Skip to main content

Home/ Groups/ Bobcat Research Institute 2025
Rss Feed
Sort By: Most Recent | Popular Filter: All | Bookmarks | Topics Simple Middle
2More

Frontiers | Evaluating undesired scratching in domestic cats: a multifactorial approach... - 0 views

www.frontiersin.org/...full HSR-2025 behavioralscience animals cats
shared by Kylie John on 16 Jul 24 - No Cached
  • cratching serves many purposes such as maintaining claw health, provision of safety by marking and social communication
  • This holistic approach ensures a comprehensive understanding and effective management of scratching-related issues in domestic cats.
10More

A new breakthrough in understanding regeneration in a marine worm | ScienceDaily - 0 views

www.sciencedaily.com/...240702135526.htm
shared by Sean Nash on 03 Jul 24 - No Cached
  • The sea worm Platynereis dumerilii is only a few centimetres long but has a remarkable ability: in just a few days, it can regenerate entire parts of its body after an injury or amputation.
    • Sean Nash
      Sean Nash on 03 Jul 24
       
      Trevor Davids used the California blackworm, Lumbriculus variegatus, to examine the effects of titanium dioxide nanoparticles on regeneration rate. Lumbroculus is a freshwater worm and easy to care for.
  • a research team led by a CNRS scientist1 has observed that gut cells play a role in the regeneration of the intestine as well as other tissues such as muscle and epidermis
  • Even more surprising, the team found that this ability of gut cells to regenerate other tissue varies according to their location: the closer they are to the posterior end of the worm, the greater the variety of cell types they can rebuild
  • ...4 more annotations...
  • This was tracked using different markers in particular by fluorescent beads ingested by the worms.
    • Sean Nash
      Sean Nash on 03 Jul 24
       
      This is similar to what Grant Reed was trying to do with painted lady butterflies. He wanted to see the effects of ingesting plastic nanoparticles on their development and regeneration. The smart selection of fluorescent nanoparticles (which we purchased and still have) would allow the tracking of the particles using specialized microscopy.
  • Annelids, or 'segmented worms', which have only been studied in the last 20 years, are an ideal model for the study of regeneration, a process that is widespread in animals but still mysterious for scientists.
  • The research team will continue this work to determine whether cell types, other than gut cells, can play a role in regenerating a variety of cell types.
  • Journal Reference: Loïc Bideau, Zoé Velasquillo-Ramirez, Loeiza Baduel, Marianne Basso, Pascale Gilardi-Hebenstreit, Vanessa Ribes, Michel Vervoort, Eve Gazave. Variations in cell plasticity and proliferation underlie distinct modes of regeneration along the antero-posterior axis in the annelid Platynereis. Development, 2024; 151 (20) DOI: 10.1242/dev.202452
  • Sean Nash on 03 Jul 24
     
    There are elements of this study that connect to what Trevor Davids & Grant Reed were doing last year... but with a different model organism.
1More

Study explores what motivates people to watch footage of disasters and extreme weather ... - 0 views

www.sciencedaily.com/...240702135537.htm disaster media video socialmedia extreme weather HSR HSR-2025 science questions statistical analysis potential research idea behavioralscience
shared by Sean Nash on 03 Jul 24 - No Cached
  • Sean Nash on 03 Jul 24
     
    Yes. This is science. Behavioral science. Sometimes it looks like this.......
1More

Microscopic fungi enhance soil carbon storage in new landscapes created by shrinking Ar... - 1 views

phys.org/...fungi-soil-carbon-storage.html biology environmental botany questions HSR-2025 HSR science potential research idea
shared by emmarrogers on 02 Jul 24 - No Cached
Sean Nash liked it
  • Sean Nash on 03 Jul 24
     
    Fungi as a soil conditioner is an interesting topic. This is something Eli Jenkins was looking into last year, although his attempts at growing the plants he wanted (he got started very late) kept him from really testing the product he wanted to test. I have also seen other commercial soil treatments meant to break down clay soils and keep water from pooling at the top of the soil.
1More

Groundbreaking Discovery: How Zinc Could Change Farming Forever - 0 views

scitechdaily.com/c-could-change-farming-forever biology environmental botany questions HSR-2025 HSR science potential research idea
shared by emmarrogers on 02 Jul 24 - No Cached
Sean Nash liked it
  • Sean Nash on 03 Jul 24
     
