Applied Physics
Disrupt the gene that regulates the biological clocks in mice and they become manic, exhibiting behaviors similar to humans with bipolar disorder, UT Southwestern Medical Center researchers have found.
In a study available online in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, scientists from UT Southwestern show that the Clock gene, which controls the body's circadian rhythms, may be integrally involved in the development of bipolar disorder. Circadian rhythms include the daily ups-and-downs of waking, eating and other processes such as body temperature, hormone levels, blood…
Using a systems biological analysis of genome-scale data from the model plant Arabidopsis, an international team of researchers identified that the master gene controlling the biological clock is sensitive to nutrient status.
This hypothesis derived from multi-network analysis of Arabidopsis genomic data, and validated experimentally, has shed light on how nutrients affect the molecular networks controlling plant growth and development in response to nutrient sensing.
They note that the systems biology approach to uncovering nutrient regulated gene networks provides new targets for…
Some 40 years after the release of the classic science fiction movie Fantastic Voyage, researchers in the NanoRobotics Laboratory of École Polytechnique de Montréal’s Department of Computer Engineering and Institute of Biomedical Engineering have achieved a major technological breakthrough in the field of medical robotics. They have succeeded for the first time in guiding, in vivo and via computer control, a microdevice inside an artery, at a speed of 10 centimetres a second.
Under the direction of Professor Sylvain Martel, holder of the Canada Research Chair in Micro/Nanosystem Development…
On the latest episode of my podcast, Books and Ideas , I talk with Lee M Silver about his recent book,Challenging Nature: The Clash of Science and Spirituality at the New Frontiers of Life. We discuss the confrontation of Faith and Biotechnology. His book is an in depth anaylsis of some of the key issues such as embryonic stem cell research and genetic engineering (including the genetic modification of crops). He also observes that faith in "Mother Earth" underlies those who tout organic farming and "natural" medicine over the use of biotechnology.
I learned a lot from Dr. Silver's book and…
Purdue University chemical engineers have proposed a new environmentally friendly process for producing liquid fuels from plant matter - or biomass - potentially available from agricultural and forest waste, providing all of the fuel needed for "the entire U.S. transportation sector."
The new approach modifies conventional methods for producing liquid fuels from biomass by adding hydrogen from a "carbon-free" energy source, such as solar or nuclear power, during a step called gasification. Adding hydrogen during this step suppresses the formation of carbon dioxide and increases the…
The Internet is enough of a marvel that most people would never ask, "Is this really how we would build it if we could design it all today?" But asking that very question is the job of a broad-based team of Stanford researchers. Taking a nothing-is-sacred approach to better meet human communications needs, this month they are launching a new program called the Clean Slate Design for the Internet. They will present their ideas March 21 during a daylong workshop at the annual meeting of the Stanford Computer Forum.
"How should the Internet look in 15 years?" asks Nick McKeown, an associate…
Instruments known as solid-state telescopes (SSTs), built with detectors fabricated at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and carried aboard the recently launched THEMIS mission, have delivered their first data on how charged particles in the solar wind interact with Earth's magnetic field to shape the planet's magnetosphere.
THEMIS's principal investigator is Vassilis Angelopoulos of the University of California at Berkeley's Space Sciences Laboratory (SSL), which is leading the mission for NASA and which designed and built the instruments in collaboration with agencies in Germany,…
Although scientists know about basic voice production—the two "vocal folds" in the larynx vibrate and pulsate airflow from the lungs—the larynx is one of the body's least understood organs.
Sound produced by vocal-fold vibration has been extensively researched, but the specifics of how airflow actually affects sound have not been shown using an animal model—until now.
Vortices, or areas of rotational motion that look like smoke rings, produce sound in jet engines. New research from the University of Cincinnati (UC) uses methods developed from the study of jet noise to identify similar…
Imagine having a discussion with Isaac Newton or Albert Einstein on the nature of the universe, where their 3-D, life-sized representations looked you in the eye, examined your body language, considered voice nuances and phraseology of your questions, then answered you in a way that is so real you would swear the images were alive.
This was an opening scene from an episode of the TV show "Star Trek" almost a decade and a half ago. A new research project between the University of Illinois at Chicago and the University of Central Florida in Orlando may soon make such imaginary conversations a…
Human embryonic stem cells (hESCs) hold great promise for benefiting degenerative diseases, and do so by invoking multiple mechanisms. Such cells can be grown in a manner compatible with clinical use (i.e., without animal feeder layers) and even without the need for immunosuppression. These were a few of a number of conclusions arrived at by an international collaboration led by Evan Y. Snyder, M.D., Ph.D., and spearheaded by a member of his lab, Jean-Pyo Lee, Ph.D., of the Burnham Institute for Medical Research ("Burnham"). The study, to be published in Nature Medicine, will be made…