UC Berkeley study shows gecko foot hairs are amazing dry adhesives
... forces are responsible for the attraction between layers of graphite, for example, and the attraction between enzymes and their substrate. Van der Waals forces arise when unbalanced electrical charges around molecules attract one another. Though the charges are always fluctuating and even reversing directi...Virtual reality tool quantifies physics of a doctor's touch
... will respond to applied forces. They then create layers of these sections, gradually building the collection of samples into the complete organ. "Our big contribution is that we are writing algorithms to model how soft tissue deforms as a real mass, rather than just as a surface, which is what many group...Seafloor off Mid-Atlantic coast highly charged with gas
...ation of these features. The gas is trapped under layers of sediment on the shelf edge until some circumstance causes it to escape, blowing holes in the seafloor to form these large pockmark features we thought were cracks." In a paper published in the journal Geology days before their May 7 departure fo......e able to manipulate the number of endodermal cell layers made in the root. Benfey said, "Our findings have potential biotechnology applications and also implications for evolutionary biology." "Our research findings might be used to improve such agronomic traits as tolerance for salinity and reliance on ...Scientists find unique nuclear DNA structure
...ing what is called an R loop," Lieber said. "These layers look a bit like a sandwich." (Tracy and Lieber described the precise structure of this R-loop in the March 1 issue of the EMBO Journal.) That circular sandwich is transient. Eventually, the loop is snipped off and set aside, while the ends of the two...Biological legacies a key of ecological rebirth after Mount St. Helens eruption
...ties such as logging. On and around the mountain, layers of snow and soil helped preserve plants and animals. At the higher elevations the relic sites were the size of a living room or smaller, according to UW botanist Roger del Moral, whose teams have worked at sites above 3,500 feet on the north side an...Ground-penetrating radar detects hard-to-find hazardous waste
...- detects smooth objects like buried pipes or flat layers of rock very well, and is often used in bridge or road inspection. Jagged objects such as broken rocks confuse side-by-side antennas because they scatter the radar signal. ...Study: Methane cleans nitric oxide from power plant emissions
...nd depletes ozone in the upper layers of the stratosphere. "Although the technology exists to reduce nitric oxide emissions, it is not a problem-free technology by any stretch of the imagination," said Umit Ozkan, professor of ...Light receptor may be key in how animals use Earth's magnetic field
... Ill. -- A blue-light photoreceptor found in nerve layers of the eyes and brains has caught the attention of University of Illinois researchers who are seeking the magnetic compass that lets migratory birds and many other creatures find home using the magnetic field of Earth. The receptor -- cryptochrome --...The future of planet earth: scientific challenges in the coming century
...ader in developing ways to bring together multiple layers of geospatial data (such as elevation, hydrographic, transportation, etc.) from a variety of sources and integrate them into a widely accessible, national dataset. Standardization of these datasets will play an important role in allowing users to wi...Past climate change effects on mammals may mirror global warming impact
...000 mammal bones and teeth recovered in stratified layers from Homestead Cave in north-central Utah, near the eastern edge of the Bonneville Salt Flats. It is the largest sample of small mammal fossils from the western U.S. ever studied. The bones and teeth were deposited over a period of about 11,300 yea...Zebrafish's powerful heart gene could lead to transplant therapy
...da. Researchers have known that the embryo's three layers form simultaneously, in arhythm dependent on cell-signaling cross talk. But the degree of interactionwas not clear. "We thought we were studying hearts but we really were studyingthe role of the endoderm," said Stainier. "That's one of the exciting...Air pollution from Asia could violate new federal ozone standard
...levation asCheeka Peak) and 23,000 feet. Pollution layers were observed on about one-third of the flights. "This was a day when we could really see haze layers out there," Jaffe said of the April 9 flight. Other scientists involved in the research are from th...Tracing the evolution of sex chromosomes
...d as four consecutive blocks, essentially like the layers ofrock are arranged in geological strata," explains Dr. Page. In contrast, thegroups appear to be scrambled on the Y chromosome. During evolution, X-Y differentiation was probably initiated one stratum at atime, with stratum 1 having been the firs...New dinosaurs appear to be oldest yet, as reported in the 22 October issue of Science
... new prosauropods be even older? Because the rock layers at the Madagascar sites have not yet yielded the rightminerals for radioisotope dating, Flynn and his colleagues had to use otherclues from the fossil record to determine the age of their finds. Judging fromthe anatomical details of the fossils, two ...New paleontology research from Natural History Museum of L.A. at international conference
...en discovered.Chiappe has uncovered additional egg layers and has mapped a 30 square meterarea more than 200 eggs, many of them containing embryonic remains. He has foundthat the dinosaur eggs were laid in clutches that were close together andrandomly distributed. His research also shows that the sauropods ...Changing children's diets today could reduce bone problems 70 years from now
...terized tomography) scanner, measures two distinct layers of growing bone.Both are considered safe for children. In contrast to the high-tech measuring tools, the "treatments" are simpleenough: yogurt, cheese, pudding and calcium-fortified orange juice and cereals."Calcium from food sources may have a great...USGS finds elevated levels of organochlorine pesticides in Aleutian bald eagles
...currents, or possibly biologically in the fat layers of migratory seabirds that nest at the Aleutians by the tens of millions. Birds of prey, such as bald eagles, peregrine falcons and ospreys, feed at the top of the food chain and are particularly sensitive to organochlorine ......ges. Lake Constance has a sediment withfine annual layers that can be dated. Sediment cores taken from the l... laboratory at Plön and resting eggs from the layers with knownage were isolated. It was then possible to hatch these eggs and "revive"populations of Dap...INEEL, universities collaborate on subsurface strontium-90 remediation efforts
..." said Smith."After the strontium is removed, more layers of calcium carbonate form on themineral. As time goes on, the strontium gets buried inside the crystal and it'sno longer accessible to the water." Colwell and Ferris need to determine precise conditions for optimal ureahydrolysis. Colwell said, "Some...