#2-D electronics take a step forward: Semiconducting films for atom-thick circuitsscientists at Rice university and Oak ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) have advanced on the goal of two-dimensional electronics with a method to control the growth of uniform atomic layers of molybdenum disulfide (MDS.
MDS a semiconductor is one of a trilogy of materials needed to make functioning 2-D electronic components.
They may someday be the basis for the manufacture of devices so small they would be invisible to the naked eye.
Last year Lou and Ajayan revealed their success at making intricate patterns of intertwining graphene and hbn among them the image of Rice's owl mascot.
#Songbirds may give insight to nature vs. nurtureon June 3rd Jove will publish a research technique that allows neural imaging of auditory stimuli in songbirds via MRI.
Species of animals that are more vocal in their expression like macaques parrots or the zebra finch used in the Jove article are unique as they provide a landscape for scientists to study song acquisition storage and regurgitation.
Results from these test subjects provide strong parallels and insights to human language acquisition. The birds are also much easier to maintain
and study in laboratories than other vocal animals like apes. By utilizing a high-resolution functional magnetic resonance imaging apparatus (fmri) Dr. Van der Linden
and her colleagues can image the brains of live birds in a noninvasive environment. MRI is used widely with human beings
which makes any findings derived from songbirds highly applicable to working with the human brain. Until recently fmri in small animals was focused mainly on rats
and to a lesser extent on mice Dr. Van der Linden explains. Thus far songbird brains have been studied using electrophysiological and histological techniques.
However these approaches do not provide a global view of the brain and do not allow repeated long-term developmental measurements.
Using the songbird model and MRI as an in vivo tool allows us to answer many questions related to learning language and neuroendocrinological plasticity.
The Van der Linden laboratory hopes to use this technique to conduct experiments that be done with humans.
For example they are able to see how language acquisition may be different between animals raised in isolation
and animals raised socially or between genetically modified songbirds and naturally occurring ones. Results of these trials will allow researchers to gain insight into genetic and social components of behavior bringing insight to the Nature vs.
Nurture debate. This article is a milestone for Jove as it is one of the first articles in the new Jove Behavior journal section.
The expansion will mark Jove's eighth journal section after the recent additions of Jove Chemistry and Applied Physics.
and reproduce behavioral experiments such as bird fmri techniques as described in Dr. Van der Linden's article which are both novel and technically complex.
and provide greater insight into both animal and human cognition. Proud to be included in this significant new section Dr. Van der Linden says MRI imaging techniques should in the near future lead to major conceptual advances in the study of how the brain changes behavior
In its perfect crystalline form graphene (a one-atom-thick carbon layer) is the strongest material ever measured as the Columbia Engineering team reported in Science in 2008--so strong that as Hone observed it would take an elephant balanced on a pencil to break through a sheet
#Monkey teeth help reveal Neanderthal weaningmost modern human mothers wean their babies much earlier than our closest primate relatives.
and from monkeys at the California National Primate Research center at the University of California Davis. Using the new technique the researchers concluded that at least one Neanderthal baby was weaned at much the same age as most modern humans.
Just as tree rings record the environment in which a tree grew traces of barium in the layers of a primate tooth can tell the story of
what age it was weaned said Katie Hinde professor of human evolutionary biology at Harvard university and an affiliate scientist at the UC Davis Primate Center.
and behavior among rhesus macaques at UC Davis. The team was able to determine exact timing of birth
By studying monkey teeth and comparing them to center records they could show that the technique was accurate almost to the day.
The technique opens up extensive opportunities to further investigate lactation in fossils and museum collections of primate teeth.
Yet recent investigations of wild chimpanzees have shown that the first molar eruption occurs toward the end of weaning.
By applying these new techniques to primate teeth in museum collections we can more precisely assess maternal investment across individuals within species as well as life history evolution among species Hinde said.
Also known as elephant grass miscanthus is one of a new generation of renewable energy crops that can be converted into renewable energy by being burned in biomass power stations.
To address the major challenges in managing the growing amounts of animal and human waste water pollution; protecting water resources and restoring an economically vital coastline we will need to invest in the characterization of our water microbiological communities and shift the pollution science paradigm toward an understanding of risk and resilience under global change.
either crystalline or amorphous but these categories were probably more reflec tive of the limitations of imaging methods than the underlying structural organization of the cellulose says Jerome Fox lead author of the Nature Chemical Biology paper
The new PALM-based technique should allow enzyme cock tails to be matched optimally to the structural organizations of particular biomass substrates such as grass
and Fox other co-authors of the paper A single-molecule analysis reveals morphological targets for cellulase synergy were Phillip Jess Rakesh Jambusaria and Genny Moo.
whether to protect the bird as threatened under the Endangered Species Act. The U s. Fish and Wildlife Service agreed to hold another public comment period this spring before voting on the issue Sept. 30.
