science newsletter: Science News SciGuru.com

Δευτέρα 25 Φεβρουαρίου 2013

Science News SciGuru.com

A new look at high-temperature superconductors
Teaching robots lateral thinking
How the ocean loses nitrogen
Analytical trick accelerates protein studies - Technique could speed cancer diagnosis‏
Scientists identify bone-marrow environment that leads to production of infection-fighting T and B cells

A new look at high-temperature superconductors

Posted: 25 Feb 2013 07:05 AM PST

While the phenomenon of superconductivity — in which some materials lose all resistance to electric currents at extremely low temperatures — has been known for more than a century, the temperature at which it occurs has remained too low for any practical applications. The discovery of “high-temperature” superconductors in the 1980s — materials that could lose resistance at temperatures of up to negative 140 degrees Celsius — led to speculation that a surge of new discoveries might quickly lead to room-temperature superconductors.

Teaching robots lateral thinking

Posted: 25 Feb 2013 06:56 AM PST

Many commercial robotic arms perform what roboticists call “pick and place” tasks: The arm picks up an object in one location and places it in another. Usually, the objects — say, automobile components along an assembly line — are positioned so that the arm can easily grasp them; the appendage that does the grasping may even be tailored to the objects’ shape.

How the ocean loses nitrogen

Posted: 25 Feb 2013 06:47 AM PST

During an expedition to the South Pacific Ocean, scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology, along with their colleagues from the GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research in Kiel discovered that organic matter derived from decaying algae regulates nitrogen loss from the ocean's oxygen minimum zones.

Analytical trick accelerates protein studies - Technique could speed cancer diagnosis‏

Posted: 24 Feb 2013 12:29 PM PST

Researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison have found a new way to accelerate a workhorse instrument that identifies proteins. The high-speed technique could help diagnose cancer sooner and point to new drugs for treating a wide range of conditions.

Proteins are essential building blocks of biology, used in muscle, brain, blood and hormones. If the genes are the blueprints, the proteins patterned on them are the hammers and tongs of life.

Scientists identify bone-marrow environment that leads to production of infection-fighting T and B cells

Posted: 24 Feb 2013 12:20 PM PST

The Children’s Medical Center Research Institute at UT Southwestern has deepened the understanding of the environment within bone marrow that nurtures stem cells, this time identifying the biological setting for specialized blood-forming cells that produce the infection-fighting white blood cells known as T cells and B cells.