Culture

Bacteria must talk to each other, in a sense. They use signals to inform neighbors whether to switch certain genes on or off and this allows them to adapt to changing circumstances.

Scientists have identified three different signals that indicate damage to chloroplasts— the photosynthetic factories of plant cells that give plants their green color —but little is known about how the signal gets passed on to the nucleus. Scientists at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies made a big step towards explaining how chloroplasts let a cell's nucleus know when things start to go wrong at the periphery so nuclear gene expression can be adjusted accordingly.

Combining precise observations obtained by ESO's Very Large Telescope with those gathered by a network of smaller telescopes, astronomers have described in unprecedented detail the double asteroid Antiope, which is shown to be a pair of rubble-pile chunks of material, of about the same size, whirling around one another in a perpetual pas de deux. The two components are egg-shaped despite their very small sizes.

Picture the flow of water over a rock. At very low speeds, the water looks like a smooth sheet skimming the rock's surface. As the water rushes faster, the flow turns into turbulent, roiling whitewater that can overturn your raft.

DNA testing carried out by University of Leicester geneticists and funded by The Wellcome Trust has thrown new light on the ancestry of one of the USA’s most revered figures, the third President, Thomas Jefferson.

Almost 10 years ago, the University of Leicester team, led by Professor Mark Jobling, together with international collaborators, showed that Thomas Jefferson had fathered at least one of the sons of Sally Hemings, a slave of Jefferson’s.

Nanomechanical oscillators -- tiny strips of vibrating silicon only a few hundred atoms thick -- are the subject of extensive study by nanotechnology researchers. They could someday replace bulky quartz crystals in electronic circuits or be used to detect and identify bacteria and viruses.

Despite the attractive electrical properties and physical features of single-walled carbon nanotubes, incorporating them into scalable integrated circuits has proven to be a challenge because of difficulties in manipulating and positioning these molecular scale objects and in achieving sufficient current outputs.

Now, researchers at the University of Illinois, Lehigh University and Purdue University have developed an approach that uses dense arrays of aligned and linear nanotubes as a thin-film semiconductor material suitable for integration into electronic devices.

Prostitutes, perversions and public scandals – the stuff of the 21st century tabloids was familiar to readers three centuries earlier, according to new research from the University of Leeds.

The reading of erotic literature was already a social activity 300 years ago.18th c. corset. Credit: www.museumofcostume.co.uk

Factoring in crustal strength changes along the San Andreas Fault would improve the predictive models that researchers use to understand the likelihood and intensity of earthquakes there. That's the conclusion from a study published in the April issue of Geology titled, "Diffuse interseismic deformation across the Pacific-North America plate boundary."

Ultrasonic irradiation can break down ionic liquids into more environmentally benign compounds, say scientists.

Ionic liquids are widely regarded as a greener alternative to many commonly used solvents. But, concerns about their toxicity have raised questions about their use in large scale industrial applications, especially those that involve the creation of large amounts of waste.High frequency sound waves break ionic liquids into non-toxic components. Image: Chemical Science

The 2004 Sumatra-Andaman earthquake and resulting tsunami are now infamous for the damage they caused, but at the time many scientists believed this area was unlikely to create a quake of such magnitude. In the March 23 issue of the journal Science, a geophysicist from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute urges the public and policy makers to consider all subduction-type tectonic boundaries to be "locked, loaded, and dangerous."

A team from the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona and the University of Almería has completed its second part of the "Proyecto La Puntilla", an archaeological expedition to the Peruvian province of Nazca, where last year it discovered a new type of construction. The latest findings show that a new political power based on the exercise of violence emerged on the south coast of Peru two thousand years ago. There was a State in which an aristocracy, based in Cahuachi, exercised its dominion on other, poorer communities in the Nazca Valley.

UCF's Conservatory Theatre and its partners are pushing the envelope of traditional theater by not only bringing it into the 21st Century, but launching it into the 22nd.

Using new techniques that merge the Internet 2 with traditional stage theatre, the University of Central Florida, Bradley University in Illinois and the University of Waterloo in Canada performed a play that put actors from Florida and Canada on the stage in Illinois without them ever leaving their respective campuses.

After years of results that repeatedly dogged him, University of Oregon geologist Douglas R. Toomey decided to follow the trail of data surfacing from the Pacific Ocean. In doing so, he and his collaborators may have altered long-held assumptions involving plate tectonics on the ocean floor.

Research funded by Metallica?

Gifted students who feel the pressure of their ability could be using Heavy Metal music to get rid of negative emotions.

This is the conclusion of Stuart Cadwallader and Professor Jim Campbell of The National Academy for Gifted and Talented Youth at the University of Warwick. They will discuss their findings at the British Psychological Society’s Annual Conference at the University of York on Wednesday 21 March 2007.