Monthly Archives: February 2011
Spacecraft that think for themselves
Scientists at the University of Southampton have developed a new control system for spacecraft, allowing them to make decisions more independently than ever before using artificially intelligent ‘sysbrains’. Natural language programming techniques allow the software agent sysbrains to ‘read’ and understand English language documents written in ‘system English’, or ‘sEnglish’. These documents ‘teach’ the vehicles [...]
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The ‘bear’ necessities of hibernation
“I wish I could hibernate like a bear this winter!” This sentiment is often expressed by Cambridge University students as they slog through the darkest moments of their degrees. But they might want to reassess what “hibernate like a bear” really means. Black bears display unusual patterns of metabolic and thermal regulation during hibernation as [...]
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Pollen discovered to be a new line of plant defence
Ecologists from Zurich have shown that flowering plants produce chemical defences in their pollen that prevent bees from being too greedy. Plants have evolved a variety of physical barriers, such as anthers, that limit the amount of pollen taken by a single bee but this discovery emphasises how critical protecting their pollen is to plants. [...]
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New class of magnetic atomic clusters discovered
Atomic clusters are particles containing a small number of atoms, which often possess unique properties that make them different from both a single atom and the solid state. ‘Magic clusters’ are particularly stable at a specific size and composition; for instance, clusters of sodium exhibit unusual stability at 2, 8, 18, … atoms due to [...]
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Twirly-whirly electrons
Transmission electron microscopes (TEM) are used to study and image a wide variety of materials due to their sub-nanometre resolving power. In a TEM electrons are shot through an object and adsorption, deflection and energy loss of the electrons is measured. A team of scientists from the National Institute of Standards and Technology fitted a [...]
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[POPULAR Science] – Tim Radford (9th March 2011)
Science for People who Don’t Want to Know About Science This is the first of BlueSci’s science communcations talks. Tim Radford is currently a freelance journalist, but has previously worked for The Guardian as their science editor. In his 32 years with the paper he also edited the letters, arts and literary sections. He has [...]
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New strategy to engineer universal vascular grafts
The need for donor organs and tissues for transplants is a well known and so far unsolved problem. Patients suffering from coronary artery disease and peripheral arterial disease especially need new blood vessels if their own vessels are blocked or irreparably destroyed. In these cases, if available, the patient’s own blood vessels are used to replace [...]
Posted in Medical & clinical, News 1 Comment
Eggs show arctic mercury cycling may be linked to ice cover
A team of researchers has used seabird eggs to suggest that the level of mercury cycling in the flora and fauna of the Arctic is related to the amount of ice cover. Mercury in the environment is converted by microbes into organic forms, especially methylmercury. This form of the pollutant is soluble in lipids, so [...]
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Can meditation change your brain?
Meditation has been used for thousands of years in religious rituals and as an aid to relaxation and thought. A new study, led by researchers at the Massachusetts General Hospital, suggests that the effects of meditation may go much further. The density of participants’ grey matter, which contains the majority of a person’s neuronal cell [...]
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Disease epidemic endangers bats