Researchers learn how blood vessel cells cope with their pressure-packed job
...hmic stretching caused by a beating heart. Such an orientation of stress fibers is a hallmark of healthy blood ve...s perpendicular to the direction of stretch. "This orientation of actin fibers can be thought of as a feedback control in which the external stresses imposed on th...Study in Royal Society journal on first observation of giant squid in the wild
...during the day. It attacked prey from a horizontal orientation with a pair of long tentacles and enveloped the prey within coiled tentacular ball. Contact: Dr. T Kubodera, National Science Museum, Tokyo, 3-23-1, Hyakunin-cho, TOKYO, 169-0073, Japan Not so ancient: the extant crown group of Nothofagus represents...Displaced songbirds navigate in the high Arctic
...e researchers then recorded the birds' directional orientation in cage experiments. The scientists found that bo...th adult and juvenile birds abruptly shifted their orientation from the migratory direction to a direction leading back to the breeding area or the normal migrator...Overbearing colored light may reveal a second mechanism by which birds interpret magnetic signals
Magnetic orientation is critical to the migratory success of many bird ...esearchers have found clues to suggest that birds' orientation abilities may be more complex than previously thought and that birds may be able to interpret magnet...How butterflies fly thousands of miles without getting lost revealed by researchers
... used in the simulator, the butterflies lost their orientation Further probing revealed a key wiring connection between the light-detecting navigation sensors in the butterfly's eye and its brain clock Thus, it was shown that input from two interconnected systems UV light detection in the eye and the biologic...Brain size may depend upon how neural cells are cleaved
...e identified a signaling pathway that controls the orientation in which dividing neural progenitor cells are clea... studies by other researchers that showed that the orientation of cleavage planes in dividing neural progenitor cells in the neocortex determines the fate of the r...Insight into cell metabolism will help interpret PETs, MRIs
...(BOLD-fMRI), MPLSM can simultaneously show how the orientation of NADH molecules changes (by measuring their anisotropy) within fractions of a nanosecond. The results, said Vishwasrao, now a postdoctoral fellow at Columbia University, indicate that the unbound NADH molecules rotate much more quickly -- and there...Nanotubes inspire new technique for healing broken bones
...tached. Some of these groups assist the growth and orientation of hydroxyapatite crystals, allowing the researchers a degree of control over their alignment, while other groups improve the biocompatibility of nanotubes by increasing their solubility in water. "Researchers today are realizing that mechanical mimi...Study in Royal Society journal on holly as an indicator of climate change
...detect DMS at environmental levels, and use it for orientation in a novel context. Contact: Dr GA Nevitt, Department of Neurobiology, Physiology and Behaviour and Animal Behaviour Graduate Group, University of California at Davis, 1 Shields Avenue, Davis, CA 95616, USA Acute Effects of Hurricane Charley on Fish...Dinosaur fossil bone leads to gender, age determinations
...rich and emu was virtually identical in structure, orientation and even color, with that seen in the T. rex. Since only females produce medullary bone, its presence in the T. rex femur indicates that this fossil was a female, and probably one who died toward the end of her laying cycle. From a biological perspe...Cancer survivors may be at higher risk for cognitive dysfunction
...nyone whoscored a three, defined as having verbal, orientation or recallproblems that interfere with daily life, was considered to havecognitive dysfunction. "The twin who had cancer was more likely to have some sort ofcognitive dysfunction," said Beth Meyerowitz, professor ofpsychology in the USC College of Let...Vitamin A's paradoxical role in influencing symmetry during embryonic development revealed
...they also will have to be 'instructed' about their orientation in the body. These cells need to know more than what to become. They need to know how to pattern a fully-functional structure or organ." "Only by studying the behavior of stem cells within the embryo will we be able to understand how these cells are...PNAS highlights for the week of May 9 - 13
...ith common odors, suggesting a link between sexual orientation and brain function. Women Migrate More than Men, Based on Society A newly published study shows that immigration rates differ between genders and follow societal rules, with women moving more often than men overall. Laurent Excoffier and colleagues...How monarch butterflies are wired for navigation
...polarized light source, the butterflies lost their orientation response. The researchers also pinpointed the location of the circadian clock in the butterfly brain. Such circadian clocks govern the approximately 24 hour activity and metabolic cycles of animals from the simplest insects to humans. Reppert and his...Six previously blind patients detect light, motion, identify objects with retinal prostheses
...iminate simple shapes-i.e., figure out the spatial orientation of a bar or the capital letter L-with 61 to 80 percent accuracy. The researchers also noted that when there is no electricity running through the device, the subjects do not show any improvement in perceptual acuity, "suggesting that electrical stimu......o feel that the site of sperm entry determines the orientation of the future body axes. "It would now make sense to base our future experiments on the premise that the mammalian egg neither has nor requires predetermination for successful development," explains Dr. Hiiragi....To train the eye, keep it simple
...dies, Lu and Dosher asked subjects to identify the orientation of simple geometric patterns flashed on a screen. The subjects' performance improved dramatically after several sessions, in line with other studies that have shown the human eye to be highly trainable. The difference came in the way subjects adapted...New slant on vision research: Neurons sensitive to viewing angle
...x degrees) to one side or the other. Whatever the orientation of the test image, subjects were required to choos...or faces, at least, subjects were not deciding the orientation of test images based on "local" features such as noses. When subjects saw unorganized fragments of f...Worms, slugs inspire robotic devices
... to work effectively with things that have a fixed orientation or a certain texture or toughness." Chiel also noted that if the gripping device were miniaturized and equipped with sensors, it could have medical applications as well. Such a device, for example, might eat its way through occluded blood vessels. ......on part provides information on depth and also the orientation of objects relative to the instrument. This can then be processed to form a complete three-dimensional picture." In the case of forests, Pol-InSAR typically relies on longer L- or P- band wavelengths upon in preference to the shorter C-band wavelen...