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Regenerative Shock Absorbers Boost Fuel Efficiency Using Road Bumps To Generate Energy

Regenerative Shock Absorbers Boost Fuel Efficiency Using Road Bumps To Generate Energy

Feb 15 2009 | comment(s)

A team of MIT undergraduate students has invented a shock absorber that harnesses energy from small bumps in the road, generating electricity while it smoothes the ride more effectively than conventional shocks. The students hope to initially find customers among companies that operate large fleets of heavy vehicles. They have already drawn interest from the U.S. military and several truck manufacturers.
Omega-3 Fatty Acids Reduce Liver Damage From Obesity

Omega-3 Fatty Acids Reduce Liver Damage From Obesity

Feb 15 2009 | comment(s)

According to a recent study, diets rich in omega-3 fatty acids protect the liver from damage caused by obesity and the insulin resistance it provokes. This research should give doctors and nutritionists valuable information when recommending and formulating weight-loss diets and help explain why some obese patients are more likely to suffer some complications associated with obesity. Omega-3 fatty acids can be found in canola oil and fish.
Are Ancient Hot Springs Evidence Of Life On Mars?

Are Ancient Hot Springs Evidence Of Life On Mars?

Feb 15 2009 | comment(s)

To astrobiologists, hot springs hold a great deal of significance.   Many of the most ancient organisms on Earth thrived in and around hydrothermal springs and their modern descendants still do.

If life forms have ever been present on Mars, hot spring deposits would be ideal locations to search for physical or chemical evidence of these organisms and data from the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) suggesting there might be evidence of ancient springs in the Vernal Crater would be a fine place to look, according to a report in Astrobiology.
Aerosols More Damaging To Atmosphere Than Typically Considered

Aerosols More Damaging To Atmosphere Than Typically Considered

Feb 15 2009 | comment(s)

Aerosols are fine particles suspended in the atmosphere. Sources of human-generated aerosols include industry, motor vehicles and vegetation burning. Natural sources include volcanoes, dust storms and ocean plankton. Human-generated aerosols have long been known to exert a cooling effect on climate. This has partly masked the warming effect of increasing greenhouse gases. As aerosol pollution is predicted to decrease over the next few decades, unmasking of the greenhouse effect may lead to accelerated global warming.
Blogging The AAAS Meeting In Chicago Day 2

Blogging The AAAS Meeting In Chicago Day 2

Feb 15 2009 | comment(s)

The interesting thing about being in a meeting like this is seeing some outstanding science and then seeing something that makes you wonder if people really know what they are doing.   Day 2 was when some of the more outrageous stuff, and therefore more outrageous headlines in the mass media, really came out.  If you want to start with Day 1, go here.
The African Tortoise Effect

The African Tortoise Effect

Feb 14 2009 | comment(s)

Shortly after the Second World War, the famous naturalist, Gerald Durrell, was collecting animals in Cameroon.  While he generally got on well with the locals wherever he went, one frustration he encountered was that villagers might again and again offer him the same tortoise, despite his emphatic protestations that he did not want it.  But they would reply "You didn't want it from that man, but maybe you want it from me."
Explanation Part Two

Explanation Part Two

Feb 14 2009 | comment(s)

--- ---WARNING--- --- THIS IS RAW UNEDITED CONTENT --- it essentially amounts to stream of conscious and I have not gone back over it since I wrote it. I have included it because it contains some elements that I want to convey that links with ideas from previous exerpts. Also It is helpful for me to see peoples comments on what I have so far. I do plan on breaking this down and starting from scratch. I hope to publish the final product. --- --- And now... Explanation Part Two...

Transposons - Jumping Genes In Regulatory Networks

Transposons - Jumping Genes In Regulatory Networks

Feb 14 2009 | comment(s)

Research performed in the Center for Biomolecular Science&Engineering (CBSE) at the University of California, Santa Cruz, suggests that mobile repetitive elements--also known as transposons or "jumping genes"--do indeed affect the evolution of gene regulatory networks.
Fix A Broken Heart - Literally - With Adult Stem Cells

Fix A Broken Heart - Literally - With Adult Stem Cells

Feb 14 2009 | comment(s)

A little more than a year after University of Wisconsin-Madison scientists showed they could turn skin cells back into stem cells, they have pulsating proof that these "induced" stem cells can indeed form the specialized cells that make up heart muscle. 

In a study published  in Circulation Research, the team showed that they were able to grow working heart-muscle cells (cardiomyocytes) from induced pluripotent stem cells, known as iPS cells. 

The heart cells were originally reprogrammed from human skin cells by James Thomson and Junying Yu, two of Kamp's co-authors on the study. 
Blogging The AAAS Meeting In Chicago

Blogging The AAAS Meeting In Chicago

Feb 14 2009 | comment(s)

AAAS bills its annual meeting as 'the world's largest general science conference', which sounds just narrow enough to be true and since I am a patron member and we're a science community (indeed, we are the world's largest independent online science community) I decided to hop a plane and attend.

Yes, to Chicago in February.  In two hotels that are not connected.  Obviously this is a cost-saving measure, though it seems likely none of the savings AAAS made were passed on to members, who paid the same cost as usual.
In Physics, What We Don't Find Can Be Important Too

In Physics, What We Don't Find Can Be Important Too

Feb 13 2009 | comment(s)

In all the hype surrounding the Large Hadron Collider during the last few years, it was easy to miss the fact that low energy physics was still accomplishing a lot - and that no one was sure what the LHC could really do because we didn't know what needed discovering.
 