    I saw this one. It is definitely interesting.
11More

Simple new process stores CO2 in concrete without compromising strength - 0 views

www.sciencedaily.com/...240626173558.htm HSR HSR-2025 concrete materials science engineering physics chemistry potential research idea
shared by Sean Nash on 02 Jul 24 - No Cached
  • By using a carbonated -- rather than a still -- water-based solution during the concrete manufacturing process, a Northwestern University-led team of engineers has discovered a new way to store carbon dioxide (CO2) in the ubiquitous construction material.
  • Not only could the new process help sequester CO2 from the ever-warming atmosphere, it also results in concrete with uncompromised strength and durability.
  • "The cement and concrete industries significantly contribute to human-caused CO2 emissions,"
  • ...6 more annotations...
  • instead of injecting CO2 while mixing all the ingredients together, they first injected CO2 gas into water mixed with a small amount of cement powder. After mixing this carbonated suspension with the rest of the cement and aggregates, they achieved a concrete that actually absorbed CO2 during its manufacturing
  • After analyzing their carbonated concrete, Rotta Loria and his colleagues found its strength rivaled the durability of regular concrete.
  • based on our experiments, we show the strength might actually be even higher. We still need to test this further
    • Sean Nash
      Sean Nash on 02 Jul 24
       
      It is a good sign when you read: "We still need to test this further!"
  • It could be used in beams, slabs, columns, foundations -- everything we currently use concrete for."
  • "The findings of this research underline that although carbonation of cement-based materials is a well-known reaction, there is still room to further optimize the CO2 uptake through better understanding of the mechanisms tied to materials processing,"
  • Journal Reference: Xiaoxu Fu, Alexandre Guerini, Davide Zampini, Alessandro F. Rotta Loria. Storing CO2 while strengthening concrete by carbonating its cement in suspension. Communications Materials, 2024; 5 (1) DOI: 10.1038/s43246-024-00546-9
  • Sean Nash on 02 Jul 24
     
    Know anyone who works with concrete that might let you experiment? I had a student back in the day who did this. They incorporated plastic polymer beads into standard concrete molds for strength testing.
12More

Common plastics could passively cool and heat buildings with the seasons | ScienceDaily - 0 views

www.sciencedaily.com/...240627172053.htm HSR HSR-2025 materials heat climatechange science engineering physics chemistry potential research idea
shared by Sean Nash on 02 Jul 24 - No Cached
  • Researchers at Princeton and UCLA have developed a passive mechanism to cool buildings in the summer and warm them in the winter.
  • coatings engineered from common materials can achieve energy savings and thermal comfort that goes beyond what traditional building envelopes can achieve
  • "With the increase in global temperatures, maintaining habitable buildings has become a global challenge,"
  • ...7 more annotations...
  • "In recent years there has been massive interest in cool roof coatings that reflect sunlight. But cooling walls and windows is a much more subtle and complex challenge."
  • "By coating walls and windows with materials that only radiate or absorb heat in the atmospheric window, we can reduce broadband heat gain from the ground in the summer, and loss in the winter, while maintaining the cooling effect of the sky. We believe that this idea is unprecedented, and beyond what traditional roof and wall envelopes can achieve."
  • The findings' impact is significant for two important reasons. First, the researchers show in the article that many common and low-cost building materials radiate heat in the narrowband and block broadband heat. Material such as polyvinyl fluoride, already used as siding material, could be adapted for the purpose, as could even more common plastics.
    • Sean Nash
      Sean Nash on 02 Jul 24
       
      Smells like feasibility....
  • "We were really excited when we found that materials like Polypropylene, which we sourced from household plastics, selectively radiate or absorb heat in the atmospheric window." Raman noted. "These materials border on the mundane, but the same scalability that makes them common also means that we could see them thermoregulating buildings in the near future."
  • The second reason for optimism is that the potential energy impacts at the building scale are substantial. The researchers noted that seasonal energy savings with their mechanism are comparable to the benefits of painting dark roofs white. This could be useful as air conditioning cost and heat related casualties continue to soar worldwide. Mandal and Raman plan to continue this research further.
  • "The mechanism we proposed is completely passive, which makes it a sustainable way to cool and heat buildings with the seasons and yield untapped energy savings."
  • Journal Reference: Jyotirmoy Mandal, Jyothis Anand, Sagar Mandal, John Brewer, Arvind Ramachandran, Aaswath P. Raman. Radiative cooling and thermoregulation in the earth’s glow. Cell Reports Physical Science, 2024; 102065 DOI: 10.1016/j.xcrp.2024.102065
  • Sean Nash on 02 Jul 24
     
    Don't know if you're following changes in climate, but... this might be an area for some engineering. What are the other problems involved with this field of study? Interesting to anyone?
6More

