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279,032 articles from PhysOrg
What online social networks may know about non-members
(Phys.org) -- What can social networks on the internet know about persons who are friends of members, but have no user profile of their own? Researchers from the Interdisciplinary Center for Scientific Computing of Heidelberg University studied this question. Their work shows that through network analytical and machine learning tools the relationships between members and the connection...
Why bigger animals aren't always faster (w/ Video)
New research in the journal Physiological and Biochemical Zoology shows why bigger isn't always better when it comes to sprinting speed.
Electric charge disorder: A key to biological order?
Theoretical physicist Ali Naji from the IPM in Tehran and the University of Cambridge, UK, and his colleagues have shown how small random patches of disordered, frozen electric charges can make a difference when they are scattered on surfaces that are overall neutral.
India designs its own image as global power
Brand India is the name of the organisation that since the late 1990's has been tasked with convincing international corporations and heads of state that they should invest in new, modern India. In return for their investment, they get, among other things, access to cheap, well-educated labour.
Maintaining bridges on a budget
What if there was a way to vastly improve the safety, durability and sustainability of bridges across North America without increasing spending? This was the question Saleh Abu Dabous set out to answer when he began his PhD at Concordia. "I was looking for an applied way to do research something that would have an impact on society and improve the current situation," he remembers.
NASA's Chandra sees remarkable outburst from old black hole
An extraordinary outburst produced by a black hole in a nearby galaxy has provided direct evidence for a population of old, volatile stellar black holes. The discovery, made by astronomers using NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory, provides new insight into the nature of a mysterious class of black holes that can produce as much energy in X-rays as a million suns radiate at all wavelengths.
Research breakthrough takes supercomputing out of the lab
In the age of high-speed computing, the photon is king. However, producing the finely tuned particles of light is a complex and time-consuming process, until now.
UK court tells service providers: Block Pirate Bay
(AP) -- Britain's High Court has ordered the country's Internet service providers to block file-sharing website The Pirate Bay, the U.K.'s main music industry association said Monday.
A new glimpse into ancient human history
Analyzing DNA from four ancient skeletons and comparing it with thousands of genetic samples from living humans, a group of Scandinavian scientists reported that agriculture initially spread through Europe because farmers expanded their territory northward, not because the more primitive foragers already living there adopted it on their own.
Attosecond lighthouses may help illuminate the tempestuous sea of electrons
Physicists have long chased an elusive goal: the ability to "freeze" and then study the motion of electrons in matter. Such experiments could help confirm theories of electron motion and yield insights into how and why chemical reactions take place. Now a collaboration of scientists from France and Canada has developed an elegant new method to study electrons' fleeting antics using isolated,...
Conquering LED efficiency droop
WASHINGTON, April 30--Like a coffee enthusiast who struggles to get a buzz from that third cup of morning joe, light-emitting diodes (LEDs) seem to reach a point where more electricity no longer imparts the same kick and productivity levels-off. Now a team of researchers from California and Japan has devised a new design for green and blue LEDs that avoids much of this vexing efficiency droop. The...
FANCM plays key role in inheritance
Scientists of KIT and the University of Birmingham have identified relevant new functions of a gene that plays a crucial role in Fanconi anemia, a life-threatening disease.
Graduation year drives Facebook connections for college grads
Are you connected to college friends on Facebook? Research from North Carolina State University shows that these social networks tend to form around graduation year or university housing rather than other interests.
Honda unveils demonstration test house that features Honda Smart Home System
Honda Motor Co., Ltd. today unveiled a house Honda built in the city of Saitama, Japan, for the demonstration testing of the Honda Smart Home System (HSHS). The house features HSHS, which comprehensively controls in-house energy supply and demand, and helps manage both the generation and consumption of energy for the home such as heat and electricity, while utilizing mobility products. HSHS is...
In search of the 'lost ladybug'
Leah Tyrrell wants to make something clear: She does not wear ladybug sweatshirts. She does not carry her belongings in ladybug bags, shelter from the rain beneath a ladybug-shaped umbrella, or take notes with pens decorated with little ladybugs.
Italian merchants funded England's discovery of North America
Evidence that a Florentine merchant house financed the earliest English voyages to North America, has been published on-line in the academic journal Historical Research.
Modern hybrid corn makes better use of nitrogen, study shows
(Phys.org) -- Today's hybrid corn varieties more efficiently use nitrogen to create more grain, according to 72 years of public-sector research data reviewed by Purdue University researchers.
Molecular spectroscopy tracks living mammalian cells in real time as they differentiate
Knowing how a living cell works means knowing how the chemistry inside the cell changes as the functions of the cell change. Protein phosphorylation, for example, controls everything from cell proliferation to differentiation to metabolism to signaling, and even programmed cell death (apoptosis), in cells from bacteria to humans. It's a chemical process that has long been intensively studied, not...
Old star, new trick
The Big Bang produced lots of hydrogen and helium and a smidgen of lithium. All heavier elements found on the periodic table have been produced by stars over the last 13.7 billion years. Astronomers analyze starlight to determine the chemical makeup of stars, the origin of the elements, the ages of stars, and the evolution of galaxies and the universe.
Portable gas sensors improve atmospheric pollution measurements
Different types of compact, low-power portable sensors under development by three independent research groups may soon yield unprecedented capabilities to monitor ozone, greenhouse gases, and air pollutants. The three teams will each present their work at the Conference on Lasers and Electro-Optics (CLEO: 2012 ), to be held May 6-11, in San Jose, Calif.
Redefining time
Atomic clocks based on the oscillations of a cesium atom keep amazingly steady time and also define the precise length of a second. But cesium clocks are no longer the most accurate. That title has been transferred to an optical clock housed at the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) in Boulder, Colo. that can keep time to within 1 second in 3.7 billion years. Before this...
Researchers develop rapid test strips for bacterial contamination in swimming water (w/ Video)
Urban beach closures due to coliform outbreaks have become disturbing signs of summer, yet water-testing technology has never been fast enough to keep up with changing conditions, nor accessible enough to check all waters.
Superconducting strip could become an ultra-low-voltage sensor
Researchers studying a superconducting strip observed an intermittent motion of magnetic flux which carries vortices inside the regularly spaced weak conducting regions carved into the superconducting material. These vortices resulted in alternating static phases with zero voltage and dynamic phases, which are characterised by non-zero voltage peaks in the superconductor. This study, which is...
31 percent of Indians are 'suffering': survey
More than three out of 10 Indians are "suffering", an increase from 24 percent last year, a survey from global polling group Gallup showed Monday.
Agroforestry is not rocket science but it might save DPR Korea
There is more going on in DPR Korea than rocket science: local people in collaboration with natural resources scientists are taking control of their food supply through agroforestry. This is according to a report published in Agroforestry Systems journal.