Engineers discover why toucan beaks are models of lightweight strength
...tic foams made with metals and polymers. "The big surprise was our finding that the beak's sandwich structure also behaves as a high energy impact-absorption system," said Meyers. "Panels that mimic toucan beaks may offer better protection to motorists involved in crashes." Toucans are highly social, noisy ...Sea urchins' unexpectedly diverse 'innate' immune capability points to new research avenue
... been previously characterized." "This was the big surprise in our findings," Smith noted. ""It is evolutionary significant that animals other than vertebrates have mechanisms, most still unknown, to diversify their innate immune system to address the problem of microbes always finding new ways to infect. It ...Kidnapped: Colon cancer seizes hapless nerve growth protein
...ive and invasive front of tumors. In an additional surprise finding, the scientists found concentrations of nerve cell bundles, containing L1, located next to clusters of colon cancer cells that contain L1 on their surface. Localized on the cell membrane, L1 can serve both as a lock and a key in adhesion betw...Amazon trees much older than assumed, raising questions on global climate impact of region
...sts are old. Really old, in fact, which comes as a surprise to a team of American and Brazilian researchers studying tree growth in the world's largest tropical region. Using radiocarbon dating methods, the team, which includes UC Irvine's Susan Trumbore, found that up to half of all trees greater than 10 cen...How E. coli bacterium generates simplicity from complexity
...chia coli doesn't gamble with its metabolism. In a surprise about E. coli that may offer clues about how human cells operate, the PNAS paper reports that only a handful of dominant metabolic states are found in E. coli when it is "grown" in 15,580 different environments in computer simulations. "When it comes...Study finds genes that 'fine-tune' muscle development process
...scle overall in the frog embryo. "That was quite a surprise to many people because those two miRNAs are both equally expressed when muscles are differentiating, so we assumed that they are probably pushing muscle cells in the same direction. But after analyzing them, we found they have contradictory roles," W...On the loose: Urban coyotes thrive in North American cities
... because the researchers keep finding results that surprise them. This spring, Gehrt will publish the first round of papers from the last six years' worth of research. The major findings include: Coyotes help control Canada geese populations. It appears that coyotes are helping to curb the booming Canada go...How marine reserves are giving coral reefs a helping hand
It may be no surprise that marine reserves protect the fish that live in them, but now scientists from the University of Exeter have shown for the first time that they could also help improve the health of coral reefs. In a paper in the prestigious journal Science, Dr Pet...Malaria parasites develop in lymph nodes
...ites frequently invaded blood vessels. That was no surprise to Mnard, since they need to travel through blood vessels to get to the liver. However, many of the parasites also invaded lymphatic vessels. About 25 percent of the parasites injected by the mosquito bites were drained by lymphatic vessels and ende...A surprising pair of proteins help make healthy eggs
...elp promote granulosa cell proliferation. "The big surprise was c-Jun," Freiman said. That's because this well-studied protein is found at high levels in damaged nerve tissue as well as in the tumors of certain cancers, including cancer of the skin and liver and in Hodgkin's lymphoma. The new research is the ...Scientists exploring inflammation in rheumatoid arthritis make unexpected discovery
...ainful flare-ups and deterioration? The answer may surprise you. The answer did surprise investigators at Joslin Diabetes Center and Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) in Boston, who gain...UCLA scientists find male gene in brain area targeted by Parkinson's
...y role in the brain's production of dopamine. In a surprise finding, the drop in TH occurred only in the male rats. The female rats remained unaffected. "When we reduced SRY levels in the rats' brains, the male animals began experiencing the movement problems caused by insufficient dopamine," Vilain said. "Lo...Miniature synchrotron produces first light
...e business prospects, Ruth commented, "Our biggest surprise at Lyncean has not been technical; it has been the international demand for the CLS. There has been a flood of interest, and several institutes world wide are already planning to purchase a Compact Light Source." There has been an enormous gulf betw...Hopes raised for effectiveness of multiple sclerosis drug
...Dr. Bielekova. "We didn't see that at all. To our surprise the T-cells were functioning normally." But something unexpected was happeningthe numbers of T-cells circulating in the blood of patients taking daclizumab were declining by about 10 percent. Simultaneously, the number of immune cells known as "regu...New human retrovirus originated in mice
...LV-related virus, or XMRV. "This finding was a big surprise because most of these endogenous viral genomes have undergone such mutation and deletion that they are incapable of giving rise to viruses any more," said Ganem. "And while some of these viruses had been induced to grow in human cells in culture, the...Birdsong sounds sweeter because throats filter out messy overtones
...ds' throats vibrate when they sing will come as no surprise to birdwatchers. The effect of these oscillations on the birds' sound production, however, was unknown. The acoustics of sound-making are complicated. Most tones produced in nature are accompanied by a complex series of higher-pitched, quieter tones...Fruitfly study shows how evolution wings it
...in the same CRE. However, said Carroll, the bigger surprise came when they studied the gains of spots in different species. "The big stunner in this paper was that the two independent gains of spots we studied each resulted from mutations in distinct ancestral CREs," said Carroll. "In the ancestor, one of th......found evidence pointing to the protein's role. The surprise came soon after: Of the 12 women participating in the study, 11 became pregnant during the next round of IVF. The idea of biopsy incisions, basically small wounds, leading to such a positive outcome was counterintuitive, and Dekel realized something ...DNA: Bacteria's survival ration
...," Finkel said. In hindsight, it should come as no surprise that DNA can serve as a meal for microbes. "You're surrounded by living things, and living things die," Finkel said. "Where does all that stuff go? Why aren't we up to our ears in DNA, in ribosomes, in plant protein? "A lot of decay is microbial, and......ght in to help with biomechanical theory, said the surprise in the finding is that the nutrient current created by Volvox was proportional to the surface area of the colony. In other words, Volvox met its rapidly increasing demand for nutrients through flagellar beating, allowing the organism to make the mult...