If you want to form very flexible chains of nanoparticles in liquid in order to build tiny robots with flexible joints or make magnetically self-healing gels, you need to revert to childhood and think about sandcastles. In a paper published this week in Nature Materials, researchers from North Carolina State University and the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill show that magnetic nanoparticles encased in oily liquid shells can bind together in water, much like sand particles mixed with the right amount of water can form sandcastles. "Because oil and water don't ...

Disney Research has developed a new method of rendering high-quality graphics for animated features that efficiently corrects for erroneous pixels while preserving the crisp detail in images, significantly increasing the efficiency of producing animated images. The new approach enhances the performance of Monte Carlo ray tracing, a method for rendering 3-D scenes by randomly tracing the possible light paths for each pixel in an image. The images produced by ray tracing can be highly realistic, but can require large amounts of computer time to render. The Disney researchers ...

The elaborate costumes worn by Rapunzel, the heroine of Disney's "Tangled," are testament to the growing sophistication of cloth animation, but for art directors, who must tweak tens or hundreds of technical parameters, achieving a desired look for simulated clothing can be laborious. To ease this process, Disney Research and Walt Disney Animation Studios have developed a tool that enables technical directors who must create garments that are soft, silky, wrinkly, heavy, or flowing, to use those same terms to control the computer programs that fashion simulated cloth. The ...

Little details, such as the wrinkling or twitching of an eyelid, can have a big impact on whether a digitally rendered face looks real in a film or videogame. Now scientists at Disney Research have devised the first method to capture these subtleties of the eyelids in detail. Their method, to be presented at ACM SIGGRAPH 2015, the International Conference on Computer Graphics and Interactive Techniques, in Los Angeles Aug. 9-13, captures detailed, dynamic skin features and creates plausible folding and stretching in areas that aren't directly captured during data collection. Artists ...

Obtaining the aerodynamic properties necessary to simulate falling leaves or a tumbling box caught by the wind can be as simple as dropping the object off of a balcony and recording the fall, thanks to OmniAD, a data-driven technique developed at Disney Research. You would not want to design an airplane with this method, but the results are good enough for simulating aerodynamic effects of light, 3-D objects in videogames and animations, said Nobuyuki Umetani of Disney Research and Tobias Martin of ETH Zurich. The system can even be used to design kites that actually ...

The same sort of video processing effects that usually require video to be shot in controlled environments where 3-D positions of cameras and objects are precisely known can be achieved with real-world, handheld video shot from consumer-grade cameras using a new approach pioneered by Disney Research. The technique, developed with Braunschweig University of Technology, compensates for the lack of exact 3-D information about a scene by taking advantage of the fact that most elements of a scene are visible many times in a video. The researchers found they could sample pixels ...

A 3D-printed teddy bear can have a stiff head, a pliable tummy and bendable arms, even though all of it is made of the same relatively stiff material, using a new method developed by Disney Research. By using the printer to alter the small-scale structure of the material, the Disney researchers showed they could vary its elasticity dramatically within the same object. They developed families of compatible microstructures with varying elastic properties, enabling designers to select the properties desired for each region of an object. The team demonstrated their new ...

Computer graphics researchers have developed a way to efficiently render images of sand castles, gravel roads, snowmen, salt in a shaker or even ocean spray - any object consisting of randomly oriented, but discernible grains - that look realistic whether viewed from afar or up close. The new method, developed by Disney Research in collaboration with researchers from Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, ETH Zurich, Cornell University and Dartmouth College, employs three different types of rendering techniques depending on the scale at which the object is viewed. A sand ...

Chicago, August 5, 2015--A new national survey conducted by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research reveals a disparity among blacks' and whites' perception of violence against civilians by police. Nearly three-quarters of black respondents consider violence against civilians by police officers to be an extremely or very serious problem, compared to less than 20 percent of whites. However, the poll also finds agreement across racial groups on many of the causes of police violence, as well as further consensus that changes in policies and procedures ...

Disney Research has created LinkEdit, interactive software for predictably changing the shape or motion of planar linkages used in such objects as kinetic sculptures, folding furniture and mechanical toys. The LinkEdit software enables users to make desired changes in a linkage, such as altering its size or shape, while preserving other features, such as the walking gait of a linkage for a mechanical leg. The researchers demonstrated this capability by making alterations to the Jansen linkage, the building block to the famous walking sculptures created by artist Theo ...

Forehead wrinkles that rapidly deepen and crow's feet that appear suddenly around the eyes might distress the average person, but the ability to quickly and realistically incorporate such details in a facial reconstruction is the key feature of a new performance capture method developed at Disney Research. The method, which requires only a single video camera such as a webcam, is the first to both operate in real-time and to capture facial features in high resolution, including such details as wrinkles. "This could open up a variety of new applications, from casual ...

Heavy rain, towering thunderstorms, and a large area are things that NASA satellites observed as Typhoon Soudelor moves toward Taiwan on August 5, 2015. NASA's Terra satellite passed over Soudelor on August 5, 2015 at 01:45 UTC and the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) instrument captured a visible image of the large storm in the Philippine Sea. The eye appeared to be cloud-filled as bands of thunderstorms spiraled into the center of the storm. The Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) mission core observatory, a satellite managed by both NASA and ...

A team of astronomers led by Caltech has discovered a giant swirling disk of gas 10 billion light-years away--a galaxy-in-the-making that is actively being fed cool primordial gas tracing back to the Big Bang. Using the Caltech-designed and -built Cosmic Web Imager (CWI) at Palomar Observatory, the researchers were able to image the protogalaxy and found that it is connected to a filament of the intergalactic medium, the cosmic web made of diffuse gas that crisscrosses between galaxies and extends throughout the universe. The finding provides the strongest observational ...

