news 2016


Category
Physics - 22.12.2016
Tapping into long-lived sound waves in glass
Tapping into long-lived sound waves in glass
Yale scientists have shown how to enhance the lifetime of sound waves traveling through glass - the material at the heart of fiber optic technologies. The discovery will be described in the January edition of.

Health - Life Sciences - 22.12.2016
Protein that activates immune response harms body’s ability to fight HIV
UCLA-led researchers suggest that blocking type I interferon may help combat the virus that causes AIDS.

Economics - 22.12.2016
Study suggests hydraulic fracturing boosts local economies
The first nationwide study of the comprehensive local impacts of hydraulic fracturing finds that when costs and benefits are added up, communities on average benefit from allowing it.

Health - Economics - 22.12.2016
Healthy behaviors determine weight-loss surgery success
Bariatric surgery can slim your body, but attitude and behavior also play key roles in long-term weight loss, according to new research from the Cornell Food and Brand Lab. 'Although very effective, bariatric surgery is a not a low-effort means of losing weight,' said lead author Anna-Leena Vuorinen of VTT Technical Research Center of Finland, who performed the research as a visiting scholar at the Food and Brand Lab.

Life Sciences - 22.12.2016
Predictive kinetic model paves the way for designing microbial factories
A representation of k-ecoli457 model of E. coli metabolism. Red X's denote the location of reaction deletions in the mutant data sets. Reactions in the previously developed core model15 are shown in grey (no flux data) and blue (with flux data) while the additional reactions in k-ecoli457 are shown in green (no flux data).

Health - Life Sciences - 22.12.2016
Study provides roadmap to more personalized cancer treatment
FINDINGS. Researchers have found that people with advanced head and neck squamous cell carcinoma and the KRAS-variant inherited genetic mutation have significantly improved survival when given a short course of the drug cetuximab in combination with standard chemotherapy and radiation.

Life Sciences - Health - 21.12.2016
Stressed snakes strike first
UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. Whether a wild cottonmouth snake will attempt to strike in an encounter depends on its baseline stress level, according to a team of scientists led by undergraduate researcher Mark Herr.

Social Sciences - 21.12.2016
Children can ‘catch’ social bias through nonverbal signals expressed by adults
Children can 'catch' social bias through nonverbal signals expressed by adults
Most conscientious adults tend to avoid making biased or discriminatory comments in the presence of children. But new research from the University of Washington suggests that preschool-aged children can learn bias even through nonverbal signals displayed by adults, such as a condescending tone of voice or a disapproving look.

Life Sciences - Health - 21.12.2016
Distinctive brain pattern may underlie dyslexia
Distinctive brain pattern may underlie dyslexia
A distinctive neural signature found in the brains of people with dyslexia may explain why these individuals have difficulty learning to read, according to a new study from MIT neuroscientists. The researchers discovered that in people with dyslexia, the brain has a diminished ability to acclimate to a repeated input - a trait known as neural adaptation.

Art and Design - 21.12.2016
Kids think stereotypes reflect how world should be
ANN ARBOR'Once children believe that a group is characterized by a certain trait, they think individual people within that group should also be judged by that trait, according to a University of Michigan study.

Health - Materials Science - 21.12.2016
Top Los Alamos science stories of 2016
Top Los Alamos science stories of 2016
From discoveries on Mars to breakthroughs in cancer research, from national security science to materials science, 2016 has proven to be another productive year for Los Alamos National Laboratory achievements.

Philosophy - 21.12.2016
Emojis’ So does the rest of the world
ANN ARBOR?People worldwide love , except the French, who prefer , according to a new study of global emoji usage. Researchers at the University of Michigan and Peking University analyzed 427 million messages from nearly 4 million smartphone users in 212 countries and regions to see if emoji use was universal or differed based on user location and culture.

Environment - 20.12.2016
Unexamined risks from tar sands oil may threaten oceans
Unexamined risks from tar sands oil may threaten oceans
A lack of publicly available information about the chemical composition of fuel mined from tar sands hampers efforts to safeguard marine habitats. A new analysis recommends that officials gain a better understanding of the fuel's environmental impacts before setting regulations.

