Imagine a new type of tyres whose structure has been designed to have greater adhesion on the road. Quite a timely discussion during the long winter nights. French physicists have now developed a model to study the importance of adhesion in establishing contact between two patterned, yet elastic, surfaces. Nature is full of examples of amazing adjustable adhesion power, like the feet of geckos, covered in multiple hairs of decreasing size. Until now, most experimental and theoretical studies have only focused on the elastic deformation of surfaces, neglecting the adhesion forces between such surfaces.

No one wants to knowingly buy products made with child labor or that harm the environment and that may be why few people want to know if their favorite products were made ethically. Even beyond that, people really don't like those good people who make the effort to seek out ethically made goods - because, like going on a cleanse, no one ever did so quietly.

Over the past decade, neuroimaging studies, basically taking snapshots of neural circuitry as behavior occurs and mapping cause to effect, have sought to identify components of a neural circuit that operates across various domains of creativity. A new paper suggests, however, that creativity cannot be fully explained in terms of the activation or deactivation of a fixed network of brain regions. Rather, the scholars say, when creative acts engage brain areas involved in emotional expression, activity in these regions strongly influences which parts of the brain's creativity network are activated, and to what extent.

Certain threats -- such as starvation or an attack by enemies -- turn on genes in carpenter ants that change their behavior in ways that help their colony survive, according to a study co-authored by NYU Langone researchers and published in the Jan. 1, 2016, edition of the journal Science. With related molecular pathways present in humans, the study may provide insights into mechanisms behind behavioral disorders.

Specifically, the research team found that compounds known to block the action of a group of enzymes, histone deacetylases (HDACs), activated genes that made one kind of carpenter ant worker behave like another, and without changing the instructions encoded in their genes.

America has led the way in achieving something that was once believed to be science fiction: For the first time in history, poor people can afford to be fat. 

Atlanta -- Dec. 26, 2016 -- Survivors of cancer pay thousands of dollars in excess medical expenditures every year, with the excess financial burden varying by age and cancer site, according to a new American Cancer Society study. The study, appearing early online in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, says targeted efforts will be important to reduce the economic burden of cancer.

As a group, cancer survivors (estimated to number 14.5 million in the United States in 2014) face greater economic burden, including medical expenditures and productivity losses. But relatively little is known about whether that burden varies by cancer site compared to similar individuals without a cancer history.

DALLAS - December 28, 2015 - In the first study of its kind, a team of international scientists led by UT Southwestern Medical Center and UCLA researchers have identified a dozen inherited traits related to sleep, wake, and activity cycles that are associated with severe bipolar disorder.

Researchers also were able to tie the traits to specific chromosomes, providing important clues to the genetic nature of the disorder, as well as potential new avenues for prevention and treatment.

WASHINGTON, D.C., Dec. 29, 2015 -- What can mathematical modeling teach us about the micrometeorology of the southern Amazonian 'transitional' forest? Quite a lot, it turns out. This particular forest is located between the rain forest of the Amazon Basin and the tropical Brazilian Savanna, so it plays a crucial role in both regional and global biogeochemical cycling.

Tropical forests and savannas exchange vast amounts of energy and matter with their surroundings and, as such, contribute to the local and global climate. They can accumulate large quantities of carbon, for example, which helps partially offset anthropogenic carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions.

A central challenge in the field of metabolic engineering is the efficient identification of a metabolic pathway genotype that maximizes specific productivity over a robust range of process conditions. A review from researchers at Michigan State University in East Lansing, MI covers the challenges of optimizing specific productivity of metabolic pathways in cells and new advances in pathway creation and screening.

WASHINGTON, D.C., Dec. 29, 2015 -- Thermal properties of cells regulate their ability to store, transport or exchange heat with their environment. So gaining control of these properties is of great interest for optimizing cryopreservation -- the process of freezing and storing blood or tissues, which is also used when transporting organs for transplants.

Cell activity influences thermal properties, and at the tissue level this explains why infected wounds feel warm to the touch. Cancer cells, in particular, contain a thermal signature that reflects a higher metabolism than those of healthy cells. This feature is useful for grading tumors and can be used to complement classical histological analysis.