Columbia University researchers led by Shree K. Nayar have developed the first video camera to be fully self-powered – its pixels not only measuring the incident light, but also converting it into electric power. The team is presenting its work next week at the International Conference on Computational Photography at Rice University in Houston. “We […]
Using data from NASA’s WISE orbiting observatory, a team of scientists say they have found no evidence of the mid-infrared energy emissions we would expect to observe from other advanced civilizations. The research is a significant expansion of earlier work in this area, which looked at only 100 or so galaxies. “The idea behind our […]
We’ve known for a long time that there is water in the form of ice on Mars. But now, new data from NASA’s rover Curiosity indicates that it’s possible that there is liquid water on the surface of Mars. Scientists from the University of Copenhagen say the water doesn’t freeze because of calcium perchlorate, which […]
The self-organization properties of DNA-like molecular fragments four billion years ago may have guided their own growth into repeating chemical chains long enough to act as a basis for primitive life, say an international team of scientists from the University of Colorado Boulder and the University of University of Milan. A paper describing the intriguing […]
Working with mice, researchers at the University of Toyama were able to generate artificial links between unrelated pieces of information stored in memory, resulting in long-lasting changes in behavior. The work, published in in Cell Reports, may point the way to the development of new treatments for disorders such as PTSD, where the main symptoms […]
It’s taken millions of years for evolution to perfect how we walk, but research published in the journal Nature shows that humans can get better efficiency – around 7 percent – using an unpowered exoskeleton to modify the structure of their ankles. To gain an advantage over nature, North Carolina State University and Carnegie Mellon […]
Although massive vegetation loss is still occurring in Asia and South America, an analysis of 20 years of satellite data has revealed that the regrowth of forests in China, Australia, and Africa mean that the total amount of vegetation globally has increased by almost 4 billion tons of carbon since 2003. The new analysis, by […]
In an intriguing new study, University of Warwick researchers say that while low educational attainment is associated with mental illness, happiness – or mental wellbeing – was equally likely across all levels of educational attainment. The study, published in the British Journal of Psychiatry, set out to examine socioeconomic factors related to high mental wellbeing, […]
Poop could be a goldmine – literally. Surprisingly, human biosolids contain gold, silver, and other metals, as well as rare elements such as palladium and vanadium that are used in electronics and alloys. Now, researchers are looking at identifying the metals that are getting flushed and how they can be recovered. In a paper presented […]
High-fat diets have long been known to increase the risk for heart disease and stroke, but there is new evidence to link diets high in fat with a range of psychiatric disorders. Central to this newly recognized mind-gut relationship are the microorganisms that inhabit our intestines – the gut microbiome. Increasingly, scientists are finding the […]