Health - Life Sciences - 20.12.2016
Researchers model how ’publication bias’ does - and doesn’t - affect the ’canonization’ of facts in science
Researchers model how 'publication bias' does - and doesn't - affect the 'canoni
Arguing in a Boston courtroom in 1770, John Adams famously pronounced , "Facts are stubborn things,” which cannot be altered by "our wishes, our inclinations or the dictates of our passion. But facts, however stubborn, must pass through the trials of human perception before being acknowledged - or "canonized” - as facts.

Life Sciences - Health - 20.12.2016
Brain begins repairs after ‘silent strokes’
Brain begins repairs after 'silent strokes'
UCLA researchers have shown that the brain can be repaired — and brain function can be recovered — after a stroke in animals. The discovery could have important implications for treating a mind-robbing condition known as a white matter stroke, a major cause of dementia.

Physics - Electroengineering - 20.12.2016
Scientists detect a quantum crystal of electrons and ‘watch’ it melt
Scientists detect a quantum crystal of electrons and 'watch' it melt
For the first time, MIT physicists have observed a highly ordered crystal of electrons in a semiconducting material and documented its melting, much like ice thawing into water. The observations confirm a fundamental phase transition in quantum mechanics that was theoretically proposed more than 80 years ago but not experimentally documented until now.

Physics - 19.12.2016
Building Better Batteries
Building Better Batteries
Lithium-ion batteries, widely used in devices ranging from electric cars to iPhones, are composed of a cathode made from a positively charged lithium compound and an anode composed of negatively charged carbon.

Life Sciences - Health - 19.12.2016
DNA markers distinguish between harmless, deadly bacteria
DNA markers distinguish between harmless, deadly bacteria
The virulent pathogen that causes the disease tularemia, or "rabbit fever," was weaponized during past world wars and is considered a potential bioweapon.

Agronomy/Food Science - Environment - 19.12.2016
Dust Bowl would devastate today’s crops, study finds
A drought on the scale of the legendary Dust Bowl crisis of the 1930s would have similarly destructive effects on U.S. agriculture today, despite technological and agricultural advances, a new study finds.

Environment - Computer Science - 19.12.2016
New Leaf Study Sheds Light on ‘Shady’ Past
New Leaf Study Sheds Light on 'Shady' Past
A new study led by a research scientist at the Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) highlights a literally shady practice in plant science that has in some cases underestimated plants' rate of growth and photosynthesis, among other traits.

Philosophy - 19.12.2016
Turns out ‘dirty money’ does bother people
Turns out 'dirty money' does bother people
People tend to view money through a moral lens and are more likely to turn down or donate stolen bills and coins than 'clean' cash, a new study has found. Classic economics suggests that the only thing that matters about money is its amount, not what it looks like or where it has been.

Health - Life Sciences - 16.12.2016
Bacteria control levels of dangerous pollutant in seabirds
Despite ongoing global pollution, researchers have discovered that levels of mercury in seabirds off the coast of B.C. have remained relatively stable over the past 50 years. Surprisingly, mercury in seabirds is now actually slightly lower.

Environment - Physics - 16.12.2016
Ocean temperatures faithfully recorded in mother-of-pearl
For News Media Pupa Gilbert (608) 262-5829, pupa [at] physics.wisc (p) edu - × - Nacre, also known as mother-of pearl, is the biomineral that lines some seashells. New research shows it keeps a record of ancient ocean temperatures.

Linguistics/Literature - Environment - 16.12.2016
What makes influential science? Telling a good story
It turns out that even in the world of scientific writing, your eighth-grade teacher was right: how you write can matter as much as what you write. In a study published Dec. 15 in the journal PLOS ONE, researchers from the University of Washington looked at the abstracts from more than 700 scientific papers about climate change to find out what makes a paper influential in its field.

