CAMBRIDGE, MA -- Researchers at MIT and the Santa Fe Institute have found that some widely used formulas for predicting how rapidly technology will advance — notably, Moore's Law and Wright's Law — offer superior approximations of the pace of technological progress. The new research is the first to directly compare the different approaches in a quantitative way, using an extensive database of past performance from many different industries. Some of the results were surprising, says Jessika Trancik, an assistant professor of engineering systems at MIT. The findings could ...

AMES, Iowa – Bong Wie has heard the snickers. You want to protect the Earth from asteroids? Where were you when the dinosaurs needed you? You want to be like Bruce Willis in that asteroid movie? Wie has a serious reply: After five years of science and engineering work, Wie and his small team have a publication list of 40-plus technical papers, $600,000 of NASA research support and a proposal for a $500 million test launch of an asteroid intercept system. Plus, Wie has just been invited to show off his research as part of NASA's Technology Day on the Hill in Washington, ...

This press release is available in French. Dr. Roberto Morandotti and his team at the INRS Énergie Matériaux Télécommunications Research Centre have developed a device that is critical to the use of terahertz (THz) sources for a variety of applications. Their electromagnetic non-reciprocal isolator is the subject of a recent article in Nature Communications, showing just how important this new development is. Until now, no isolator existed that was effective in the THz region of the spectrum, a situation that held back the development of certain technologies. The new ...

The transistors and wires that power our electronic devices need to be mounted on a base material known as a "motherboard." Our human brain is not so different — neurons, the cells that transmit electrical and chemical signals, are connected to one another through synapses, similar to transistors and wires, and they need a base material too. But the cells serving that function in the brain may have other functions as well. PhD student Maurizio De Pittà of Tel Aviv University's Schools of Physics and Astronomy and Electrical Engineering says that astrocytes, the star-shaped ...

This press release is available in German. The unusual behavior of complex fluids is part of our daily life: cake dough climbs up the stirring bar, ketchup becomes liquid when you shake it. Also technology uses such phenomena: if we add a small amount of long-chained polymer molecules, a pipeline can transport more oil. The polymers reduce the flow resistance. But up to now the origin of these effects was unclear. The engineers had to rely on estimates and lengthy trials. A team of physicists led by Professor Andreas Bausch, Chair of Cellular Biophysics at TUM now ...

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — A pair of studies tells the tale of how a neuroscientist at Mayo Clinic in Florida helped to discover the first African-American family to have inherited the rare movement disorder dystonia, which causes repetitive muscle contractions and twisting, resulting in abnormal posture. The research may improve diagnosis of this neurological condition in a population not known to suffer from it. In the first study, published in 2011 in the journal Parkinsonism and Related Disorders, Mayo Clinic's Zbigniew Wszolek, M.D., and a team of neuroscientists from ...

A new report from Michigan State University and the Michigan Department of Community Health raises significant concerns about the federal government's system for tracking work-related injuries. Published in the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, the study found the number of amputations following jobsite accidents in Michigan was nearly two-and-a-half times higher than the official estimate from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Such inaccuracy is evidence that the bureau should change its system that relies solely on a sample of employers to report ...

Researchers from the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai have discovered that a particular protein prevents normal cells from being reprogrammed into cells that resemble stem cells, providing new insight into how they may lose their plasticity during normal development. This finding has broad-reaching implications for how cells change during both normal and disease development. The data are published this week in Nature Communications. In a previous study, Emily Bernstein, PhD, and her team at Mount Sinai studied the natural progression of melanoma using mouse and ...

Cold Spring Harbor, NY -- The normal development of an animal or plant can be compared in at least two ways with the successful performance of a great symphony. The whole is the product of a great number of events involving contributions by many different "players"; and these contributions must occur in a precise and almost perfectly coordinated temporal and spatial sequence. In simple animals like the fruit fly and more recently in plants and mammals, scientists have been able to identify some of the principal players in the developmental symphony. Today, a team ...

HOUSTON—(March 6, 2013)—Researchers at The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth) have found that up to 30 percent of minority youths reported sending or receiving "sexts," which are sexually explicit messages sent through technology including photos, videos and text-only messages. "Although sexting is relatively common among youth and there has been a lot of attention about sexting in the media, there hasn't been much about sexting among ethnic minority youth," said lead investigator Melissa Fleschler Peskin, Ph.D., assistant professor of behavioral ...

This press release is available in German. "We estimate that three percent of all premature deaths can be attributed to the high consumption of processed meat," summarizes Sabine Rohrmann from the Institute of Social and Preventive Medicine at the University of Zurich. Teaming up with research colleagues from ten countries, she has been studying the link between the consumption of processed meat and the risk of mortality as part of a Europe-wide study with around 450,000 participants. People who eat a lot of processed meat such as sausage products, salami or ham ...

Anyone whose hand or foot has "fallen asleep" has an idea of the numbness and tingling often experienced by people with peripheral nerve damage. The condition also can cause a range of other symptoms, including unrelenting pain, stinging, burning, itching and sensitivity to touch. Although peripheral neuropathies afflict some 20 million Americans, their underlying causes are not completely understood. Much research has focused on the breakdown of cellular energy factories in nerve cells as a contributing factor. Now, new research at Washington University School of Medicine ...

RIVERSIDE, Calif. (http://www.ucr.edu) — A University of California, Riverside Bourns College of Engineering professor and a team of researchers published a paper today that shows how they solved an almost century-old problem that could further help downscale the size of electronic devices. The work, led by Alexander A. Balandin, a professor of electrical engineering at UC Riverside, focused on the low-frequency electronic 1/f noise, also known as pink noise and flicker noise. It is a signal or process with a power spectral density inversely proportional to the frequency. ...

