Researchers discover gene that could be key in evolution of hardwoods
...rms, however, syringyl lignin took on an important mechanical role, serving as the "skeleton" for angiosperm trees. In addition, Chiang notes, the syringyl lignin molecule includes additional methoxyl (H3CO) groups that the researchers suspect increase its toxicity. A tree with this type of lignin could be less...Excessive fishing prompted coastal ecosystems to collapse, but wise management now will help
...ormed." That transformation predated pollution and mechanical seafood harvesting and began thousands of years ago as humans exploited resources in coastal waters and became increasingly adept at removing the top link in the marine food chain -- sharks, turtles, whales and the largest fish species. Later, as tho...... brittlestars, both as an optical element and as a mechanical support, illustrates the remarkable ability of organisms, through the process of evolution, to optimize one material for several functions, and provides new ideas for the fabrication of smart materials. ...Laser technique examines movement in nucleus of living cell
... cell at all. Cellular motion is not just a simple mechanical operation, Bardeen said. Motion is somehow connected with life itself. Its one of the things that differentiates a living cell from a lump of DNA. The researchers will describe their experimental technique and present preliminary data on chromatin ......old," said lead author Arun Majumdar, professor of mechanical engineering at the University of California, Berkeley. "This is currently as good as and potentially better than the ELISA assay, which is the standard today for detecting protein markers like PSA." The microcantilever technique has far broader appli......trained to fuse input from sonar, radar, infrared, mechanical and other detectors, in addition to the audio and video currently in use....Univ. of Fla. professor: Air cleaning system destroys Anthrax, other pathogens
...ning systems, says Yogi Goswami, a UF professor of mechanical engineering and director of UFs Solar Energy and Energy Conversion Laboratory.There are other technologies for air cleaning, but for air disinfection, there is no more effective system, Goswami said. The photocatalytic air cleaning system relies ...UC Berkeley expert on insect flight receives prestigious MacArthur 'genius' award
...d-roll arena" in which he studies fly responses to mechanical stimuli, and "smell-o-vision," where visual stimul...chael has," Lauder said. Ron Fearing, professor of mechanical engineering at UC Berkeley, leads a team now building a micromechanical flying insect based on the p...Betting on climate change: Alaskan gambling contest yields treasure trove of scientific data
...ice "rots" or melts slowly - and dynamic effects - mechanical forces from upstream drift ice. "Warmer climate would be expected to advance the time of breakup through both thermal effects and dynamic effects, due to thinning ice and increased snowmelt runoff into rivers," explain Sagarin and Micheli. Early spri...UC Irvine Advanced Power and Energy Program awarded $3 million grant by California Energy Commission
...nd challenges," said Scott Samuelsen, professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at The Henry Samueli Sch...eling expert Donald Dabdub, associate professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at The Henry Samueli School of Engineering. Jack Brouwer, a senior scienti...University of Cincinnati researchers track climate changes in Arctic thaw lakes
...n earlier reached only to 18 inches, while the new mechanical drill reached several feet down to soil that is thousands of years old.......after a phase of deprivation attained through the mechanical agitation of fly habitats roughly every 15 seconds for as long as six hours surged in flies whose CREB activity was blocked. In normal flies, CREB activity remains elevated for some 72 hours after such a prolonged period of wakefulness; CREB mutant...Lobster sniffing: how lobsters' hairy noses capture smells from the sea
... images and measured these details, they created a mechanical lobster that flicked in the same way. The mechanical lobster, which they dubbed Rasta Lobsta, was simply the molted shell of a spiny lobster filled with ...Gender issues related to spaceflight: A NASA perspective
...vents due to their greater muscle strength and the mechanical advantage of their longer arms and legs. Women, on the other hand, tend to have a greater endurance capacity due to a greater reliance on fat metabolism during exercise; thus a glycogen-sparing effect might delay fatigue during long-duration events. ...Influence of gender on upper airway structure and function during obstructive sleep apnea
...urochemical control of ventilation interplays with mechanical and structural factors could be helpful in determining potential mechanisms for the gender prevalence difference in OSA. A Unifying Hypothesis The authors propose a hypothesis to explain the divergent findings regarding upper airway patency in men an...Clean water for Nepal is focus of MIT research
...gerton Center and MIT graduate (SB 1984, MEng, SM, mechanical engineering). "You and Amy have a lot in common," said the student, who told her about Smiths engineering work in developing countries.Smith, it turned out, had already invented an incubator that does not need electricity. In fact, she won the $30,0...Jefferson scientists show how collagen gene mutation leads to osteoarthritis
... a precise network, providing cartilage with great mechanical strength. Researchers have previously shown that a...is unknown, but a number of factors such as aging, mechanical stress, inflammation and trauma are often associated with its development....Alexander Gorlov, Professor Emeritus of mechanical engineering and director of the Hydro-Pneumatic Po...otential of significantly enhancing some aspect of mechanical engineering. The innovation makes possible the high efficiency conversion of kinetic energy from rel......rificial bonds provide a mechanism for dissipating mechanical energy in collagen molecules. The time scale required for sacrificial bonds to reform in collagen correlates to the time needed for bone to recover from microscopic indentations." Besides stretching the collagen from bones, the scientists made smal......frey Koseff and John Crimaldi at Stanford placed a mechanical lobster rigged with fresh real lobster antennule in a tank and used fluorescent dye to simulate an odor plume. They illuminated the plume with a thin sheet of laser light to see just the slice of the plume that the lobsters antennule encountered. T...