Washington, DC, August 5, 2015 -- Potentially harmful bacteria can survive on endoscopes used to examine the interior of the digestive tract, despite a multi-step cleaning and disinfecting process, according to a study published in the August issue of the American Journal of Infection Control, the official publication of the Association for Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology (APIC). Though endoscopes were cleaned in accordance with multi-society guidelines, viable microbes and residual contamination remained on surfaces after each stage of cleaning, ...

Dan's Wild Wild Science Journal New paper shows global climate model errors are significantly less than thought Scientists have matched the output of climate models to the way the Earth's temperature record is constructed in a new study in Geophysical Research Letters. Dan Satterfield explores how climate models are doing an even better job at predicting the Earth's temperature than was thought. Eos.org On the rebound: Modeling Earth's ever-changing shape A new modeling tool easily computes the elastic response of changes in loading on Earth's surface to high resolution. ...

While undergoing laparoscopic sleeve gastrectomy induced weight loss and improvements in obesity-related disorders, long-term followup shows significant weight regain and a decrease in remission rates of diabetes and, to a lesser extent, other obesity-related disorders over time, according to a study published online by JAMA Surgery. Obesity was recognized as a global epidemic by the World Health Organization 15 years ago and rates of obesity have since been increasing. Obesity is currently considered a severe health hazard and a risk factor for diabetes mellitus, hypertension, ...

In a small study, women who had Roux-en-Y gastric bypass surgery reached certain blood alcohol concentrations in half the number of drinks compared to women who didn't have the surgery, and reported a greater feeling of drunkenness, according to a study published online by JAMA Surgery. Roux-en-Y gastric bypass (RYGB) is the most common bariatric surgical procedure performed in the world. Although RYGB surgery causes a marked reduction in food intake and induces remission of food addiction, it is associated with an increased risk of developing alcohol use disorders. It ...

Telephone-based cognitive behavioral therapy was better at reducing worry, generalized anxiety disorder symptoms and depressive symptoms in older adults who live in rural areas, where access to mental health treatment may be limited, according to an article published online by JAMA Psychiatry. Generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) is one of the most common anxiety disorders in older adults and is associated with poor quality of life, increased health care utilization and impaired memory. Medications and psychotherapy are the primary treatments. Many older adults prefer psychotherapy ...

To lose weight, boost energy or soothe nerves, many consumers turn to dietary supplements. But some of these products contain undeclared substances. To protect consumers from taking something without their knowledge, scientists have developed a technique to determine what secret ingredients could be lurking in these supplements. They report their approach, which helped them find the active Viagra ingredient and other synthetic designer compounds in various products, in ACS' Journal of Agricultural & Food Chemistry. Dietary supplements can appear to be a healthful option ...

Athens, Ga. - Lax state vaccination laws contribute to lower immunization rates and increased outbreaks of preventable diseases--like whooping cough and measles--according to a new study from the University of Georgia. Through their research, released in the August issue of the journal Health Affairs, study authors David Bradford and Anne Mandich found higher rates of pertussis, or whooping cough, in states that allowed philosophical exemptions and used a standardized exemption form. Vaccination exemption rates have increased drastically in the past 10 years, according ...

Ottawa, ON (5 August 2015) - Canadian Science Publishing and the Royal Tyrrell Museum of Palaeontology are pleased to announce the release of a special edition of Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences in recognition of the Museum's thirtieth anniversary on September 25, 2015. The insatiable curiosity of the Royal Tyrrell Museum scientists has driven its research program for the past thirty years, and has positioned the Museum as a leader in furthering our understanding of the evolution of life on Earth. The Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences, an NRC Research Press journal ...

In households with kids -- or grown-up klutzes -- a durable set of melamine plates and bowls is a must. But studies suggest that heat and acid can cause melamine from dinnerware to seep into food and potentially cause harmful health effects. Now scientists show that substituting stainless steel containers for melamine ones when serving hot food could reduce the amount of the substance in people's bodies. Their report appears in ACS' journal Environmental Science & Technology. In 2008, the health effects of acute melamine exposure became widely known when a scandal erupted ...

From "dragon's blood" to slippery elm root, coded and obscure ingredients of ancient recipes are getting a second look today not by Harry Potter fans, but by historians who want to experience science as it was practiced centuries ago. An article in Chemical & Engineering News (C&EN), the weekly newsmagazine of the American Chemical Society, explores some of the intriguing discoveries these recent efforts have yielded and the unexpected questions they raise. Sarah Everts, a senior editor at C&EN, notes that most science historians had long derided alchemy as pseudo-science, ...

NEW YORK, NY, August 5, 2015 - A diet high in refined carbohydrates may lead to an increased risk for new-onset depression in postmenopausal women, according to a study published in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. The study by James Gangwisch, PhD and colleagues in the department of psychiatry at Columbia University Medical Center (CUMC) looked at the dietary glycemic index, glycemic load, types of carbohydrates consumed, and depression in data from more than 70,000 postmenopausal women who participated in the National Institutes of Health's Women's Health ...

Researchers at the Virginia Bioinformatics Institute have uncovered a link between the genomes of cells originating in the neural crest and development of tumors -- a discovery that could lead to new ways to diagnose and treat cancer. The new finding, recently published in Oncotarget, resolves why some cancer types share genomic and clinical features. The discovery may also lead to new ways to diagnose and treat brain cancer, such as gliomas, medulloblastomas, and neuroblastomas; and skin cancer, known as melanoma. More than 22,000 new cases of brain cancer and more ...