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Shape-changing metamaterial developed using Kirigami technique

Engineers from the University of Bristol have developed a new shape-changing metamaterial using Kirigami, which is the ancient Japanese art of cutting and folding paper to obtain 3D shapes.

Metamaterials are a class of material engineered to produce properties that don't occur naturally. Currently metamaterials are used to make artificial electromagnetic and vibration absorbers and high-performance sensors. Kirigami can be applied to transform two-dimensional sheet materials into complex three-dimensional shapes with a broader choice of geometries than 'classical' origami.

Sunflowers move by the clock

It's summertime, and the fields of Yolo County are filled with ranks of sunflowers, dutifully watching the rising sun. At the nearby University of California, Davis, plant biologists have now discovered how sunflowers use their internal circadian clock, acting on growth hormones, to follow the sun during the day as they grow.

Geological data provide support for legendary Chinese flood

Researchers have provided geological evidence for China's "Great Flood," a disastrous event on the Yellow River from which the Xia dynasty is thought to have been born. The flood occurred in roughly 1920 BC, they say, which is several centuries later than traditionally thought - meaning the Xia dynasty, and its renowned Emperor Yu, likely had a later start than Chinese historians have thought, too. According to Chinese legend, Emperor Yu gained notoriety through his handling of the country's Great Flood.

NASA sees Tropical Storm Omais form in Northwestern Pacific

The seventh tropical cyclone of the Northwestern Pacific Ocean season formed, and infrared data from NASA's Aqua satellite showed powerful thunderstorms persisting in the storm's center.

Head Start benefits children with disabilities

EAST LANSING, Mich. -- Young children with multiple disabilities who are enrolled in Head Start have better literacy, reading and math scores than children who aren't in the federally funded program, indicates a new study by Michigan State University researchers.

Head Start provides early education services to nearly 1 million low-income children up to age 5 every year, and federal requirements require that children with disabilities comprise at least 10 percent of its enrollment.

SDO status update -- Aug. 4, 2016

UPDATE, Aug. 4, 2016 (3:26 p.m. EDT) - Two of SDO's three science instruments - the Helioseismic and Magnetic Imager, or HMI, and the Extreme Ultraviolet Variability Experiment, or EVE - are online and sending science data to Earth. The SDO team is currently working on getting its third science instrument - the Atmospheric Imaging Assembly, or AIA - back online.

Focus on future to save more money

DENVER - When it comes to personal finances, impulsiveness and materialism can lead to bad decisions and a failure to save enough, but research presented at the annual convention of the American Psychological Association suggests that when people focus more on the future, they tend to be less impulsive, regardless of their level of financial literacy.

NASA releases 'Omics: Advancing personalized medicine from space to Earth'

NASA's Human Research Program (HRP) is releasing the video "Omics: Advancing Personalized Medicine from Space to Earth", to highlight its Twins Study, coinciding with National Twins Days. This is the last video in a series of eight which explores space through you by using omics to look more closely at the unique health of an individual.

'GPS in space': NPL and Leicester bring autonomous interplanetary travel closer to reality

Pulsars can be used to obtain position along a particular direction in space to an accuracy of 2km
Current large ground-based technology is limited by cost and number of spacecraft it can track
New method operates autonomously, increasing the number and capabilities of space missions

'Liquid fingerprinting' technique instantly identifies unknown liquids

Cambridge, Mass. -- A new company will commercialize sensing technology invented at Harvard University that can perform instant, in-field characterization of the chemical make-up and material properties of unknown liquids.

Validere, cofounded by Harvard scientists and engineers, has raised an initial round of seed capital and has entered into a worldwide exclusive licensing agreement with the university to pursue applications in quality assurance and liquid identification.

NASA's GPM sees towering thunderstorms in intensifying Tropical Storm Earl

Tropical storm Earl has been intensifying as it moves through the Caribbean Sea. The GPM satellite spotted hot towers, towering thunderstorms within Earl that indicate the storm may intensify.

The National Hurricane Center (NHC) now predicts that Earl will be a hurricane before it hits Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula tomorrow afternoon. Earl is predicted by NHC to remain in a light to moderate vertical wind shear environment over very warm sea surface temperatures until landfall.

Boosting swimming performance with sound data

Since 1896, swimming has been an event in the Olympic games. Back then it was the swimmer's physical condition that was decisive in securing a win, but today it is mostly technique that determines who takes home the title of world champion. Researchers at Bielefeld University have developed a system that professional swimmers can use to optimize their swimming technique. The system expands the athlete's perception and feel for the water by enabling them to hear, in real time, how the pressure of the water flows created by the swimmer changes with their movements.

Lasers melt rocks to reveal development of super-Earths and how giant impacts make magma

New experiments provide insight into how Earth-type planets form when giant asteroids or planetesimals collide and how the interiors of such planets develop. Researchers at Hiroshima University, Osaka University, Ehime University, University of Tokyo, and the Chiba Institute of Technology collaborated to publish their research in the August 3, 2016 issue of Science Advances.

Team led by SF State astronomer catalogs most likely 'second-Earth' candidates

Looking for another Earth? An international team of researchers has pinpointed which of the more than 4,000 exoplanets discovered by NASA's Kepler mission are most likely to be similar to our rocky home.

The research, detailed in an article to be published in the Astrophysical Journal, outlines 216 Kepler planets located within the "habitable zone" -- the area around a star in which a planet's surface could hold liquid water. Of those, they list 20 that are the best candidates to be habitable rocky planets like Earth.

MASE Astrobiologists study Mars-like environments on Earth

Recently, a team of astrobiologists from the EU funded MASE (Mars Analogues for Space Exploration) project descended 1.1 kilometers below Earth's surface to the Mars-like environment of the Boulby Mine in the UK looking for answers about life on other planets. Six members of the MASE team headed to the mine on the North East coast of England to study ancient formations of honey-comb like hexagonal patterns that were formed 250 million years ago.