News
US scientists have developed a new way to image tissue in unprecedented detail but without resorting to harmful X-rays. Harvard researcher Mark Niedre and his colleagues, writing in this week's PNAS, describe how they have used short bursts of very intense laser light to produce three-dimensional im...
A national survey of the countryside has shown that good quality ponds have vanished from many parts of the countryside, although there’s actually more ponds in numerical terms. And this could spell disaster for wildlife.
The Centre for Ecology and Hydrology carry out a Countryside Survey in ...
If you are making a machine with moving parts you often want to make parts slide past each other efficiently. Normally this is achieved by covering the parts with oil or another lubricant which can significantly reduce the friction but this isn't that effective, and the lubricant can escape. There&n...
A breakthrough in the way laser light interacts with nerve cells could greatly improve the quality of hearing for people who require cochlea implants.
A healthy inner ear contains many thousands of hair-like cells which detect sound and pass a signal on to nerve cells, which then transport the sign...
Scientists at Penn State University have made a giant leap, or should that be a slow lumber, forward in genetic research by sequencing the genome of the woolly mammoth. The team sequenced four billion bases, or letters, of DNA using the latest technology, and a new approach to read very old DN...
It is often said that oil and water don't mix, but if you have ever done any washing up you will know that you can make them mix by adding a detergent, which allows the water to dissolve all those stubbon stains. This sort of thing is often done in chemistry, possibly to allow some catalytic nanopar...
