| Historian discusses the threat birds posed to the power grid in 1920s California Posted: 04 Jun 2015 01:26 PM PDT In 1913 in Southern California, two 241-mile-long electric lines began carrying power from hydroelectric dams in the Sierra Nevada to customers in Los Angeles--a massive feat of infrastructure. In 1923, power company Southern California Edison upgraded the line to carry 220,000 volts, among the highest voltage lines in the world at the time. Now a new paper examines a threat to that power grid: voluminous streams of bird excrement.  |
| Tuning friction to the point where it disappears may boost development of nanomachines Posted: 04 Jun 2015 01:25 PM PDT Physicists have developed an experimental technique to simulate friction at the nanoscale. Using their technique, the researchers are able to directly observe individual atoms at the interface of two surfaces and manipulate their arrangement, tuning the amount of friction between the surfaces. By changing the spacing of atoms on one surface, they observed a point at which friction disappears.  |
| Planarian regeneration model discovered by artificial intelligence Posted: 04 Jun 2015 01:24 PM PDT An artificial intelligence system has for the first time reverse-engineered the regeneration mechanism of planaria -- the small worms whose power to regrow body parts makes them a research model in human regenerative medicine. The discovery presents the first model of regeneration discovered by a non-human intelligence and the first comprehensive model of planarian regeneration, which has eluded human scientists for a century.  |
| Why are 95% of people who live to 110 women? You're as old as your stem cells Posted: 04 Jun 2015 11:19 AM PDT Human supercentenarians share at least one thing in common--over 95 percent are women. Scientists have long observed differences between the sexes when it comes to aging, but there is no clear explanation for why females live longer. In a discussion of what we know about stem cell behavior and sex, researchers argue that it's time to look at differences in regenerative decline between men and women. This line of research could open up new explanations for how the sex hormones estrogen and testosterone, or other factors, modify lifespan.  |
| New species of horned dinosaur with 'bizarre' features revealed Posted: 04 Jun 2015 11:17 AM PDT About 10 years ago, someone stumbled across some bones sticking out of a cliff along the Oldman River in southeastern Alberta, Canada. Now, scientists describe that those bones belonged to a nearly intact skull of a very unusual horned dinosaur -- a close relative of the familiar Triceratops that had been unknown to science until now.  |
| World's first digitally-encoded synthetic polymers Posted: 04 Jun 2015 11:16 AM PDT Researchers have for the first time succeeded in recording a binary code on a synthetic polymer. Inspired by the capacity of DNA to retain an enormous amount of genetic information, the team synthesized and read a multi-bit message on an artificial polymer.  |
| Do cheaters have an evolutionary advantage? Posted: 04 Jun 2015 11:15 AM PDT What is it with cheating? Cheaters seem to have an immediate advantage over cooperators, but do they have an evolutionary advantage? A new study suggests the benefits of cheating change with its prevalence,in a population. Cheaters may succeed, for example, only when they are rare, and fail when they become so numerous they push out cooperators.  |
| Ancient El Niños triggered Baja bunny booms Posted: 04 Jun 2015 05:46 AM PDT At times during the past 10,000 years, cottontails and hares reproduced like rabbits and their numbers surged when the El Niño weather pattern drenched the Pacific Coast with rain, according to an analysis of 3,463 bunny bones.  |
| 'Vampire' plants can have positive impact up the food chain Posted: 04 Jun 2015 05:44 AM PDT New research has revealed that parasitic 'vampire' plants that attach onto and derive nutrients from another living plant could benefit the abundance and diversity of surrounding vegetation and animal life.  |
| Drug-induced tissue regeneration demonstrated by scientists Posted: 03 Jun 2015 11:36 AM PDT A primordial form of energy production that still exists in mammals can be harnessed to achieve spontaneous tissue regeneration in mice, without the need for added stem cells, a scientist has demonstrated.  |