New fabric cools people in sweltering cities - 0 views

www.anthropocenemagazine.org/...ople-cool-in-sweltering-cities HSR HSR-2025 science statistical analysis engineering physics chemistry potential research idea
shared by Sean Nash on 02 Jul 24 - No Cached
  • researchers have designed a new wearable fabric to help people beat the heat in urban settings. The material, reported in the journal Science, could find use in clothing, cooling facades for buildings and cars, and for food storage and transport.
  • Existing cooling fabrics reflect sunlight and also wick away sweat to cool a person via evaporation. More recently, researchers have designed cooling fabrics that rely on the principle of radiative cooling: the natural phenomenon in which objects radiate heat through the atmosphere straight into outer space.
  • But radiative cooling fabrics made so far are designed to work when laid horizontally as opposed to vertically, as they would be when worn.
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • researchers at the University of Chicago made a new three-layer fabric. Its wool bottom layer wicks heat from the skin to the middle layer, which is made of silver nanowires that block heat from coming in. The top layer selectively emits heat into the atmosphere.
  • In tests conducted in the urban heat island of Chicago and under blistering Arizona sun, the material stayed 2.3°C cooler than sports cooling fabrics and 8.9°C cooler than commercial silk used for summer clothing.
  • Sean Nash on 02 Jul 24
     
    Materials science is certainly a nifty bit of engineering. This is the second time I've seen this study mentioned. Look interesting enough to dig into various materials and how they might be combined to serve a key purpose?
8More

Tools to illustrate your scientific works! (open source web-based) | by Dr. Veronica Es... - 0 views

medium.com/...-source-web-based-c5bd12aaec5b GoOpen CC creativecommons HSR HSR-2025 science illustration images art illustrations modeling models diagrams free opensource
shared by Sean Nash on 01 Jul 24 - No Cached
  • 1.-ChemixChemisc is an educational app that lets you easily draw lab diagram setups and explain your experiments. It has a large library of highly customisable apparatus and various features to help you draw diagrams with ease [3].
  • 2.-SmartSince its launch in 2001, Servier Medical Art is a trusted and internationally recognized resource used in respected journals, textbooks, online resources, and more. [ In this website you will find 3000 Free medical images to illustrate your publications and Powerpoint presentations!
  • 3.-BioiconsBioicons is a free library of open source icons for scientific illustrations using vector graphics software
    • Sean Nash
      Sean Nash on 01 Jul 24
       
      This one I already knew of and used. Several students made use of this resource last year.
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • 4.-Health IconsHealth Icons is a volunteer effort to create a ‘global good’ for health projects all over the world. These icons are available in the public domain for use in any type of project.
  • 5.-SciDrawSciDraw is a free repository of high quality drawings of animals, scientific setups, and anything that might be useful for scientific presentations and posters [9].
  • 5.-Draw.ioDraw.io is a free, online diagramming tool that allows you to create flowcharts, diagrams, mind maps, organisation charts, and much more. A web-based application, Draw.io is fully integrated with Google Drive. This means that you can automatically save the results of your work in your Google Workspace or Gmail account [10].
  • Sean Nash on 01 Jul 24
     
    Save these for later this year. You will likely use resources like this to aid in your diagrams/models for your display.
2More

Wooden surfaces may have natural antiviral properties | ScienceDaily - 1 views

www.sciencedaily.com/...240619143702.htm HSR HSR-2025 science environmental potential research idea biology microbiology
shared by emmarrogers on 20 Jun 24 - No Cached
Sean Nash liked it
  • yet to be explored
  • Sean Nash on 01 Jul 24
     
    Super interesting, and relatively simple topic. If this was looking at bacteria normally found environmentally in the kitchen, we could easily get approved. We could even culture those. The thing that makes this difficult to do at school is the fact that this is all about viruses. Detecting these in our lab would be super difficult. I'm also not sure if we could even get a culture of virally-infected cells to perform controlled studied. This one is a "maybe."
4More

Potential Pain in Fish and Decapods: Similar Experimental Approaches and Similar Result... - 1 views

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/...PMC8093373 HSR HSR-2025 science behavioralscience invertebrates crabs potential research idea
shared by nataliegomes on 19 Jun 24 - No Cached
Sean Nash liked it
  • how they provided guidance on general methods that could be applied to other animals such as decapod crustaceans.
  • indicate that responses of both go beyond those expected of mere nociceptive reflex.
    • nataliegomes
      nataliegomes on 19 Jun 24
       
      Where is the limit between a reflex and a cognitive response?
  • Sean Nash on 01 Jul 24
     
    I really like this topic, and it is one that is getting some current attention. so, we obviously cannot discern cellular-level factors with the nervous system of animals (and obviously- especially when dealing with pain response, we would have to work exclusively with invertebrates and the experimental design would have to be very well thought out. That said, behavioral studies where you have a really tight experimental design set up.... and you're recording behavioral changes... is likely feasible. If this is interesting, keep digging into pain vs. reflex studies, and also begin to look at invertebrate models that we can both successfully raise... and that have interesting behavioral responses we can readily discern in the lab.
« First ‹ Previous 121 - 140 of 218 Next › Last »
Showing 20▼ items per page