Making decisions is hard. Making collective decisions is harder. Think about how hard it would be to decide where to buy a house. Then think about how hard it would be to decide where to buy a house with several hundred roommates. As unmanageable as that sounds a new study shows that ant colonies are able to do just that.
For a soldier wounded in combat or civilian hurt in a car crash, pain does not end in the emergency room. For many amputees the physical hardship has only just begun. An amputation is immune to time and rehabilitation; it results not only in a physical loss but also in the loss of the victim’s ability to carry out normal life as he or she once knew it. Most will go on to receive prosthetics of some sort, but as inanimate limbs, a prosthetic is inherently limited in its potential to restore varied function.
Recently released prescription guidelines increase the number of adults likely to benefit from cholesterol-lowering drugs called statins from 15.5% to 31%.
A rare microbe that survives on very little to eat has been found in two places on Earth: spacecraft clean rooms in Florida and South America.
In modern day society, countless wifi, radio and microwave signals are given off from electronic devices such as cell phones. These signals are essential in connecting people to social media and to each other. However, manufacturing signals requires energy that is wasted after they finish transferring their information. In the face of a looming energy crisis, scientists are searching for methods that can convert these signals into usable energy, minimizing the loss of energy when an electronic device is used. A promising method has been discovered recently by a research team led by Steven A. Cummer, an electrical and computer engineering professor at Duke University.
A newcomer named ISON is paying a visit to our inner solar system just in time for this year’s Thanksgiving meal. If your eye has any inclination towards the night sky you might want to set your alarm at an ungodly hour for a chance to glimpse what is to be a spectacular show from outer space.
Robots are the main feature in countless sci-fi movies. They are usually extremely intelligent, resilient and, sometimes, eerily indistinguishable from flesh-and-blood humans. On the contrary, current generations of the robots are crude attempts at imitating those in the movies. Robots in use today are often bulky instruments used for industrial manufacturing. There are some, however, that are being produced which aim to resemble the intelligent machines portrayed on the big screen.
Mondays just got better. According to a study published Oct 28 in JAMA Internal Medicine, smokers are more likely to consider giving up their habit on Monday than any other day of the week. This conclusion is based on Google search data: the researchers monitored searches on quitting smoking conducted in English, French, Chinese, Portuguese, Russian, and Spanish between 2008 and 2012. Search frequencies were the higher early in the week, Monday being the clear winner. The number of searches on Mondays was 25 percent higher than the combined average of searches on Tuesday through Sunday. The pattern was consistent across all languages.
Researchers from Johns Hopkins University and Boston University have identified two biological pathways as the major causes of the initiation of rheumatoid arthritis. The pathways, once activated, lead to a series of events that cause citrullinated proteins to build up, resulting in an autoimmune attack. They hope that this ground-breaking discovery can lead to new ways to stall the progression of and maybe even cure rheumatoid arthritis.
Language is an extremely crucial part of the human culture. It allows us to communicate our feelings, pass on stories, and relay important information to other people. From the moment we are born, we rely on language – both body language and spoken words – to build relationships and develop the skills and knowledge that we need to survive.
In 2011, the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) lowered the maximum shift of thirty consecutive hours to sixteen for first year medical residents. Sandra Boodman, writing in Kaiser Health News, highlights several studies that question ACGME’s decision and its consequences.
According to Saudi Arabia’s Health Ministry pet camel was found to be infected by MERS — Middle Easter Respiratory Syndrome — a relatively young virus, first reported in 2012. While MERS has not been declared as a pandemic, the WHO has confirmed 149 infections and 63 deaths, as of October 2013. The owner of the camel was also recently hospitalized for MERS, which prompted the investigation of its origin.
Early 2013, scientists at the MIT have developed a new efficient candidate electrode for rechargeable lithium-oxygen batteries, which could potentially change the future of batteries and decrease their overall cost. Li-O2 batteries have been gaining popularity over the years for its high specific energy densities, meaning they can store a relatively large amount of power. During use, the battery undergoes a chemical reaction involving Li+ reacting with oxygen to produce Li2O2 and an electrical current. Then, the batteries can be easily recharged and used again. To recharge, the inverse reaction operates, converting Li2O2 back to Li+ ions. The convenience of Li-O2 batteries has spawned great acceptance of rechargeable batteries all around.
Indeed, there are strange, strange things lurking in the deep.
As the next wave of court hearings over patent disputes between Apple and Samsung rage on, investors are growing tepid over Samsung stock, which lost one fifth of its value from June to to mid-July. But it’s not Samsung’s viability that has some investors worried; the Korean handset maker currently makes 1 out of every 3 phones sold worldwide. It sells more than twice as many as its next closest competitor, Apple.
What if you could print your own bandages? Or skin grafts? How about a new liver? Living in the future is a strange and interesting place, and it grows more interesting by the year. Scientists at Germany’s Fraunhofer Institute for Interfacial Engineering and Biotechnology are advancing the field of tissue engineering—developing biologically-derived tissue replacements—by automating tissue replication through the use of inkjet printers.
During the search for our doppelgangers in the world, we may miss the question that eludes many of our minds: What exactly makes each face so distinct? It’s common sense that we have eyes, a nose, and a mouth, but how is it possible that we can recognize between hundreds of our friends solely from these features? Geneticist Axel Visel of Berkeley Lab’s Genomics Division has made discoveries in the field that allow us to better answer this question.
Over the past decade, the scientific community has agreed that the average global temperature is rising. Some attribute this increase to the production of greenhouse gases; others believe that the rising temperatures are part of a bigger cycle, consisting of warm and cold periods. Nevertheless, there is an evident rise in temperatures. Recently, a research team from the University of Colorado Boulder presented convincing evidence that global warming is a result of greenhouse gas emissions.
Astronomers from the University of California, Riverside, working in collaboration with the University of Texas at Austin, the National Optical Astronomy Observatories, and other institutions nationwide have discovered what they believe to the be farthest known galaxy to date.
The next time you’re watching that baseball player hit a mammoth home run or that defensive linesman crushing the quarterback, or even that cyclist sprinting up an almost vertical hill well ahead of the competition, don’t only wonder if the athlete is on steroids, but also wonder if he or she has ever been on steroids. A new paper recently published in The Journal of Physiology written by researchers from the University of Oslo suggests that exposure to performing enhancing drugs (PEDs) may have a memory effect, i.e., the drug may produce its intended effect long after it is initially taken. This is in direct contrast to the current thinking that PEDs lose their effects shortly after administration. These findings can have serious implications with regard to drug testing policies.
