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Songbirds Sing on a Fast Wing

February 17, 2009

Purple martins and wood thrushes are common songbirds of the eastern United States. Until recently, it has not been possible to follow their movements accurately. Now, a team of biologists in Toronto, Erie and Cambridge was able to track them with tiny geolocators. They found that the little birds fly farther and faster than previously […]

Amazing Facts

The Uses of Wood Rot

February 16, 2009

Wood rot fungus doesn’t sound like a useful thing. Most people would rather get rid of it – especially those who have seen their houses decay because of it. Some scientists, however, are intrigued by it. It may have properties that could some day help power your car. Science Daily reported that the […]

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Modeling Solar Cells on Butterflies

February 7, 2009

Sunlight is free – if we could just learn how to use it better. For decades, engineers have been trying to improve the efficiency of solar cells. Why not look at nature? Science Daily reported on work going on in China and Japan: “The discovery that butterfly wings have scales that act as tiny solar […]

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Evolution as Efficiency Expert

February 6, 2009

Who would have thought that a lowly bacterium is a “master of industrial efficiency”? That’s what a researcher at the Weizmann Institute of Science called it. E. coli, the best-studied microbe, “can be thought of as a factory with just one product: itself,” a press release said. “It exists to make copies of itself, and […]

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Corn Is Fuel in More Ways than One

February 3, 2009

There’s been controversy lately about the diversion of corn crops from food for humans to ethanol for engines. Why not both? A new pilot program announced by Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft saves the corn cobs for eating but makes ethanol out of the straw. If so, this would make the whole plant an energy factory for the human […]

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Biology Now Includes Fluid Dynamic Construction

January 13, 2009

There’s an old legend that Tibetan monks built a wall by levitating heavy stones with sound by beating their drums and gongs. Something not quite so fantastic but still amazing is done by cells in the embryo. Scientists have filmed zebrafish embryos using beating cilia to build little stone structures that they use for balance. […]

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Watch for Flying Giraffes (and Convergent Evolutionists)

January 9, 2009

Imagine giraffe-sized animals that could fly. They lived. National Geographic News has an illustration of an extinct pterosaur, tall as a giraffe, that was able to leap into the air and flap its wings for sustained powered flight. Live Science discussed work by Michael Habib [Johns Hopkins U School of Medicine] on the […]

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Your Brain Decides Best Unconsciously

January 4, 2009

A report on Science Daily claims your subconscious brain makes the best decisions possible. This is based on work by cognitive neuroscientists at the University of Rochester. Alex Pouget believes the brain is hard-wired to make optimal decisions – when we are not consciously thinking about them. Pouget has been demonstrating for years that certain […]

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