Learning From Birds And Bees: Engineers Study Insects For Ideas On Tiny "Micro Air Vehicles"
.... "Micro Air Vehicles" capable of these and other tasks are the goalsfor a new program proposed by the <AHREF="http://www.darpa.mil/">Defense Advanced Research ProjectsAgency (DARPA). The technical challenges of building such airvehicles will be the focus for a two-day conference at the GeorgiaI...Good Ergonomics Is Good Economics
...troduced at the Palistine Car Shop to identify job tasks that exceeded acceptable back compression values, and equipment supporting various jobs requiring lifting was redesigned. For example, a coupler knuckle storage table was designed for storing the 90 lb. knuckles. Previously, they were manually piled ...Microsurgery Made More Accurate With Virtual Measuring Tool
...ifficult intraoperative absolute distance judgment tasks into a more amenable relative judgment task. Our current prototype has been shown here to have clinically acceptable accuracy and reliability. Potential applications of the VTM include any surgical procedures during which precise measurements of obje...... instruction, using concrete examples and hands-on tasks so that theunderlying logic is understood and the principle can be applied to a broadvariety of topics. Simply exposing children to lots of undirected experience indesigning experiments won?t give them the necessary feedback to distinguish agood fro......n of the arms so they will be more useful for such tasks as opening doors or grasping objects. "The arms could also be used to help the user mount and dismount the chair, giving a greater degree of independence," he said. For comfort, the prototype's stationary seat could be replaced with a seat that slide...Crystal Structure Of The Archaeal Chaperonin Thermosome, A Protein-Folding Machine, Determined
... three-dimensional structure to fulfill central tasks in living organisms. Protein folding - the process in which they acquire their native structure - has been recognized as a spontaneous process. The three-dimensional structure is coded in the sequence of the building blocks, the amino aci...Biochemist Solves Riddle Of Collagen Stability
...ids, with different helices performing specialized tasks in the body. There are ten distinct types of collagen in the human body, Raines said. About 25 years ago, biochemist Darwin Prockop unlocked some of the first clues to the molecular stability of collagen. He found that the hydroxyl (or water-like) gr..."A Thousand (And More) Points Of Light" Yield New View Into Cells
...r processing to handle theprodigious computational tasks involved in the analysis....Williams Syndrome: New UD Study May Shed Light On Rare Genetic Disorder-And Normal Development
...a very uneven profile of cognitiveabilities." When tasks involving spatial relationships come into play, however, thelimitations of Williams Syndrome become evident. "When we ask the children to describe direction and motion, they have problems,"Landau says. "For example, if a normal child watches a doll j...'Molecular' Computers? Munich/UD Researchers Report First Glimpse Of Artificial Molecule In Action
...This is why humans and animals can perform complex tasks such as patternrecognition, which is very difficult for traditional, semiconductor-basedcomputers." Someday, explains van der Weide, technologies based on simple biological systemssuch as molecules and membranes might help researchers develop, for ex......e huddled masses of themicrobial world, performing tasks that include everything from causing diseaseto fixing nitrogen in the soil. Now, for the first time, a team of researchersfrom the University of Georgia has made a direct estimate of the total number ofbacteria on Earth -- and the number makes the gl...Bat Sonar Sharper Than Thought; Much Better Than Man-Made Gear
... are suited to awider variety of orientation tasks than just catching insects. The processingof sonar echoes in the bat's brain is correspondingly more sophisticated than hadbeen suspected. In experiments, bats separately perceived and processed overlapping echo delay...Quicker Implementation Of Research Results
...iomedical processes. In many areas of engineering, tasks have to be accomplished that requireengineering systems to be adapted to changing environmental conditions. Areas ofapplication of the novel components explored at the centre of excellencefocusing on "Adaptive mechanical systems - ADAMES" at the Univ...When Genes "Breed" In The Lab, A Suprising Number Of Their Offspring Are Supergenes
...anufacture proteins that are much better atcertain tasks than nature's originals. The best ones can be screened out andshuffled to produce whole lineages of superior descendants, in a processmimicking evolution by natural selection. Maxygen's technique was described earlier this year in Nat...Memory Loss In Old Age No Longer Linked To Dying Brain Cells
...-biological methods to assess theeffects on memory tasks and neural communication. Beliefs about neuro-degeneration as a basis for memory loss in agingstem, in part, from early research about Alzheimer's disease, in which neurondegeneration and a profound loss of brain mass devastates memory and ot......ace to another so that certain crucial biochemical tasks cantake place. These vesicles bud off specialized and organ-like cell parts calledorganelles, carrying their protein passengers to another site in the cell. This elegant catch and release keeps a proper protein level inorganelles so they can ...Wolf Prize In Medicine Awarded To Kandel, Columbia's Pioneer Of Memory Research
...s the sea snail to more complex learningof spatial tasks in mammals, Professor Kandel has begun to study behavior ingenetically modified mice. The work has demonstrated that long-term changes inthe synapses of the hippocampus, the part of the brain believed to beresponsible for memory formation, are criti...... and workers, who usuallyperform most of the risky tasks and labor in insect colonies. Queens dominateworkers and workers dominate each other. Males were at the bottom of thepecking order. Among the Costa Rican wasps, however, O'Donnell noted that males chasedand lunged at females, sometimes biti...