Converging technologies can improve human performance, report says
...raction and enhance work efficiency, learning, and sensory and cognitive capabilities. Such technologies could revolutionize health care, ease the consequences of disabilities and aging, and enable novel communication techniques. The document also suggests strategies to prepare key organizations and sector...Corroding plumbing materials producing environmental problems
... Scientific and engineering issues associated with sensory perception and corrosion are complex and not easily unraveled. With this innovative NSF grant, our interdisciplinary team will advance the understanding of both water quality and consumer perception," says Dietrich, an expert who studies the causes o...Research to estimate pesticides' effects on children
...g all of the time. They're very curious, and their sensory response is to taste and feel," he explained. Hispanic workforce The EPA study will use data from farmworker children between the ages of 1 and 6 -- the most tactile age group, according to Leckie. "We can take a subset of 20 or 30 children an...Reversing the sounds of silence
...o exploring strategies to regenerate the inner ear sensory hair cells and nerve endings. We've had some initial success at the basic science level, and we've had some success with rescuing the hearing of some patients with sudden hearing loss if we can treat them within 4 to 5 weeks of their sudden hearing ...Why the hammerhead shark's head is in the shape it's in
...hypotheses involve potential advantages of spacing sensory structures across the surface or at the lateral ends of the cephalofoil. Another such hypothesis is that pores in the laterally expanded sphyrnid cephalofoil (shark's head) provide an electrosensory capability that maximizes search area coverage to ...Rockefeller researchers provide the first functional evidence for mammalian pheromone receptors
...l stimulate these nerve cells, indicating that the sensory deficit is specific. The authors coined a new term for this selective chemosensory deficit: a specific avnosmia, analogous to specific anosmias to certain 'common' odorants reported in many cases over the past decades, both in mouse and human. "The s...Even neurons have favorite numbers
...neurons in the part of the prefrontal cortex where sensory information is processed. They found that the activity of at least a third of the neurons varied along with the number of dots seen, and their consistent patterns for a given number also generalized across widely varied displays, signaling that the ...Neural signal that helps wire up brains movement circuit identified
...neurons in the spinal cord at a crucial stage when sensory neurons come close to them. "Assembling the compon...t motor neurons release the WNT-3 protein to guide sensory neurons to make connections with them." The ability to collect and transmit information to the brain...Study reveals clues to brain development
Many studies have shown that sensory deprivation, such as a lack of visual stimulation soon after birth, can lead to developmental abnormalities in the brain. This is why parents are counseled to take their newborns on frequent outings to new environments, and why strollers, cribs, and ...Deciphering the genetic basis of the mosquitos senses
...) that are instrumental elements in the mosquito's sensory systems, including those that it uses to find human prey. The paper is part of a special issue of Science that reports the sequencing of the entire Anopheles genome. Concurrently, the journal Nature is announcing the sequencing of the genome of Plasm...Three inferior prefrontal regions of the brain found receptive to somatosensory stimuli
...activations could, for instance, reflect a passive sensory representation, a general attentional process (unrelated to a specific sensory modality), or a more modality-specific sensory process. To partially clarify these issues, the resea...Brain's method of creating mental images differs with the source of cues received
...fornia, Berkeley. The researchers found that when sensory cues from the hands and eyes differ from one anoth...slanted according to the other. To manipulate the sensory cues, the researchers used force-feedback technology to simulate touch, and shutter glasses to simul...UC Berkeley scientists detail neural circuit that lets eye detect directional motion
...long with about a million other computations, both sensory and motor, to make contact with the ball." The technically demanding experiments measuring the output of cells in the retina were conducted in Werblin's laboratory by graduate students Shelley I. Fried of the School of Optometry's Graduate Group in V...Fluid flow technology takes a cue from fast-swimming sharks
... skin surrounding the shark's sensory organs. One set angles in toward the shark's pit organ, and other angles away from the lateral-line organ. The function of the pit organ is a matter of controversy in biology, Koeltzsch s...Light shed on vision and hearing disorders
...n highly specialized structures at the tips of the sensory cells of the inner ear. It is precisely these stru...three Usher I gene products cooperate to shape the sensory hair cell bundleEMBO Journal 21(24):6689-6699 (2002)....Researchers reveal new secrets of the brain
...nd dissolve in the adult brain as the mice take in sensory information. "If a few years ago you could have i...see if the changing connections were influenced by sensory input they cut every other whisker on the mice, creating a chessboard pattern in which each cut whis...A new window to view how experiences rewire the brain
...s in a portion of the brain that processes tactile sensory inputs from the whiskers. To observe changes in th...ed synapses. The researchers also explored whether sensory experiences could affect the turnover of spines. In this set of experiments, they trimmed individual...Scientists harness powerful x-rays in new technique to study animal functions
...d be a prerequisite for oxygen delivery to complex sensory systems and the brain, the authors say. This would not only help scientists learn more about the animals studied but also provide insights on human health. For example, studying how larval fish move their backbones could shed light on how to treat sp...New hope for preventing major problems of the retina
...contains the photoreceptors, which are the site of sensory transduction in the visual pathway. Major landmar...ishing effect of dopamine on the pathways coupling sensory input to vascular response. Dopaminergic functions in the eye are complex and affect several ocular ...Researchers record first 'pheromone images' in brains of mice
...essory olfactory bulb, part of a poorly understood sensory pathway that is thought to be important in sex dis...ent, said Katz. What weve done is look at how that sensory information is sent into a central location and what kind of information is represented in the brain...