Elementary school students often learn that plants grow toward the light. This seems straightforward, but in reality, the genes and pathways that allow plants to grow and move in response to their environment are not fully understood. Leading plant scientists explore one of the most fundamental processes in plant biology—plant movement in response to light, water, and gravity—in a January Special Issue of the American Journal of Botany.
Source: Phys.org
Tag Archives: Source Phys
Avis locks up Zipcar for $500 million
US car rental giant Avis announced plans Wednesday to buy the popular auto-sharing service Zipcar in a deal valued at $500 million.
Source: Phys.org
Magnetic fields created before the first stars
Magnets have practically become everyday objects. Earlier on, however, the universe consisted only of nonmagnetic elements and particles. Just how the magnetic forces came into existence has been researched by Prof. Dr. Reinhard Schlickeiser at the Institute of Theoretical Physics of the Ruhr-Universität Bochum. In the journal Physical Review Letters, he describes a new mechanism for the magnetisation of the universe even before the emergence of the first stars.
Source: Phys.org
Dance of water molecules turns fire-colored beetles into antifreeze artists
Certain plants and animals protect themselves against temperatures below freezing with antifreeze proteins. How the larva of the beetle Dendroides canadensis manages to withstand temperatures down to -30 degrees Celsius is reported by an international team of researchers led by Prof. Dr. Martina Havenith from the Department of Physical Chemistry II at the Ruhr-Universität in the journal PNAS.
Source: Phys.org
LG's square-shaped robotic vacuums to entertain at CES 2013
LG Electronics will showcase its newest square robotic vacuum cleaner in a most creative fashion at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) from January 8-11 in Las Vegas.
Source: Phys.org
Stanford researchers develop acrobatic space rovers to explore moons, asteroids
(Phys.org)—Stanford researchers, in collaboration with NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, have designed a robotic platform that could take space exploration to new heights.
Source: Phys.org
Can your phone double up as your life-coach?
(Phys.org)—Researchers are developing a smartphone platform that enables careful monitoring of lifestyle to pinpoint and help avert triggers for stress and negative emotion.
Source: Phys.org
Military projects push boundaries of flexible electronics in imaging technologies
(Phys.org)—Aiming to address the strategic military need for accurate, high-resolution imaging, a University of Wisconsin-Madison electrical and computer engineer working with the U.S. Air Force Office of Scientific Research and the U.S. Department of Defense has a simple goal: to make night vision more accurate and easier for soldiers and pilots to use.
Source: Phys.org
Research unearths terrace farming at ancient desert city of Petra
(Phys.org)—A team of international archaeologists including Christian Cloke of the University of Cincinnati is providing new insights into successful and extensive water management and agricultural production in and around the ancient desert city of Petra, located in present-day Jordan. Ongoing investigations, of which Cloke is a part, are led by Professor Susan Alcock of the Brown University Petra Archaeological Project (BUPAP).
Source: Phys.org
In rain and snow at home, Seahawks much more likely to win
The Seahawks win four times as many home games as they lose when the weather is inclement, compared to less than two to one when it’s not, according to UW research meteorologist Nick Bond.
Source: Phys.org
Researchers solve crystal structure of key biofilm protein
(Phys.org)—Researchers at the University of Cincinnati (UC) report that they have solved the crystal structure of a protein involved in holding bacterial cells together in a biofilm, a major development in their exploration of the causes of hospital-acquired infections.
Source: Phys.org
Research unveils how some medieval cultures adapted to rise of Islam
(Phys.org)—Medieval Afghanistan, Iran and the one-time Soviet Central Asian states were frontiers in flux as the Islamic Caliphate spread beyond the Arabian Peninsula in the seventh through 10th centuries.
Source: Phys.org
Researchers receive $2.4 million ARPA-E grant to improve solar cell efficiency
(Phys.org)—Researchers at the California Institute of Technology have received a $2.4 million grant from the U.S. Advanced Research Projects Agency for Energy (ARPA-E) to study the feasibility of using a new technique to capture more energy from sunlight. The grant is based on work described by Caltech’s Harry Atwater and Albert Polman in a paper they’ve had published in the journal Nature Materials.
Source: Phys.org
Software detects and extracts text from within video frames, makes it searchable
As video recording technology improves in performance and falls in price, ever-more events are being captured within video files. If all of this footage could be searched effectively, it would represent an invaluable information repository. One option to help catalogue large video databases is to extract text, such as street signs or building names, from the background of each recording. Now, a method that automates this process has been developed by a research team at the National University of Singapore, which also included Shijian Lu at the A*STAR Institute for Infocomm Research.
Source: Phys.org
Living close to a rubbish tip reduces house prices by 2.6%, UK research shows
Living close to an active landfill site reduces house prices by 2.6% and the cost to home owners can still be counted two decades after the facility has shut, new research shows.
Source: Phys.org
New image-reconstruction method yields clear images of subsurface features
Optical coherence tomography (OCT) is a popular imaging modality for obtaining three-dimensional, micrometer-resolution pictures of structures that lie beneath the surface of, for example, the human eye or silicon wafers used in the computer industry. The technique could now become even more powerful, thanks to work led by Hon Luen Seck from the Singapore Institute of Manufacturing Technology at A*STAR. The team has found a way to eliminate one of the main noise sources that otherwise blur these images.
Source: Phys.org
Groundwater research may be forest lifesaver
For the first time researchers have identified the point where removing groundwater will damage the health of a forest.
Source: Phys.org
Accelerating cellular assembly lines
The immune system generates antibodies to mark threats that need to be eliminated, and these protein complexes bind their targets with remarkable strength and selectivity. Scientists have learned how to generate cell lines that can produce large quantities of specific ‘monoclonal’ antibodies (mAbs) with desirable properties; these mAbs are powerful tools for diagnostics, medicine and biological research.
Source: Phys.org
Making New Year's resolutions work
It’s coming up to that time of year again when people start making their New Year‘s resolutions, with promises to stop smoking or lose weight, and roping in their families to help. Many people rely on incentives to make their resolutions work but according to a United Kingdom study led by King’s College London’s Institute of Psychiatry, rewarding people for changing their health-related behaviour is fine, as long as it works.
Source: Phys.org
Computational physics moulds the future of electronic devices
Fundamental studies based on computational physics are an essential part of many different branches of research – from medical technology to mobile communication. Javad Hashemi has studied the electronic properties and conductivity of different structures based on carbon nanotubes in his doctoral dissertation for the Aalto University Department of Applied Physics.
Source: Phys.org