Slime mold mimics Canadian highway network

Unusual experiment provides proof nature computes

2012-03-27

(Press-News.org) Queen's University professor Selim Akl has provided additional proof to the theory that nature computes. Dr. Akl (School of Computing) placed rolled oats on a map of Canada, covering the major urban areas. One urban area held the slime mold. The slime mold reached out for the food, creating thin tubes that eventually formed a network mirroring the Canadian highway system. "By showing species as low as slime mold can compute a network as complex as the Canadian highway system, we were able to provide some evidence that nature computes," says Dr. Akl. Moving forward, Dr. Akl would like to collect more examples to support his claim that nature computes. He explains, for example, that the leaf of a plant uses 99 per cent of the light it receives from the sun while the best engineered solar cells have an efficiency of only 35 per cent. Research into this area could lead to important practical applications. ###Dr. Akl's study, co-authored by Andrew Adamatzky (University of the West of England, United Kingdom) is being published in the International Journal of Natural Computing Research and he is also serving on the program committee of a natural computing conference being held in Spain later this year. Watch the YouTube video of the slime mold experiment.

ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:

Stem cell study aids quest for motor neurone disease therapies

2012-03-27

A breakthrough using cutting-edge stem cell research could speed up the discovery of new treatments for motor neurone disease (MND). The international research team has created motor neurones using skin cells from a patient with an inherited form of MND. The study discovered that abnormalities of a protein called TDP-43, implicated in more than 90 per cent of cases of MND, resulted in the death of motor neurone cells. This is the first time that scientists have been able to see the direct effect of abnormal TDP-43 on human motor neurons. The study, led by the ...

US economic woes ripple all the way to Latin America, U-M study shows

2012-03-27

The national recession didn't just hit people living in the U.S. – it's made it more difficult for people to pay for medical bills in poor countries like Honduras, according to a new University of Michigan study. As employment opportunities have dried up for Latino immigrants in the U.S., so has their ability to send financial assistance to chronically ill family members in their home countries, according to a U-M study published online this week ahead of print in the International Journal of Health Services. "Remittance payments from relatives living in the United ...

New analysis of premature infants' heartbeats, breathing could be cues for leaving NICU

2012-03-27

Bethesda, Md. -- Late gestation is a busy time for babies getting ready for life outside the womb, particularly for functions critical to life such as breathing and maintaining an adequate heartbeat. These two functions are connected in mature infants and healthy people throughout life, so measuring their level of connectedness can give doctors a cue about whether an infant is ready to head home or needs to remain in the care of the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU). Current methods to analyze this connection are not yet fully developed, leaving doctors and nurses without ...

Tiny reader makes fast, cheap DNA sequencing feasible

2012-03-27

Researchers have devised a nanoscale sensor to electronically read the sequence of a single DNA molecule, a technique that is fast and inexpensive and could make DNA sequencing widely available. The technique could lead to affordable personalized medicine, potentially revealing predispositions for afflictions such as cancer, diabetes or addiction. "There is a clear path to a workable, easily produced sequencing platform," said Jens Gundlach, a University of Washington physics professor who leads the research team. "We augmented a protein nanopore we developed for ...

Wind energy enhancement: UC research establishes real-world wind turbine performance metrics

2012-03-27

VIDEO: This shows a simulation of wind turbine performance. Click here for more information. The production of wind-derived renewable energy is growing, and so, it's important to help wind farm owners operate at higher efficiencies with lower costs. In fact, figures from the World Wind Energy Association report that installed global capacity for wind-energy production was approximately 240,000 megawatts of power in 2011, up nearly ten fold since 2001. That growth, which ...

Geologists correct a rift in Africa

2012-03-27

EAST LANSING, Mich. — The huge changes in the Earth's crust that influenced human evolution are being redefined, according to research published today in Nature Geoscience. The Great Rift Valley of East Africa – the birthplace of the human species – may have taken much longer to develop than previously believed. ""We now believe that the western portion of the rift formed about 25 million years ago, and is approximately as old as the eastern part, instead of much younger as other studies have maintained," said Michael Gottfried, Michigan State University associate professor ...

A 24-karat gold key to unlock the immune system

2012-03-27

Developing a drug or vaccine requires a delicate balancing act with the immune system. On one hand, medications need to escape detection by the immune system in order to perform their function. But vaccinations — de-activated versions of a disease or virus — need to do the reverse. They prompt the immune system to create protective antibodies. But scientists are still stumped by how the immune system recognizes different particles, and how it chooses whether or not to react against them. Using nanoparticles made of pure gold, Dr. Dan Peer, head of Tel Aviv University's ...

Progress toward new chemotherapy agents

2012-03-27

Advances in chemotherapy have dramatically improved the outlook for many cancer patients, but the side effects of this treatment are daunting. A new generation of chemotherapy drugs with fewer side effects is the goal of Edward J. Merino, assistant professor of chemistry at the University of Cincinnati. Merino will discuss his efforts toward designing these new anticancer agents Tuesday, March 27, at The Chemistry of Life: Spring National Meeting and Exposition of the American Chemical Society in San Diego. At that meeting, Merino will show a new anticancer agent ...

Mommy Esquire, Committee of the OC Bar Association, Supporting Working Parent Lawyers

2012-03-27

Newport Beach estate planning attorney and mom, Darlynn Morgan, along with her colleagues and the OCBA President, has recently spearheaded the formation of Mommy Esquire, a committee of the Orange County Bar Association. Women lawyers nationwide seek to achieve that ever-elusive balance of legal work and family life. Hence, in January 2012, Mommy Esquire was formed—the first OCBA committee that focuses specifically on practicing lawyers with school-age children. Estate planning lawyer, Darlynn Morgan, of Morgan Law Group, will serve as Chair of the newly formed committee. "Mommy ...

Pass the lycopene: Scientist can protect supplements inside food

2012-03-27

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. - A Purdue University food scientist has developed a way to encase nutritional supplements in food-based products so that one day consumers might be able to sprinkle vitamins, antioxidants and other beneficial compounds right onto their meals. Srinivas Janaswamy, a research assistant professor of food science, said many of the nutraceuticals, or nutritional supplements, added to foods today are not structurally stable. Heat, light, oxygen and other external factors could degrade the supplements, rendering them ineffective. "There are many methods ...

LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES:

Tracing the quick synthesis of an industrially important catalyst

New software sheds light on cancer’s hidden genetic networks

UT Health San Antonio awarded $3 million in CPRIT grants to bolster cancer research and prevention efforts in South Texas

Manhattan E. Charurat, Ph.D., MHS invested as the Homer and Martha Gudelsky Distinguished Professor in Medicine at the University of Maryland School of Medicine

Insilico Medicine’s Pharma.AI Q4 Winter Launch Recap: Revolutionizing drug discovery with cutting-edge AI innovations, accelerating the path to pharmaceutical superintelligence