Applied Physics

We understand in amazing detail how a heart develops - in mice. Whether the same processes that produce mouse heart tissue also generate heart tissue in humans has been unclear, because we obviously can't do the required experiments on human embryos. But a paper published on Thursday in Nature describes research that used human embryonic stem cells to generate human heart cells, and in the process demonstrated that human and mouse stem cells use similar molecular signaling pathways to develop, or differentiate, from stem cells to various types of heart cells. What this means is that we now…

Biologists have discovered that a fundamental building block in the cells of flowering plants evolved independently, yet almost identically, on a separate branch of the evolutionary tree--in an ancient plant group called lycophytes that originated at least 420 million years ago. Researchers believe that flowering plants evolved from gymnosperms, the group that includes conifers, ginkgos and related plants. This group split from lycophytes hundreds of millions of years before flowering plants appeared. The building block, called syringyl lignin, is a critical part of the plants' scaffolding…

Do scalar fields exist across the whole universe? Unlike gravitational or magnetic fields, which have both strength and direction, scalar fields have strength alone, varying from point to point. They definitely exist within some closed systems, such as the temperature distribution within the earth’s atmosphere, but it is not yet known whether they exist on the scale of the universe. It's a vital question because the existence of scalar fields could help explain how the universe developed after the Big Bang and became as we observe it today. For example scalar fields could explain the…

SARATOGA, California, May 22 /PRNewswire/ -- - U.K. Hospital Streamlines Workflow and Improves Availability of IV Pumps Ekahau Inc., a leading provider of Wi-Fi-based Real Time Location Systems (RTLS), today announced that Siemens, one of the world's largest suppliers to the healthcare industry, and Airedale NHS Trust in West Yorkshire, England, are deploying a pioneering real time location system (RTLS) based on Ekahau technology, which is designed to streamline the workflow and improve availability of intravenous (IV) pumps throughout the hospital. Airedale HNS Trust will use the RTLS…

It isn't just people. Marine bacteria also organize into professions or lifestyle groups that partition many resources rather than competing for them. Microbes with one lifestyle, such as free-floating cells, flourish in proximity with closely related microbes that may spend life attached to zooplankton or algae. This new information about microbial groups and the methodology behind it could change the way scientists approach the classification of microbes by making it possible to determine on a large scale, relatively speaking, the genetic basis for ecological niches. Microbes drive…

ASCOT, England, May 21 /PRNewswire/ -- The Micromachined Diamond Device Initiative (MIDDI) led by researchers at Element Six Ltd in collaboration with the Institute of Photonics at The University of Strathclyde has been completed successfully. The aim of MIDDI, which was part-funded by the UK Department of Trade and Industry, was to develop world-leading technologies for diamond microelectronic device manufacturing to give European companies a competitive edge over Japan and the US. MIDDI's main focus was on the development of a 'tool-kit' of advanced micro- and nano-scale manufacturing…

We all know that coffee can cure everything. Now it turns out that even a coffee roasting process - torrefaction - could give biomass a power boost, increasing the energy content of some energy crops by up to 20 percent, making biofuels merely bad instead of awful. The study, carried out by engineers from the University of Leeds, examined the combustion behavior of crops grown specifically for energy creation when put through the mild torrefaction thermal process usually associated with coffee production. Torrefaction is already seen as a desirable treatment for biomass because it creates a…

New research by the Gladstone Institutes of Cardiovascular Disease (GICD) and the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), has revealed the genetic determinants of fat storage in cells, which may lead to a new understanding of and potential treatments for obesity, diabetes, and heart disease. While scientists have long understood that lipid droplets contribute to fat build up in cells, the genes involved in droplet biology have been a focus of extensive research. In a study published in Nature, scientists in the laboratories of Drs. Robert V. Farese, Jr., of Gladstone and UCSF, and…

FREMONT, California, May 20 /PRNewswire/ -- Corsair(R) http://www.corsair.com, a worldwide leader in high performance computer and flash memory products, announced today that Corsair Labs has set the world record for the highest achieved DDR3 frequency. Verified and validated by CPU-Z, Corsair Labs achieved an astounding speed of 2462MHz at CL=9 with a single-rank 1GB module. This new world record eclipses all previous CPU-Z validated memory benchmarks. This record was set using Corsair's award winning DOMINATOR DDR3 memory module paired with an Asus P5E3 Premium motherboard based on the…

SAN MATEO, California, LONDON and MALMÖ, Sweden, May 20 /PRNewswire/ -- NetSuite Inc. (NYSE: N), a leading vendor of on-demand, integrated business management software suites that provide Accounting / ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning), CRM (Customer Relationship Management) and Ecommerce software for small businesses, medium-sized organizations and divisions of large companies, today announced that Teleca AB (OMX Stockholm: TELC B), a leading developer of software solutions for the international mobile telecommunications industry, has entrusted its global human resources management to the…