News Articles

Just what computer scientists want - dumb jocks getting all of the credit for artificial intelligence.Or maybe computer scientists are simply letting football players think they matter, and they are really just data.For artificial intelligence to get out of its 20-year rut, a computer has to be able to observe a complex operation, learn how to do it, and then optimize those operations or accomplish other related tasks. What if a computer could watch video of football plays, learn from them, and then design plays and control players in a football simulation or video game?  

Our solar system, with planets over a range of sizes and moving in near-circular paths, seems to be unusual, according to a model in t Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society which finds that forming planetary systems may be knocked around by crashes with nearby clumps of material, leading to systems where planets have highly inclined orbits and where the smaller - and potentially habitable - worlds are thrown out completely.

Researchers  have developed an inexpensive way to grade the ethanol potential of perennial grasses at the biorefinery's loading dock - the first use of near-infrared sensing (NIRS) to measure 20 components in switchgrass biomass that determine its potential value to biorefiners. These components include cell wall sugars, soluble sugars and lignin. With this information, 13 traits can be determined, including the efficiency of the conversion from sugars to ethanol.This is the first use of NIRS to predict maximum and actual ethanol yields of grasses from a basic conversion process. This capability already exists for corn grain using NIRS.

As health care costs continue to rise and more people want more services for less money, it will be important that doctors engage in evidence-based medicine. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) have determined that the majority of primary care providers continue to recommend annual cervical cancer screening, though cervical cancer screening guidelines recommend a combination of a Papanicolaou test and an HPV test, known as an HPV co-test, for women 30 years of age and older. 

Cancer, diabetes, stroke and transplant patients can all get benefit from one common thing; frog skin.An international research project is collecting proteins from our amphibian friends (no frogs were harmed in the writing of this article or in the research) and adding to a growing bank of biological data needed to build up our understanding of the naturally occurring medicines in frogs.They have already found that the peptides (mini-proteins) collected from the Waxy Monkey Frog and the Giant Firebellied Toad can be used in a controlled and targeted way to regulate 'angiogenesis', the process by which blood vessels grow in the body.  

University of Alberta researcher David Bressler has an idea for the future of recycling.Using throwaway parts of beef carcasses that were sidelined from the value-added production process after Mad-cow disease (bovine spongiform encephalopathy or BSE) damaged the Canadian beef industry in 2003, Bressler has collaborated with industry, government and other researchers to forge cattle proteins into heavy-duty plastics that could soon be used in everything from car parts to CD cases.

Analysis of a piece of lunar rock brought back to Earth by the Apollo 16 mission in 1972 has shown that we may have been wrong about the age of the Moon.It is commonly accepted that the Moon was created by the impact of a large planet-like object and our proto-Earth very early in the evolution of our solar system. The energy of this impact was sufficiently high that the Moon formed from melted material that began with a deep liquid magma ocean.  As the Moon cooled, this magma ocean solidified into different mineral components, the lightest of which floated upwards to form the oldest crust. Analysis of a lunar rock sample of this presumed ancient crust has given scientists new insights into the formation of the Moon.

What is five times the tensile strength of steel and  the best currently available synthetic fibers?  If you read the title you already know.  Spider thread is a fascinating and often-studied material but no one has managed to produce it on an industrial scale. Scientists of the TU Muenchen (TUM) and the Universitaet Bayreuth (UBT) say they have now succeeded in discovering another secret of silk proteins and the mechanism that imparts spider silk with its strength.
How do spiders manage to first store the silk proteins in the silk gland and to then assemble them in the spinning passage in a split second to form threads with these extraordinary characteristics? And what exactly gives the threads their tremendous tensile strength?

Scientists at the Smithsonian and partnering organizations have discovered a remarkably primitive eel they have named Protoanguilla palau in a fringing reef off the coast of the Republic of Palau. This fish exhibits many primitive anatomical features unknown in the other 19 families and more than 800 species of living eels, resulting in its classification as a new species belonging to a new genus and family. 

Usually when you think of drugs, you think of mules, but camels have also unique properties, except those can be used in future drug development.Members of the camelid family have particular heavy-chain antibodies in their blood known as nanobodies that may serve as therapeutic proteins. One of the most powerful advantages of nanobodies is that they can be easily attached to other proteins and nanoparticles by simple chemical procedures.  Scientists at the Department of Pharmaceutics and Analytical Chemistry, University of Copenhagen, have designed nanoparticle systems of smaller than 150nm that are decorated with nanobodies expressing high specificity for the cancer marker Mucin-1, which is connected to breast and colon cancer.

In the modern world, even residents of London generate more intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) data than human operators can collate and that can severely limit the ability of an analyst to generate intelligence reports in operationally relevant time frames, like when ambassadors and looters are rioting and claiming it is for social justice.Naval Research Laboratory may have the answer - a multi-user tracking capability which enables the system to manage collection of imagery without continuous monitoring by a ground or airborne operator, thus requiring fewer personnel and freeing up operational assets.

Here's a trivia question; what's the longest alliance in history?Unless you went by the title, you were probably stumped.  Maybe you believe it is England and Portugal at 638 years.   You were unlikely to guess Scotland and France but a University of Manchester historian says she has uncovered evidence which shows a defensive alliance  between Scotland and France (against the English, naturally) might never have formally ended – potentially making it the longest in history.In a paper to be published next year, Dr. Siobhan Talbott argues the Franco-Scottish Auld Alliance of 1295 survived numerous wars between Britain and France, even after the Act of Union was signed in 1707. Trade, she says, is a major reason for its longevity.