The bird is now found only in restricted areas of five states in the southern Great plains:
Colorado Kansas Oklahoma New mexico and Texas. About tall structures Boal explained the structures may provide perches for predators
Nesting hens will avoid nesting near humanmade structures and disturbances in habitat from roads to buildings to the conversion of native grasslands to cropland.
Boal said prairie chickens for example are not very likely to use cotton fields to nest in or for lekking (places where males aggregate to try to attract females to mate with).
if you have a good year for reproduction enough new birds enter the population and have a survival rate that carries them through three
and engineers may have found a way to prevent the spread of the pests. Emerald ash borers (EABS) a type of beetle native to Asia first appeared in the U s. about 20 years ago.
and can sometimes disappear from the trap. Baker then learned that Lakhtakia was able to replicate certain biological materials such as fly eyes and butterfly wings.
Baker posed the question: could Lakhtakia's technique visually replicate the unique female borer to create a better lure?
They also ran a pilot test in Hungary with a related beetle pest that bores into oak trees.
Alvarez contended that confined animal feeding operations (CAFOS) are potential sources of environmental contamination by antibiotics
and E coli which carries resistant genes directly from animals through their feces into the environment.
whether in a person an animal or in the environment the weak microbes will die
Microorganisms in the rumen--the largest chamber in the cow's stomach--modify most of the ingested fats and turn them into saturated fats.
For seeds and fruit in particular bright color is thought to have evolved to attract the agents of seed dispersal especially birds.
Deceived birds eat the fruit and ultimately release its seeds over a wide geographic area. The fruit of this bastard hogberry plant was scientifically delightful to pick says principal investigator Peter Vukusic Associate professor in Natural Photonics at the University of Exeter.
and on welfare technologies will increasingly target at early detection of signals that predict a health problem of an animal.
what the U s. Department of agriculture Forest Service claims to be the most destructive forest pest ever seen in North america said Michael Domingue postdoctoral fellow in entomology Penn State.
Early detection of the pest in traps such as ours can help in coordinating management strategies to slow its spread
and shape of emerald ash borers but did not attempt to duplicate the surface texture of the insects.
In the same forests the team also placed traps configured with decoys bearing a 4000-volt charge to electrocute
and captured by the trap if the voltage was applied to the decoys. According to Domingue the light-scattering properties of the beetle's shell--which the team experimentally demonstrated using a white laser--made the nano-bioreplicated decoys more lifelike and therefore more attractive to males than the non-textured 3d printed decoy.
and similar pests in ways that can help to trap them and monitor where they might be doing damage.
in order to help APHIS meet its goals of early detection and mitigation of invasive pests he said.
The researchers said their next step will be to further improve the traps to maximize their potential as part of an early detection tool for emerald ash borers.
Our laboratory has ongoing research with the USDA Animal Plant Health Inspection Service into remote-reporting Internet-based technologies
and we will be working to couple this research with our ash-borer detection technique so that activity of the pest can be reported
and assessed immediately by APHIS personnel rather than waiting days or weeks until a trap might usually be checked said Baker.
In addition the team has been investigating the use of the decoys to attract other insect species some
of which are aggressive feeders on oak trees in Central europe and might threaten North american oaks in urban
and forest landscapes much as the emerald ash borer destroyed ash trees. We have made progress in our research so far in Hungary these past few summers
and potentially invasive pest species effectively said Domingue. Story Source: The above story is provided based on materials by Penn State.
#Technology tracks the elusive Nightjarbioacoustic recorders could provide us with vital additional information to help us protect rare and endangered birds such as the European nightjar new research has shown.
The study led by Newcastle University found that newly developed remote survey techniques were twice as effective at detecting rare birds as conventional survey methods.
Using automated equipment to record the nightjars at dawn and dusk when the birds are most active the team found a 217%increased detection rate of the nightjar over those carried out by specialist ornithologists.
Published this month in the academic journal PLOS ONE lead author Mieke Zwart said the findings suggest that automated technology could provide us with an important additional tool to help us survey
and protect rare birds. The results of this research will help conservationists monitor endangered species more effectively explains Mieke who carried out the research as part of her Phd supported by Baker Consultants Ltd
and Wildlife Acoustics Inc. The European nightjar for example is only active at night and is camouflaged very well making it difficult to detect using traditional survey methods.
Using bioacoustics techniques we can more accurately build up a picture of where these birds are population numbers movement and behaviour.
The nightjar--Caprimulgus europaeus--is a migratory species protected under the Birds Directive (Directive 2009/147/EC) and in the UK by the classification of Special Protection Areas (SPAS.