Life Sciences - Health - 15.12.2016
Method to stabilize X chromosomes in human embryonic stem cells
FINDINGS Researchers at the Eli and Edythe Broad Center of Regenerative Medicine and Stem Cell Research at UCLA have published two studies demonstrating that the classic type of human embryonic stem cells most commonly used in research can pass along a chromosomal instability to tissue-specific cells.

Health - Life Sciences - 15.12.2016
Zika-linked birth defects more extensive than previously thought, UCLA-led research finds
New UCLA-led research finds that Zika-linked abnormalities that occur in human fetuses are more extensive — and severe — than previously thought, with 46 percent of 125 pregnancies among Zika-infected women resulting in birth defects in newborns or ending in fetal death.

Astronomy/Space Science - 15.12.2016
Dark past of planet-eating ‘Death Star’
HIP68468, a twin star to the sun about 300 light-years away, may have swallowed one or more of its planets, based on lithium and refractory elements recently discovered near its surface. An international team of scientists, including researchers from the University of Chicago, has made the rare discovery of a planetary system with a host star similar to Earth's sun.

Life Sciences - Economics - 15.12.2016
Analyzing brain patterns may help neuroscientists increase people’s confidence, reduce fear
Analyzing brain patterns may help neuroscientists increase people's confidence,
A new technique of analyzing brain patterns appears to help people overcome fear and build self-confidence. The approach, developed by a UCLA-led team of neuroscientists, is described in two new papers, published in the journals Nature Communications and Nature Human Behaviour.

Life Sciences - Health - 15.12.2016
From a single genetic mutation, secrets of ’boy in the bubble’ disease revealed
From a single genetic mutation, secrets of 'boy in the bubble' disease revealed
UC Berkeley was part of an interdisciplinary, international research team that has identified the rare genetic mutation responsible for a unique case of 'boy in the bubble' disease, known as severe combined immunodeficiency (SCID), a deadly immune system disorder.

Health - Life Sciences - 14.12.2016
Chinese herbal treatment shows signs of effectiveness in bone marrow recovery
FINDINGS UCLA researchers have found that a Chinese herbal regimen called TSY-1 (Tianshengyuan-1) increased telomerase activity in normal blood cells but decreased it in cancer cells. Telomerase is an enzyme responsible for the production of telomeres, which play an important role in the regulation of normal cell division.

Physics - Chemistry - 13.12.2016
Measuring radiation damage on the fly
Astronomy/Space Science - Environment - 13.12.2016
First detection of boron on the surface of Mars
Environment - Life Sciences - 13.12.2016
Conservationists widen toolkit for predator management
Life Sciences - Health - 9.12.2016
How Complex Life Arose
Life Sciences - Health - 9.12.2016
How Complex Life Arose
Physics - Electroengineering - 29.11.2016
Engineers create prototype chip just three atoms thick
Health - Computer Science - 28.11.2016
New Health Literacy Digital Divide
Physics - Electroengineering - 25.11.2016
New method for analyzing crystal structure
Astronomy/Space Science - Physics - 21.11.2016
A Stellar Circle of Life
Life Sciences - History/Archeology - 21.11.2016
History of Cells Told Through MEMOIR
Life Sciences - Health - 21.11.2016
Key protein that binds to LDL cholesterol
Health - Life Sciences - 15.11.2016
Key to predicting outcomes of autism treatment
Physics - Chemistry - 15.11.2016
A New Way to Image Solar Cells in 3-D
Astronomy/Space Science - Earth Sciences - 10.11.2016
Dino-Killing Asteroid Made Rocks Behave like Liquid
Chemistry - 9.11.2016
Spray tuning
Psychology - 3.11.2016
Places are targets of racial bias
Health - Life Sciences - 3.11.2016
Mutational signatures mark cancer’s smoking gun
Health - Earth Sciences - 3.11.2016
Decoding the medical cost mystery
Environment - Agronomy/Food Science - 2.11.2016
Birds maintain rare plant species, study finds
Health - Agronomy/Food Science - 1.11.2016
U-M study bodes well for low-carb eaters
Astronomy/Space Science - Earth Sciences - 28.10.2016
Titan is gorges: Moon features steep, liquid-filled canyons