Ice offers possible explanation for Death Valley's mysterious 'self-moving'...
Death Valley National Park contains many mysteries, including one of nature's strangest phenomena: Rocks that seem to move around all on their own.
View ArticleIn bubble-rafting snails, the eggs came first
(PhysOrg.com) -- It's "Waterworld" snail style: Ocean-dwelling snails that spend most of their lives floating upside down, attached to rafts of mucus bubbles.
View ArticleSweet potato DNA indicates early Polynesians traveled to South America
(Phys.org)—A French based research team has found DNA evidence in sweet potato samples that suggests that early Polynesian explorers visited South America. Those early explorers, the researchers write...
View ArticleFlexible, stretchable fire-ant rafts
What do Jell-O, toothpaste, and floating fire-ant rafts have in common? All are so-called "viscoelastic" materials, meaning that they can both resist flow under stress, like honey, and they can bounce...
View ArticleGoing inside an ant raft (w/ Video)
Three years ago, Georgia Institute of Technology researchers took a close look at how fire ants work together to build waterproof rafts to stay alive. By looking at the edges and tops of rafts, the...
View ArticleBrandeis physicists unlock secrets of the 2-D world and edge closer to...
Physicist Zvonimir Dogic and his lab are on a roll. Last week, Dogic's research was featured in two of science's most respected journals, Science and Nature.
View ArticleAncient trading raft sails anew
(PhysOrg.com) -- For the first time in nearly 500 years, a full-size balsa-wood raft just like those used in pre-Columbian Pacific trade took to the water on Sunday, May 10. Only this time, instead of...
View ArticleCSIRO grants global license for new polymer technology
CSIRO has signed a global licensing agreement for its patented RAFT technology. Reversible Addition-Fragmentation chain Transfer (or RAFT) technology is an elegant and powerful polymerisation process...
View ArticleBizarre rock 'ice shelf' found in Pacific
A huge cluster of floating volcanic rocks covering almost 26,000 square kilometres (10,000 square miles) has been found drifting in the Pacific, the New Zealand navy said Friday.
View ArticleGreek hospitals, university hit in student server shutdown
Several Greek hospitals and one of the country's main universities have suffered an Internet blackout after students shut down a central server to thwart board elections, an official said on Tuesday.
View ArticlePollution turns Hong Kong harbour from 'fragrant' to foul
Hong Kong's name may mean "fragrant harbour", but cargo ships burning dirty fuel in what is one of the world's busiest ports add to a foul layer of pollution that kills more than 3,000 people a year.
View ArticleAnts build raft to escape flood, protect queen
When facing a flood, ants build rafts and use both the buoyancy of the brood and the recovery ability of workers to minimize injury or death, according to a study published in PLOS ONE on February 19,...
View ArticleLeading bugs to the death chamber: A kinder face of cholesterol
Cells of our immune system kill pathogens by enclosing them in a compartment called the phagosome. The phagosome undergoes programmed maturation, where the pathogen is degraded. Intimately linked to...
View ArticleBroadening the bilayer
Lipid molecules have split personalities—one part loves water, whereas the other avoids it at all costs. Lipids make up cell membranes, the frontline defense in preventing cellular access to bacterial...
View ArticleRaft-building ants exhibit memory and repeatedly occupy the same position...
A team of scientists has found that a species of ant that clusters together to form rafts to survive floods exhibits memory and repeatedly occupies the same position during raft formation, according to...
View ArticleWhy do antidepressants take so long to work?
An episode of major depression can be crippling, impairing the ability to sleep, work, or eat. In severe cases, the mood disorder can lead to suicide. But the drugs available to treat depression, which...
View ArticleResearchers discover surprising process behind sense of touch
Biologists on the Florida campus of The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) have discovered a new mechanism that likely underlies how we feel force or touch. Their study suggests that "rafts" of fatty...
View ArticleMembrane lipids hop in and out of rafts in the blink of an eye
Researchers in Japan, India and France have found that molecules move into and out of a specialized region of the cell membrane, called the 'raft domain', at unexpectedly fast rates. The discovery was...
View ArticleFluorescent probes prove the existence of 'lipid raft' cell membrane structures
Scientists from Japan, India and the US have observed lipid rafts in live cells for the first time. These rafts are active sections of the cell membrane responsible for signal transduction as well as...
View ArticleMajor milestone for Large Synoptic Survey Telescope project
Scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory have completed the first "science raft" for the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST), a massive telescope designed...
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