Viruses often spread through the brain in patchwork patterns, infecting some cells but missing others. New research at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis helps explain why. The scientists showed that natural immune defenses that resist viral infection are turned on in some brain cells but switched off in others. "The cells that a pathogen infects can be a major determinant of the seriousness of brain infections," says senior author Michael Diamond, MD, PhD, professor of medicine. "To understand the basis of disease, it is important to understand which ...

The earthquake zones off of certain coasts—like those of Japan and Java—make them especially vulnerable to tsunamis, according to a new study. They can produce a focusing point that creates massive and devastating tsunamis that break the rules for how scientists used to think tsunamis work. Until now, it was largely believed that the maximum tsunami height onshore could not exceed the depth of the seafloor. But new research shows that when focusing occurs, that scaling relationship breaks down and flooding can be up to 50 percent deeper with waves that do not lose height ...

A research team at the University of Guelph has developed a new line of transgenic "Enviropigs." The new line of pigs is called the Cassie line, and it is known for passing genes on more reliably. The results of this project were published ahead of print in the Journal of Animal Science. Enviropigs have genetically modified salivary glands, which help them digest phosphorus in feedstuffs and reduce phosphorus pollution in the environment. After developing the initial line of Enviropigs, researchers found that the line had certain genes that could be unstable during reproduction ...

Wednesday, March 6, 2013, Cleveland: Concussions are the leading cause of brain damage in sports, particularly in football. However, researchers at Cleveland Clinic and the University of Rochester have found that football players may suffer long-term brain changes even in the absence of concussion. In a study of 67 college football players, researchers found that the more hits to the head a player absorbed, the higher the levels of a particular brain protein that's known to leak into the bloodstream after a head injury. Even though none of the football players in the ...

Scientists at A*STAR's Genome Institute of Singapore (GIS) have developed a novel technique to precisely monitor and study the evolution of micro-organisms such as viruses and bacteria. This is an extremely important capability as it allows scientists to investigate if new drugs designed to kill them are working, and catch the development of resistance early on. Micro-organisms and cancer cells evolve more quickly than normal human cells as their rapid life-cycles enable faster selection of advantageous mutations. Previously, scientists have had to wait for the selection ...

Flu viruses are a major cause of death and sickness around the world, and antiviral drugs currently do not protect the most seriously ill patients. A study published March 7th by Cell Press in the journal Cell reveals that a compound derived from fats found in fish oils prevents death in influenza-virus-infected mice, even at advanced stages of disease. The study offers a promising strategy for the treatment of patients with severe influenza virus infections. "Given the potential for future lethal pandemics, effective drugs are needed for the treatment of severe influenza, ...

When animals like dogs or rats sniff one another, there might be more going on than you'd think. Research reported in Current Biology, a Cell Press publication, on March 7th finds in rats that those sniffing behaviors communicate information about an individual's social status. In those encounters, more dominant rats act as primary sniffers, while subordinate sniffees actually slow their breath. "We know that rats and other animals can communicate through vocalizations, physical contact, odors, and also visual displays," says Daniel Wesson of Case Western Reserve University. ...

A new study explains how young brains are protected when nutrition is poor. The findings, published on March 7th in Cell Reports, a Cell Press publication, reveal a coping strategy for producing a fully functional, if smaller, brain. The discovery, which was made in larval flies, shows the brain as an incredibly adaptable organ and may have implications for understanding the developing human brain as well, the researchers say. The key is a carefully timed developmental system that ultimately ensures neural diversity at the expense of neural numbers. "In essence, this ...

VIDEO: What happens when human brain cells that surround and support neurons are implanted into the brains of newborn mice? Researchers reporting in the March 7th issue of the Cell Press... Click here for more information. What happens when human brain cells that surround and support neurons are implanted into the brains of newborn mice? Researchers reporting in the March 7th issue of the Cell Press journal Cell Stem Cell recently found that such mice had enhanced learning and ...

An Australian researcher has found the third and final missing piece in the genetic puzzle of an unusual form of hemophilia, more than 20 year after he discovered the first two pieces. Professor Merlin Crossley, of the University of New South Wales, and his international team studied the blood-clotting disorder, hemophilia B Leyden, which is unusual because symptoms improve after puberty. The results, published in The American Journal of Human Genetics, explain how more than half of the cases of this rare, hereditary bleeding disorder occur, and could help improve understanding ...

What do cancer cells, weeds, and pathogens have in common? They all evolve resistance to the treatments that are supposed to eliminate them. However, researchers developing the next generation of antibiotics, herbicides, and anti-cancer therapeutics rarely come together to explore the common evolutionary principles at work across their different biological systems. The new American Academy of Microbiology report "Moving Targets: Fighting Resistance in Infections, Pests, and Cancer" concludes that scientists working on different kinds of treatments have much to learn from ...

USC scientists have discovered how two different structural apparatuses collaborate to protect repetitive DNA when it is at its most vulnerable – while it is being unzipped for replication. The centromere—the center of the "X" shape of a chromosome—contains repeated DNA sequences that are epigenetically coded to attract so-called heterochromatin proteins. This protects the structure to ensure that the chromosomes separate properly. If the heterochromatin is lost (due to mutations in the cell), the repetitive DNA becomes vulnerable to rearrangements and recombination. ...