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2nd Feb 2009

Small Letters, Sorghum and Secrets in Caves


Ben Valsler
Making the smallest letters in the world

On this week's NewsFlash we find out how fingerprints help you feel fine detail, discover the smallest letters ever written and uncover the genetic secrets of Sorghum's success.  Plus, how a new way to make LED's could slash household bills, the two million year old secrets hidden in a cave in South Africa, and how bees can help to defend fish farms from fungus.

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News

(c) Cyrillic

Pointing out how fingerprints help us feel fine details

In a piece of true science detective work, researchers at the Laboratoire de Physique Statistique in Paris have found another reason why we have fingerprints. It’s been known for a while that the distinctive ridges on the pads of our fingers help us to grip things, but now Julien Schiebert and coll...

(c) Hari Manoharan, Stanford

Writing the world’s smallest letters

Keeping with our theme of nanotechnology this week, researchers at Stanford University in the States have managed to write the smallest letters ever – assembled from subatomic particles just 0.3 nanometres in size.  The researchers are particularly pleased with their achievement, because it was...

(c) Per H. Olsen

Mob rule to scare away cuckoos

Researchers studying Reed warblers have found out that mob rule can avoid being cuckolded by cuckoos. Cuckoos live a parasitic lifestyle – laying eggs in the nest of other birds and letting them spend their time and resources bringing up their young.  From an evolutionary perspective, it’s a g...

(c) Marco Schmidt

Turning up the heat on cereal genome

It’s clear that the global climate is changing, and this is having a big impact on food supplies.  For example, if the climate changes in a major crop-growing region, it may not be possible to grow that crop successfully any more. So scientists are investigating whether people living in dry reg...


Interviews

(c) PiccoloNamek

New LEDs to Slash household bills

A new way of manufacturing LEDs could see household bills slashed, and even provide clean drinking water wherever it's needed...

(c) Abalg

Bees Defend Fish Farms from Fungi

Plants make it, bees collect it, and now Propolis could be protecting farmed fish from fungi. Meera spoke to Kelvin Kemm...

(c) Luna04

New Evidence from Old Caves

New evidence from an old cave could cast light on how our ancestors lived 2 million years ago, as Meera Senthilingam found out when she spoke to spoke to Kelvin Kemm …




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