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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 […]

Amazing Facts

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 […]

Amazing Facts

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 […]

Amazing Facts

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 […]

Amazing Facts

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. […]

Amazing Facts

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 […]

Amazing Facts

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 […]

Amazing Facts

Handy Motor Found in Virus

December 30, 2008

Your job today is to stuff a delicate chain into a barrel without breaking it and make it wrap neatly inside. A tiny virus does this with helping hands, reported Purdue University. A research team uncovered the mechanism of a “powerful molecular motor” that crams the viral DNA tightly into the capsid with the help […]

Amazing Facts

Plants Heal Humans and Vice Versa

December 29, 2008

Flowers in your hospital room do actually make you heal faster. A study by Kansas State researchers reported by PhysOrg found that more patients recovered from abdominal surgery faster with flowers in the room. It may be due to more than the psychological benefit of enjoying their colors, fragrances and the get-well wishes behind them: […]

Amazing Facts

Cilium Likened to GPS

December 27, 2008

A story on Science Daily says that the primary cilium, a protrusion on most human cells that looks like an antenna, acts like a GPS system. They “orient cells to move in the right direction and at the speed needed to heal wounds, much like a Global Positioning System helps ships navigate to their destinations.” […]

Marine Biology

Fish and Reptiles Converge on Magnetic Navigation

December 11, 2008

Two very different kinds of animal both have outstanding ability to navigate by earth’s magnetic field: salmon and sea turtles. A new hypothesis by scientists at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, published in PNAS,1 suggests that the young are “imprinted” with their local magnetic field signature at birth. From a navigational perspective, some […]

Biomimetics

Fly Swiftly

December 8, 2008

Swifts are amazing little birds in more ways than speed. They are inspiring advanced technology.

Amazing Facts

Thanks to Clam Design, Stronger Materials Are Coming

December 6, 2008

Scientists at Lawrence Berkeley National Labs have produced a lightweight composite material 300 times stronger than its constituents. How? By taking inspiration from clams. The team, writing in Science,1 described nacre, the shiny mother-of-pearl found inside clam shells. Because of the way it sandwiches crystalline aragonite with layers of protein (07/26/2004), nacre resists […]

Amazing Facts

That Spring in Your Step Is Semi-Automatic

December 2, 2008

Cross-country runners know the challenge of running on uneven terrain. What they may not know is that they are executing one of the most difficult operations for robot designers: how to make an upright, walking machine make rapid decisions on irregular surfaces without falling. Monica Daley of the Royal Veterinary College wrote about […]

Amazing Facts

Go to the Ant, Thou Farmer

November 30, 2008

We humans boast too much. Agribusiness? Ants have it down to a science. “One of the most important developments in human civilisation was the practice of sustainable agriculture,” stated Science Daily. “But we were not the first – ants have been doing it for over 50 million years. Just as farming helped humans become a […]

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