Anyone who has ever put a small child to bed or drifted off in a gently swaying hammock will know that a rocking motion makes getting to sleep seem easier. Now, two new studies reported in Current Biology on January 24, one conducted in young adults and the other in mice, add to evidence for the broad benefits of a rocking motion during sleep. In fact, the studies in people show that rocking not only leads to better sleep, but it also boosts memory consolidation during sleep.
Brain
Ten years into the future. That's about how far UC Santa Barbara electrical and computer engineering professor John Bowers and his research team are reaching with the recent development of their mode-locked quantum dot lasers on silicon. It's technology that not only can massively increase the data transmission capacity of data centers, telecommunications companies and network hardware products to come, but do so with high stability, low noise and the energy efficiency of silicon photonics.
Researchers at Tokyo Institute of Technology, Imperial College London and the University of Tokyo have demonstrated that physical coordination is more beneficial in larger groups.
The researchers used robotic interfaces to test coordination in groups of two, three and four partners, and found that performance was improving with every additional group member.
CHAMPAIGN, Ill. -- A phthalate found in many plastic and personal care products may decrease fertility in female mice, a new study found.
Researchers at the University of Illinois found that giving female mice oral doses of the phthalate DiNP for 10 days disrupted their reproductive cycles, decreasing their ability to become pregnant for up to nine months afterward.
Widespread adoption by dairy farmers of injecting manure into the soil instead of spreading it on the surface could be crucial to restoring Chesapeake Bay water quality, according to researchers who compared phosphorus runoff from fields treated by both methods. However, they predict it will be difficult to persuade farmers to change practices.
Remote recording devices used to 'eavesdrop' on a reintroduced population of one of New Zealand's rarest birds have been heralded as a breakthrough for conservation.
Scientists from international conservation charity ZSL (Zoological Society of London), Imperial College London and conservationists from the Rotokare Scenic Reserve Trust used acoustic monitoring devices to listen in on the 'conversations' of New Zealand's endemic hihi bird, allowing them to assess the success of the reintroduction without impacting the group.
COLUMBUS, Ohio - It's about time for the annual mass migration of honeybees to California, and new research is helping lower the chances the pollinators and their offspring will die while they're visiting the West Coast.
Each winter, professional beekeepers from around the nation stack hive upon hive on trucks destined for the Golden State, where February coaxes forward the sweet-smelling, pink and white blossoms of the Central Valley's almond trees.
The Greenland ice sheet melted a little more easily in the past than it does today because of geological changes, and most of Greenland's ice can be saved from melting if warming is controlled, says a team of Penn State researchers.
"There is geologic data that suggests the ice sheet was more sensitive to warming and temperature variations in the past million years, and not so much in the more recent past," said David Pollard, research professor in the Earth and Environmental Systems Institute at Penn State.
Genetic testing improves the diagnoses of abnormalities in developing babies that are picked up during ultrasound scans, scientists report today (31 January) in The Lancet. Scientists from the Wellcome Sanger Institute, University of Cambridge, University of Birmingham, Great Ormond Street Hospital (GOSH) and their collaborators used genome sequencing to improve the diagnoses of abnormalities detected by ultrasound by around 10 per cent. Without genomic information, these abnormalities may not have been diagnosed until after pregnancy, if at all.
Sexual assault victims wearing the hijab or niqab are viewed more positively when testifying in court than uncovered women reveals a study.
Lead author, Weyam Fahmy of Memorial University, said that: "Our findings raise an interesting question about how trial fairness may be impacted by the greater levels of credibility afforded to victims who wear Muslim garments while testifying.
"Any decisions on policies or recommendations on the presence of the Muslim garments in court must be undergirded by a robust body of empirical data."
Restaurants frequently serve oversized meals, not only in the United States but also in many other countries, according to a study conducted by an international team of researchers and supported by FAPESP - São Paulo Research Foundation.
An international team of researchers has performed molecular analysis on fossil feathers from a small, feathered dinosaur from the Jurassic. Their research could aid scientists in pinpointing when feathers evolved the capacity for flight during the dinosaur-bird transition.
Anchiornis, one of the earliest feathered dinosaurs ever discovered, was found to have the ability to fly. However, could it fly like birds today? A new study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) by researchers from China and the U.S. says no.
The flight feathers of modern birds are mainly composed of β-keratin, which gives them special biomechanical properties (such as flexibility, elasticity and strength) to meet the needs of flight.
HOUSTON - Researchers at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center have discovered an immune regulator that appears to dictate glioblastoma (GBM) progression by shutting down immune surveillance, indicating a potential new area of therapeutic investigation.
Findings from the preclinical study led by Shulin Li, Ph.D., professor of Pediatrics, and Amy Heimberger, M.D., professor of Neurosurgery, were published in the Jan. 25 online issue of Nature Communications.
HOUSTON - (Jan. 24, 2019) - Nearly 1 in 5 fifth-graders has received violent injuries, the majority delivered by guns or knives, according to recently published research by The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth).