. budget airline will create an artificial volcanic ash cloud over Europe this summer to test ash detection technology. The experiment aims to avoid the kind of chaos that paralyzed air traffic...
View ArticleYouTube launches pay channels with campy flicks
Children's shows like "Sesame Street," inspirational monologues by celebrities and campy movies—these are among the offerings on 30 channels that will soon require a paid monthly subscription on YouTube.
View ArticlePrinted inchworm robot makes self-assembly moves (w/ Video)
(Phys.org) —A team from Harvard and MIT presented their work at the 2013 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA) in Germany. Their contribution: "Robot Self-Assembly by Folding:...
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