Traditional bird survey methods involve specialist ornithologists conducting field surveys to identify and count the birds they encounter.
But these are time-consuming must be performed by experts and could be inaccurate when surveying species that are difficult to detect.
and analysis software the technology is trained'to automatically recognise the calls of individual species in this case the nightjar.
and could be applied to a wide range of species to give more accurate objective data on bird numbers and distribution.
and Research Project Office Morgan Simpson of NASA Ground Processing Directorate and Ray Wheeler Ph d. of the Surface Systems office in NASA's Engineering and Technology Directorate also provided guidance
and wheat along with such livestock products as ruminant (animals like cattle goats and sheep that subsist on plant matter) pork and poultry.
Hwang also considered metal oxide frameworks that trap carbon dioxide molecules but they had the unfortunate side effect of capturing the desired methane as well
and other animals and the risk--while minimal--may stand in the way of public acceptance.
and soil coming from intensive livestock farms (farms with a population of over 40000 hens 2000 fattening pigs
and use it for studies of insects or even small fish. One day he hopes to have a commercial instrument that can be used by biological researchers around the world.
or a bat with a short face that gives it the bite force to penetrate hard figs.
The researchers also unveiled an engineering model of a skull that can be manipulated computationally to morph into the shape of any New world Leaf-nosed bat species to help uncover evidence for selection in long-extinct organisms.
Nectar feeding bats comprised one of three evolutionary optima for mechanical advantage among New world Leaf-nosed bats. Photo credit:
The key finding is that in a highly diverse group--New world Leaf-nosed bats--selection for mechanical advantage has shaped three distinct optimal skull shapes that correspond to feeding niches Dr. Dá
The research team investigated adaptive radiation--the explosive evolution of species into new ecological niches powered by natural selection--of New world Leaf-nosed bats.
These bats of which there are almost 200 species eat a variety of foods including insects frogs lizards fruit nectar and even blood.
Their skulls mirror the variety of their diets--bats with long and narrow snouts eat nectar;
snouts of species that eat other foods are intermediate in shape. The team's approach to identifying natural selection for mechanical function combined both evolutionary and engineering analyses.
The researchers first built the three-dimensional finite element model to simulate bat skulls with myriad combinations of snout length and width.
and engineering (dark blue) models for the base model of the omnivorous bat Carollia perspicillata (B) and the morphed models for the nectar-feeding Glossophaga soricina (A)
and the specialized fig-eating Short-faced bat Centurio senex (C). They then analyzed the models to determine structural strength and mechanical advantage--the efficiency and hardness of the bats'bite.
Finally they studied the engineering results across hundreds of evolutionary trees of the bats to uncover the three optimal snout shapes favored by natural selection.
Nectar feeders have very low mechanical advantage--a trade-off for having long narrow snouts that fit into the flowers in
Distribution of hypothetical species based on snout length and width. A single model was morphed to represent species within the entire space
#Morphing bat skull model: Using engineering plus evolutionary analyses to answer natural selection questionsintroducing a new approach that combines evolutionary
valos of Stony Brook University and support from the National Science Foundation studied the evolutionary histories of the adaptive radiation of New world leaf-nosed bats based on their dietary niches.
They set out to tackle this by examining almost 200 species of New world leaf-nosed bats that exploit many different food niches:
Insects frogs lizards fruit nectar and even blood. The bats'skulls of today reflect this dietary diversity.
Species with long narrow snouts eat nectar while short-faced bats have exceptionally short wide palates for eating hard fruits.
Species that eat other foods have shaped snouts somewhere in between. Dumont explains further We knew diet was associated with those things
Some form or function helps an animal to perform better in its environment but it can be hard to demonstrate exactly what that form
She and colleagues built an engineering model of a bat skull that can morph into the shape of any species
and used it to create skulls with all possible combinations of snout length and width.
Analyzing the engineering results over hundreds of evolutionary trees of New world leaf-nosed bats revealed three optimal snout shapes favored by natural selection they report.
One was the long narrow snout of nectar feeders the second was the extremely short and wide snout of short-faced bats
which is a trade-off for having long narrow snouts that fit into the flowers in
are trained the truckers to properly transport these animals? How long do they wait at the slaughter facility?
However Merck Animal health manufacturer of Zilmax voluntarily suspended sales of the product last September when major U s. meat packer Tyson announced it would stop buying cattle fed Zilmax due to an animal welfare concern
or muscle damage in these big heavily muscled animals. Regardless of beta-agonist use in feeding pigs Thomson said the swine industry went from having about a 250-lb. average out weight to a 300-lb. average out weight on market hogs.
and work in a particular management system to improve efficiency of animals and profitability then it is fine to use them he said.
