"Keep your eyes on the road."
With the recent advances in vehicle-assisted safety technology and in-car displays, this old adage has a new meaning, thanks to two new applications of eye-tracking technology developed by researchers at the University of Missouri.
Designing a better collision avoidance warning
Observing how someone's eyes change -- specifically the pupil -- while they respond to an alert given by a vehicle collision avoidance warning could one day help scientists design safer systems.
An international research team including scientists from the University of Cologne, Germany, numerous Iranian universities and the University of Sydney, Australia, has shown that today's Iranian population is composed of partially highly heterogeneous ethnic groups, exhibiting a high degree of genetic variation. In many cases, their source goes back many thousands of years.
Acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL), is the most common childhood cancer. Children with trisomy 21 (Down syndrome) are 10 to 20 times more likely to develop ALL than children without Down syndrome. Historically, children with Down syndrome and ALL had more complications from treatment and a poorer outcome. However, outcomes are improving as we learn more about ALL in Down syndrome and how to best provide treatment and supportive care.
Embryonic stem cells (ESCs) can give rise to many different types of tissues and organs. At the turn of the present century, these cells were believed to offer hope of treatment for several health problems, but as research advanced, scientists realized that understanding and controlling the behavior of ESCs would be a more daunting challenge than initially imagined.
Sponges form an extensive animal phylum with over 7,500 species worldwide, which occur in a wide range of habitats in the ocean. A special feature of this animal phylum is their ability to filter seawater, through which these organisms obtain their food. In doing so, certain sponge species can move up to 24,000 litres through their body per day. The surrounding seawater contains a wide range of viruses - on average, one millilitre of water contains 10 million viruses.
NASA-NOAA's Suomi NPP satellite passed over the Arabian Sea in the Northern Indian Ocean and provided forecasters with a view of Cyclone Hikaa's structure. Hikaa is at hurricane strength along Oman's coast.
On Sept. 24 at 5:30 a.m. EDT (0930 UTC), the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) instrument aboard Suomi NPP provided a visible image of Cyclone Hikaa. The VIIRS image showed that the storm was close to the eastern coast of Oman and its center was just south of Masirah Island. Hikaa's western quadrant was over the coast bringing gusty winds and heavy rainfall.
NASA's Aqua Satellite provides a variety of data on tropical cyclones including cloud heights and cloud top temperatures. Aqua examined those factors in Tropical Storm Kiko before wind shear began to affect it and weaken the storm.
UCLA evolutionary biologist Blaire Van Valkenburgh has spent more than three decades studying the skulls of many species of large carnivores -- including wolves, lions and tigers -- that lived from 50,000 years ago to the present. She reports today in the journal eLife the answer to a puzzling question.
Hey, physicists and materials scientists: You'd better reevaluate your work if you study iridium-based materials - members of the platinum family - when they are ultra-thin.
Scientists have identified the stem cells that allow tapeworms to regenerate and found that their location in proximity to the head is essential, according to a new study in eLife.
These novel insights can help explain how tapeworms grow in their human and animal hosts and could be helpful in finding new ways to target these parasites.