What we think it will do  is based on the success of the indirect approach in science.   Darwin's evolution by natural selection, for example, gained early acceptance because without it nothing much in biology made sense.  Later discoveries including genetics and a detailed fossil record reaffirmed that what makes the most sense can often be true.  
Helen Fisher On Who We Love And How Science Can Help Us Find Our Soulmate

Helen Fisher On Who We Love And How Science Can Help Us Find Our Soulmate

Feb 13 2009 | comment(s)

Helen Fisher at TED, 2008

I recently spoke to biological anthropologist Dr. Helen Fisher about her groundbreaking work on the chemical basis of our personality and its influence on who we fall in love with.  As it turns out, science can shed a lot of light on a topic previously dominated by doubt, horoscopes, and what our mama told us.

 “So have you read the book?” asked Fisher.  “What ‘type’ are you?” 

 “Explorer/Negotiator.  Are you sizing me up according to my ‘type’ now?” I teased.
Art as a Daytime Astronomer

Art as a Daytime Astronomer

Feb 13 2009 | comment(s)

Just a little weekend tidbit, art from the science world. Sometimes, during talks, I'll see art where others see just a data or figure. Here are two cases from a recent conference that I love.

This one could be called "Relationship between a CME-driven shock and a coronal metric type II burst", excerpted, from Y. Liu. But I prefer to call it 'sunset on the sea':

data as art

If you click on the image, you can see the full data plot, taken (without forewarning to the scientists) from their online powerpoint slides.

Valentine's Day - 5 Easy Solutions For You Recession Romeos (And 2 For You Really Lazy Ones)

Valentine's Day - 5 Easy Solutions For You Recession Romeos (And 2 For You Really Lazy Ones)

Feb 13 2009 | comment(s)

The Brits are always thinking ahead and we could learn a thing or two from them on this side of the pond.   Those cheeky blokes are ditching pricey baubles in favor of if-we-keep-printing-money-we-will-be-Zimbabwe type ways of romancing loved ones this Valentine's Day - that is to say, without throwing out a lot of dough.    

Research from a voice-to-text company over there called SpinVox claims almost two thirds of men (65%) have made huge cuts in spending this Valentines day.   1.6 million even claim they are following in the footsteps of Byron, Keats, and Shakespeare; not just by being poor, struggling lotharios getting by on charm but also by penning their own love poems this February 14th.

ISCO And The Power Of Parthenotes

ISCO And The Power Of Parthenotes

Feb 13 2009 | comment(s)

I am a firm believer in the possibility and promise of embryonic stem cells. In a politically, religiously and even scientifically charged climate, this is a risky thing to announce. But as a journalist, I must divorce myself from my own personal opinions and biases and present the facts.  That being said, it is still satisfying writing upon a topic that you believe in. This was the case when I wrote an article about Geron Pharmaceuticals recently launched human clinical trials using embryonic stem cell research to repair spinal cord damage.
Superstitious? A Black Cat's Proof That 2 = 1

Superstitious? A Black Cat's Proof That 2 = 1

Feb 13 2009 | comment(s)

Today, of all days, anything is possible. The laws of man and god are subverted by that of Murphy. This day is made doubly potent by its placement before the geek's darkest day of the year: Valentine's Day. And during this day on which anything that can go wrong will go wrong, it seems that even the cold truth of mathematics itself has failed. Specifically, two equals one. Damn. You shoulda been more consistent with the salt, garlic and Haitian door totems.
Songbirds Fly Fast - Really Fast

Songbirds Fly Fast - Really Fast

Feb 13 2009 | comment(s)

A York University research team has tracked the migration of songbirds,  the most common type of bird in our skies, by outfitting them with tiny geolocator backpacks – a world first and interesting because they are too small for conventional satellite tracking.    They now say we have underestimated the flight performance of songbirds dramatically.
Adaptation Trumps Fitness In Evolution Simulation, Says Study

Adaptation Trumps Fitness In Evolution Simulation, Says Study

Feb 13 2009 | comment(s)

Adaptation is one of the driving forces behind evolution, along with selection and the appearance of new species, say a group of Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München researchers, but they say that the interpretation familiar since Darwin - these processes increase the "fitness" of the species overall, since, of two competing species, only the fittest would survive - is actually a case of the fittest being the 'weakest'  most often.
Cheap Valentine's Day Roses Are Killing Kenya, Says Biologist

Cheap Valentine's Day Roses Are Killing Kenya, Says Biologist

Feb 13 2009 | comment(s)

University of Leicester biologist Dr David Harper has conducted research for over 25 years at Lake Naivasha in Kenya and says today that your cheap boyfriend's (unless you are are the cheap boyfriend, in which case he means you) cut-price Valentine roses which are exported for sale to the UK are 'bleeding that country dry.'

Harper claimed that cheap roses grown by companies that had no concern for the environment were having a devastating effect on the ecology of Lake Naivasha - the center of Kenya's horticultural industry.  Instead, he urged UK shoppers to buy Fair Trade roses produced by companies that  he says are environmentally conscientious and had a transparent supply chain.
Are You Smarter Than A Pigeon?

Are You Smarter Than A Pigeon?

Feb 13 2009 | comment(s)

Are you smarter than a pigeon?   We don't mean smarter as in able to figure out why it's $14  a day for lousy internet access in a hotel or $14 to see an old movie in your hotel room or the hospitality industry's general preference for the number 14, we mean practical social smarts, like meeting the opposite sex.    Animals have "social smarts" too, it turns out, with a range of behaviors that can enhance species survival, according to studies being presented here in Chicago at the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) annual meeting. 

Evolution shouldn't leave out social behavior, it seems.