Some of the things that indoor growing environments don't have are pests, molds and infections.
The old way of doing it was getting pot from your dealer down the street who maybe got it from a source that grew it in a relatively unsavory environment like a garage where you're dealing with chemicals, molds, mice.
of course--but the major environmental pollution problem at the turn of the century was the millions of pounds of manure in city streets produced by horses used for transport.
It may not be quite as visible or an assault on our senses as horse manure but it's just as significant.
Scientific efforts to resurrect mammoths and other extinct species through cloning technology point toward a cheaper solution,
Joseph Wolf (1898), via Wikimedia) But returning to the merits of Mulligan's proposal, remember that resurrecting dead
Russian and Japanese scientists announced early in December that they hoped to clone a mammoth within five years,
(which have been cloned common among animals to date). Moreover, all those cloning efforts crucially relied on the use of egg cells
Many animal species learn essential survival behaviors from their parents, for example. Bereft of good role models and the ecological interactions they would have had naturally,
It goes without saying that Mulligan's idea also ignores the actual services that various ecosystems render to us humans refreshing the air, cleaning water, reducing pests, and so on.
Since 1976, the Frozen Zoo at the San diego Zoo Institute for Conservation Research has collected cell specimens form more than 800 animal species and subspecies.
So we're using cellulosic biomass waste streams--corn cobs, treetops and limbs, dead pine trees from pine beetles.
The emerging trends are corn cobs--that's what Dupont, Denisco and Verenium are using.
Corn cobs are easy to break down into sugar. But that's not a solution to the cellulosic fuel problem.
They have the lion's share of water rights. With low-flow irrigation and other off-the-shelf devices, we're reducing it by 50 to 70 percent.
that is one of my pet peeves, seeing someone's sprinklers on during a rainy period.)
and effort, says Lark Mason, a Chinese antiques expert who runs his own auction house and appears regularly on Antiques Roadshow.
today they are raising bugs and mice for the purpose of adding bite marks to pieces.
Instead of relying on a quick dirt rub for faked pottery, they are digging several feet underground to find clay with a similar chemical make-up to the clay used in the time period
Intricate designs and seals (red marks made with printing stamps which appraisers have placed traditionally great importance on as a way to authenticate objects) can be copied by lasers with great precision.
Bugs and flaws aside, the tech giant publicly apologized for the state of ios 6 maps,
and our fellow animals and plants, who are at risk of dying out. are worried we enough about saving human civilization to make this time scale, the Anthropocene, more than a mere speck in the geologic time scale?
Ocean plankton are one of the biggest CO2 sucks on the planet, and if you fertilize them there might be more blooms.
What won survive are many of the animals we care about, and our civilization. And that is what we are talking about
if we lost the diversity of life, the monkeys, jaguars, whales for instance. They are all in trouble too.
oebig Dog Robot, The Stanley self-driving car (originally covered in THE FUTURIST in May-June 2006.
One of the hot new ventures in Silicon valley is founded Nest Labs by Tony Fadell, a former Apple executive,
At the Nest offices in Palo alto, Calif.,there is a lot of talk of helping the planet, as well as the thrill of creating cool technology.
Matt Rogers, 28, a Nest cofounder, led a team of engineers at Apple that wrote software for ipods.
¢Communal table areas,¢Benching areas,¢Hive configurations for the duration of a project,¢Individual workstations for focused tasks,
'hack'has been given a more positive connotation by Gensler: to change or improve an office building. In Gensler concept, a hackable building is oean existing structure that has been adapted beyond recognition quickly incorporating a diverse mix of multiple uses within a one.
Hacks range from tenant-driven changes to investments made by owners to reposition their asset.
Large-scale hacks can create spaces beyond standard amenities like cafes and fitness centers to oeattractors-or unique building amenities-like fabrication labs,
and the public. oethe building owner can perform hacks as incentives for existing tenants to remain,
Building hacks vary from low-cost additions and renovations to larger, strategic investments in the existing structure. oethe rapid influence of technology on how everyday work tasks are completed has decentralized many of the office-centric activities that governed North american office building design,
b (HIVE. The b (HIVE) represents oea building that becomes a part of an agile, adaptable business machine, somewhere between a hands-on community and the raw edge of technology.
Rounding out the (b) HIVE concept is the retail/third space on the ground floor, with a diverse mix of uses such as restaurants, studios, galleries, gyms, theatres, supermarkets, places of worship, medical facilities and community spaces,
engineered crops, pest control, fertilizers, etc. â environmental protection and remediation: restoration, monitoring, detection, etc. â consumer products:
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