Mars Express and the story of water on Mars
...lusions. They show the Martian surface in the most exquisite detail, revealing features just 10 metres across. They clearly show extremely old Martian regions that have been eroded by flowing water. The pictures also show a huge valley, Kasei Valles, carved by a gigantic Martian glacier that persisted for a th...MIT engineers probe spiders' polymer art
... the characteristics of a liquid crystal. It's the exquisite alignment of the protein fibers, Kojic said, that gives silk threads their amazing strength. While the silk stretches and dries, it forms miniscule crystalline structures that act as reinforcing agents. Engineered nanoparticles-tiny materials susp...MIT particles pave way for new bedside diagnostics
...esearchers' particle fabrication method gives them exquisite control over the particles' shape and chemical characteristics. As two streams of monomers (liquid precursors loaded with fluorescent dye or molecular probe) flow side by side through a microfluidic device, ultraviolet light repeatedly strikes th...Story tips from the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory, March 2007
...thyl-accepting chemotaxis proteins translate their exquisite detection abilities into a signal. The work of Igor Zhulin of ORNL's Computer Science and Mathematics Division and Roger Alexander of Georgia Tech, published recently in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, represents a giant step in thi...MIT: Pulsing light silences overactive neurons
...lue and yellow light the researchers can now exert exquisite control over the stimulation and inhibition of individual neurons. Learning more about the neural circuits involved in epilepsy could help scientists develop devices that can predict when a seizure is about to occur, allowing treatment (either shoc...'War Between the Sexes': The coevolution of genitalia in waterfowl
...e the opposing twists of the male phallus. It's an exquisite anti-lock-and-key system." The number of sacs and spirals in the reproductive tract of various female waterfowl correlates strongly with the length of the male phallus. Comparing the phallus size and oviduct shape in 14 different species of ducks ...Book explores history, causes of allergy and asthma epidemic
...llergens," he says. Mitman well appreciates this exquisite irony. However, real relief from the allergy/asthma conundrum can come only from a sea change in our approach to the problem, he says. "Allergies are not things, like bacteria, to be eliminated by drugs from our bodies. An allergy is instead the re...New research shows sharks use their noses and bodies to locate smells
... line is an organ used by all fish to detect, with exquisite sensitivity, movement and vibration in the surrounding water. According to the research team, this is similar to how humans can sense air flow with the small hairs on the face. Until now, it had not been demonstrated that the lateral line also aids i...International team to honor 30th anniversary of deep-sea vent discovery in Galpagos
...that can see in the dark, beauties: giant worms of exquisite design, and curiosities: snails with plates of armor." The most well known animal affiliated with vents is the giant tubeworm found around Pacific Ocean vents. The fastest-growing marine invertebrate known, it can grow to six feet, lacks a mouth a...