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46 articles from ScienceDaily

Thawing permafrost releases greenhouse gas from depth

Geologists compared the spatial and temporal distribution of methane concentrations in the air of northern Siberia with geological maps. The result: the methane concentrations in the air after last year's heat wave indicate that increased gas emissions came from limestone formations.

Researchers identify approach for potential nontypeable haemophilus influenzae vaccine

Scientists have identified two proteins that could be used for a potential vaccine against nontypeable Haemophilus influenzae (NTHi). Working in a mouse model, the investigators found that administering two bacterial adhesive proteins that play a key role in helping the bacteria to latch on to respiratory cells and initiate respiratory tract infection stimulated protective immunity against diverse...

Seeing better by looking away

When we fixate an object, its image does not appear at the place where photoreceptors are packed most densely. Instead, its position is shifted slightly nasally and upwards from the cellular peak. Researchers observed such offsets in both eyes of 20 healthy subjects, and speculate that the underlying fixation behavior improves overall vision.

How headless hydra feel, react to prodding

Researchers identify redundant neural networks in jellyfish-like, freshwater hydra. The work is a step toward modeling how internal states and external stimuli shape the behavior of an organism with a highly dynamic neural architecture.

Neanderthals indeed painted Andalusia’s Cueva de Ardales

The origin and date of appearance of prehistoric cave art are the subjects of ongoing debate. Spain's Cueva de Ardales is one point of discussion. There a flowstone formation is stained red in places. This coloring is apparently almost 65,000 years old but until now, a part of the scientific community attributed it to a natural coating of iron oxide deposited by flowing water. However, that...

Decoding how salamanders walk

Salamanders can navigate complex and unstructured environments thanks to their impressive body-limb coordination. Researchers have built a model that mimics a salamander's walk with the hope it aids the development of agile and adaptive robots that can flexibly change their body-limb coordination.

Finding the cause of a fatal problem in rocket engine combustors

A vital piece of gas engines, combustors -- the chambers in which the combustion powering the engine occurs -- have the problem of breaking down due to fatal high-frequency oscillations during the combustion process. Now, through advanced time-series analyses based on complex systems, researchers have found what causes them, opening up novel paths to solving the problem.

Non-invasive method for diagnosing celiac disease

Researchers have now developed a non-invasive method to help diagnose celiac disease and which uses saliva. This research has shown that it is possible to considerably reduce the number of endoscopies, which are currently carried out via a non-invasive method of diagnosis.

Flood water: Toxins from the riverbed

A long-term hazard from flood water is often underestimated: The raging rivers swirl up pollutants out of their sediments that stem from environmental pollution decades or centuries ago. Such harmful substances can not only cause ecological damage in the river. They can also deposit themselves on flooded areas and affect crops, grazing livestock and humans.

Cracking the code of crack propagation in rubberlike materials

Researchers have developed a simplified mathematical model (step-loading model, SLM) that unifies two earlier mechanisms to describe the velocity jump in crack propagation. Through SLM, they showed that the near-tip mechanical behavior observed from one analysis is derived from the dynamic glass transition at the crack tip described in another proposal, thus merging the two distinct analyses, and...