News Articles

Combine a mechanical arm with a miniature rocket motor: The result is a prosthetic device that is the closest thing yet to a bionic arm.
A prototype of this radical design has been successfully developed and tested by a team of mechanical engineers at Vanderbilt University as part of a $30 million federal program to develop advanced prosthetic devices.
“Our design does not have superhuman strength or capability, but it is closer in terms of function and power to a human arm than any previous prosthetic device that is self-powered and weighs about the same as a natural arm,” says Michael Goldfarb, the professor of mechanical engineering who is leading the effort.

Michael Goldfarb, professor of mechanical engineeri

Without the heartbreak of ended relationships, half of popular music would cease to exist. Everyone has had one but it turns out it probably wasn't so bad - especially if you thought it would be horrible.
A new Northwestern University study shows that lovers, even those madly in love, do much better following a breakup than they imagined they would.
In other words, participants who forecast how badly they would feel over a breakup with a partner actually felt much less distress than they had predicted in the days prior to the relationship’s demise.

In 17th century Rome, the Baroque painter Orazio Gentileschi gave all his children the finest art education available. But only one of them—his daughter Artemisia—developed into an artist. In fact, Artemisia matched and surpassed her father's skills, and became the first female member of the Academy of Design in Florence and the only woman to follow and innovate upon the tradition of painting established by Caravaggio.
What creates a great artist like Gentileschi, Van Gogh or Manet? Talent or training?

Chemical engineers at Purdue believe they have discovered a fundamental flaw in the conventional view of how liquids form bubbles that grow and turn into vapors and that their findings cast into doubt some aspects of a theory dating back to the 1920s, said David S. Corti, an associate professor of chemical engineering at Purdue University.
The research could lead to a more precise understanding of the "phase transition" that takes place when bubbles form, grow and then become a vapor, which could, in turn, have implications for industry and research, Corti said.

Dozens of scientists from several countries gathered at the University of Alaska Fairbanks to discuss the latest findings on noctilucent clouds and other phenomena of the earth’s upper atmosphere during the Eighth International Workshop on Layered Phenomena in the Mesopause Region.
“The question which everyone in Alaska is dealing with is what are the symptoms of climate change and, as in medicine, how do these symptoms reflect the underlying processes,” said Richard Collins, a researcher at the Geophysical Institute at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. “It is believed that [these clouds] are an indicator of climate change.”
Noctilucent clouds form under conditions that counter common logic. They only form in the summer, when solar radiation is most intense, Collins said.

Huntington disease (HD) is a neurological disorder resulting from degeneration of brain cells. The degeneration causes uncontrolled limb movements and loss of intellectual faculties, eventually leading to death. There is no treatment. HD is a familial disease, passed from parent to child through a mutation in the normal gene. The disorder is estimated to affect about one in every 10,000 persons.
Ray Truant, professor in the Department of Biochemistry and Biomedical Sciences at McMaster University and PhD candidate Randy Singh Atwal, have discovered a small protein sequence in huntingtin that allows it to locate to the part of the cell critical for protein quality control.

The question of whether Titan can retain its thick, organic atmosphere for the rest of its lifetime could hinge on how efficiently methane molecules were packed inside water “crates” during a period of the moon’s formation.
Dr Vasili Dimitrov, who spoke at the European Planetary Science Congress in Potsdam, said, “If Titan runs out of methane and loses its ‘veil’, it will become a completely different type of astrophysical body. Methane drives the chemical reactions in Titan’s atmosphere but, because it’s so highly reactive and therefore short-lived, it must be replenished. We need to find out just how much methane is stored in the primordial reserve in Titan’s interior at a level where it can escape to the surface.

Evidence from laboratory experiments on rats and on human colon cancer cells also suggests that anthocyanins, the compounds that give color to most red, purple and blue fruits and vegetables appreciably slow the growth of colon cancer cells.
The findings also bring scientists a step closer to figuring out what exactly gives fruits and vegetables their cancer-fighting properties.
“These foods contain many compounds, and we're just starting to figure out what they are and which ones provide the best health benefits,” said Monica Giusti, the lead author of the study and an assistant professor of food science at Ohio State University.
Giusti presented the findings, which represent the collaborative efforts of Giusti and her colleagues, on August 19 at the national meeting of the Ameri

A Virginia Tech researcher is working on a device to create biofuels from bird litter - bedding, manure, feathers, spilled feed and everything else on the floor of chicken coops.
Foster Agblevor, associate professor of biological systems engineering, and a team are developing transportable pyrolysis units that will convert the waste into bio-oil by heating the litter until it vaporizes. The vapor is then condensed to produce the bio-oil, and a slow release fertilizer is recovered from the reactor. The gas can then be used to operate the pyrolysis unit, making it a self-sufficient system.
Three value-added products from one device. It can help produce some energy and get rid of pollution.

Ever heard of cynical shyness? Researchers at the Shyness Research Institute in Indiana say this extreme form of shyness is behind the school shootings in the last decade.
Conveniently, it predominantly affects males and can lead to violent behavior.
Presenting at the 115th Annual Convention of the American Psychological Association (APA), psychologist Bernardo Carducci, PhD, and Kristin Terry Nethery, BA, examined the cases involving eight individuals between 1995 and 2004 who had committed shootings at their high schools.
They examined the news accounts of these shootings for personal and social indicators of cynical shyness—lack of empathy, low tolerance for frustration, anger outbursts, social rejection from peers, bad family relations and access to weapons.

This five-minute data visualization shows all 27 named storms of the 2005 Atlantic hurricane season, including sea surface temperature, clouds, storm tracks and storm strength.
Orange and red colors represent ocean temperatures at 82 degrees F or higher - the temperature required for hurricanes to form.

All vertebrates use geometric cues like walls and corners to figure out how to go from place to place. Some, like rats and human children, are so influenced by these geometric cues that they often ignore more reliable features such as a distinctive object or colored wall.
This surprising reliance on geometry has led researchers to suggest the existence of a geometric module in the brain. However, since both humans and laboratory animals typically grow up in environments not entirely made up of right angles and straight lines, the prevalent use of geometry could reflect nurture rather than nature.