Brain's inertial navigation system pinpointed
...ion about head position only. Also, the vestibular systems detection of head acceleration cannot distinguish between the effect of movement and that of gravitational force. Dora Angelaki and colleagues published their findings in the June 21, 2007 issue of the journal Neuron, published by Cell Press. Ang...NJIT professor says certain home shapes and roofs hold up best in hurricane
... The design of the cyclonic home includes simple systems to reduce the local wind stresses at the roofs lower edges such as a notched frieze or a horizontal grid to be installed at the level of the gutters along the perimeter of the home. An elevated structure on an open foundation reduces the risk of ...Turn-ons and turn-offs for neurons
...escribed a tetracycline-controlled gene expression systems (Tet systems), which allow the regulation of gene ...atically examined individual components of the Tet systems and delineated the necessary conditions for reversible control of gene expression in neurons. In t...Another sexual attraction is possible ...
...ven on the darkest nights. Such mating recognition systems tend to be very specific, hence they are thought to play a major role in the evolution of mating barriers and in the formation of new species. The fact that conspecific males and females recognize each other by their common use of a highly specific...Reconstructing the biology of extinct species: A new approach
...ism linking a species' locomotion with the sensory systems that process information about its environment," says Alan Walker, Evan Pugh Professor of Anthropology and Biology at Penn State University, one of the team's leaders. The researchers studied 91 separate primate species, including all taxonomic fami...Recycling is not enough -- we need to consume less
...- from the high-tech, large-scale waste management systems of consumerist San Francisco, to the locally based...on waste. We should develop more closed loop systems for organic wastes, for instance by returning composted food waste to the land as fertiliser, rather...NSF funding to advance research on interplay between biology and society
...il have used scientific information to adapt water systems to climate change; and how concepts of "biodiversity" have changed over time and the impact of these changes on conservation efforts. The goal of the Science and Society Program is to fund research that examines questions that arise in the interact...Pendulum love, science class gender gaps, musical mind mirrors, and unparticle physics
...useful. Mixed reality can occur only when the two systems are sufficiently similar. A system with unknown parameters may be synced up to a virtual system whose parameters are set by the physicists. The unknown factors in the real system can be determined by changing the virtual system until they shift fro...University of Colorado invention may allow thirsty crops to signal farmers
...xample, could instruct individual pivot irrigation systems used widely on Colorado's eastern plains to dispense set amounts of water to particular crops, automatically turning the motors that drive them on-and-off and conserving water and energy in the process, he said. "Farmers today rely on standard pra...Staphylococcus aureus hides out in cells
...taphylococcus aureus bacteria may evade the immune systems defences and dodge antibiotics by climbing into our cells and then lying low to avoid detection. New research in the online open access journal BMC Genomics shows how S. aureus makes itself at home in human lung cells for up to two weeks. A team of...Banding together: RAS signaling of circadian output
...spora crassa is one of the best studied laboratory systems for circadian rhythms. However, over the past 50 years, almost all of the work done on Neurospora has used laboratory strains carrying the band mutation, because it enables researchers to visualize the fungus' daily circadian growth cycles. Research...Could fungal collection hold the key to new life-saving drugs?
... focus on drug discovery. They have developed test systems to detect biological activity in samples of natural products that could lead to new medicinal products. Previous work at SIDR found activities from plant extracts against diabetes, obesity and psoriasis. Professor Alan Harvey, Director of SIDR said...Small, self-controlled planes combine plant pathology and engineering
...at facilitates collaboration related to autonomous systems in the College of Engineering, the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, and the College of Natural Resources. Scientists have used aircraft to monitor the movement of airborne pathogens for years, but Schmale is the first plant pathologist to ...'Wurst' ensures that the respiratory system works
...lso been discovered in the way the two respiratory systems develop. Thus, a series of very similar growth factors ensure that the tubes branch out appropriately and achieve the right diameter. Another factor shared by tracheal breathers and lung breathers is that the respiratory tubes are initially filled...Research without borders: Head of Santa Fe Institute to address NSF
...owth, evolution and robustness of complex adaptive systems whether organisms, ecosystems, or societies; netwo...rgent behavior and multiscale phenomena in complex systems beyond the confines of the canonical disciplines is the norm. The Santa Fe Institute was founded t...Undergraduate research shows leaderless honeybee organizing
...minance hierarchy structured --we have centralized systems of control. But bee colony systems of control are very different they are totally de-centralized. Schneiders lab studies the honeybe...Researchers examine carbon capture and storage to combat global warming
...ak, and do a good job of engineering the injection systems and paying attention to where the carbon dioxide is actually going,'' Orr said. While a thorough technical understanding of the risks will reveal best practices, the scientists also stressed the need for good management to see that proper procedure...Woods Hole Research Center scientists study impacts of industrial logging in Central Africa
...anizations to develop integrated forest monitoring systems and promote forest conservation. She received her doctorate in tropical biogeography from l'Universit Paul Sabatier in Toulouse, France. Mr. Stabach works in the Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and Remote Sensing Laboratory on the Center's Afr...Scientists propose the kind of chemistry that led to life
...n the process. Catalysts are very common in living systems as well as industrial processes. Many researchers believe the first primitive catalysts on earth were nothing more complicated than the surfaces of clays or other minerals. In its simplest form, the model shows how two catalysts in a solution, A a...Candidate research sites selected for the National Ecological Observatory Network
...nd mobile instrument systems. Relocatable tower systems will be deployed outside of the core sites for up ...pitation, and land-use gradients. Rapid deployment systems (instruments on vehicles or towed by vehicles) will be used for shorter periods to study sudden even...