Group items tagged

"We measured the direction of the body axis in 70 dogs of 37 breeds during defecation (1,893 observations) and urination (5,582 observations) over a two-year period. After complete sampling, we sorted the data according to the geomagnetic conditions prevailing during the respective sampling periods. Relative declination and intensity changes of the MF during the respective dog walks were calculated from daily magnetograms. Directional preferences of dogs under different MF conditions were analyzed and tested by means of circular statistics. Results Dogs preferred to excrete with the body being aligned along the North-south axis under calm MF conditions. This directional behavior was abolished under Unstable MF. The best predictor of the behavioral switch was the rate of change in declination, i.e., polar orientation of the MF. "

A very strange fringe science piece that I'll talk about in a bit (see next link, one place up on my profile): somebody claims to have found an ancient stone circle under the Lake that, as one looks at it, doesn't seem very circular. Thinking that somebody might be a little desperate to find something to publish.

By: Kandil AA, AE Sharief, Ola S.A. Shereif Key Words: Canola, Cultivars, Salinity stress, seedlings characters. Int. J. Agr. Agri. Res. 8(2), 10-18, February 2016. Abstract To study the effect of salinity concentrations on seedlings parameters of some canola cultivars, a laboratory experiment was conducted at Agronomy Department Laboratory of Seed Testing, Faculty of Agriculture, Mansoura University, Egypt, during December 2013. The experiment included two factor, the first factor included three cultivars of canola i.e. Serw 4, Serw 6 and Serw 51 and the second factor included ten concentrations of salinity as NaCl i.e. 0.0 (control treatment), 0.2, 0.4, 0.6, 0.8, 1.0, 1.2, 1.4, 1.6, and 1.8 % NaCl). The results showed that Serw 6 cultivar significantly exceeded the other studied cultivars in root and shoot lengths and shoot fresh and dry weights. Whilst, Serw 51 cultivar significantly exceeded the other studied cultivars in root fresh and dry weights, seedling height reduction (SHR), relative dry weight and chlorophyll content in leaves. Salinity stress significantly affected seedlings characters of canola. Due to increasing salinity levels from 0 (control) to 1.8% NaCl, seedlings characters of canola was significantly decreased. It could be concluded that for maximizing canola seedlings parameters, germinated seeds of Serw 6 or Serw 51 cultivars under control treatment (without salinity stress) or under conditions of 0.2% NaCl.

Under just the right conditions-which involve an ultra-high-intensity laser beam and a two-mile-long particle accelerator-it could be possible to create something out of nothing, according to University of Michigan researchers.

Listen up, Facebook and Twitter groupies: how easily can social pressure affect your memory? Very easily, researchers at the Weizmann Institute and University College London have proved, and they think they even know what part of the brain is responsible. The participants conformed to the group on these "planted" responses, giving incorrect answers nearly 70% of the time. Volunteers watched a documentary film in small groups. Three days later, they returned to the lab individually to take a memory test, answering questions about the film. They were also asked how confident they were in their answers. They were later invited back to the lab to retake the test. This time, the subjects were also given supposed answers of the others in their film-viewing group (along with social-media-style photos) while being scanned in a functional MRI (fMRI) that revealed their brain activity. Is most of what you know false? Planted among these were false answers to questions the volunteers had previously answered correctly and confidently. The participants conformed to the group on these "planted" responses, giving incorrect answers nearly 70% of the time. To determine if their memory of the film had actually undergone a change, the researchers invited the subjects back to the lab later to take the memory test once again, telling them that the answers they had previously been fed were not those of their fellow film watchers, but random computer generations. Some of the responses reverted back to the original, correct ones, but get this: despite finding out the scientists messed with their minds, close to half of their responses remained erroneous, implying that the subjects were relying on false memories implanted in the earlier session. An analysis of the fMRI data showed a strong co-activation and connectivity between two brain areas: the hippocampus and the amygdala. Social reinforcement could act on the amygdala to persuade our brains to replace a strong memory wi

"The Expression Atlas provides information on gene expression patterns under different biological conditions. Gene expression data is re-analysed in-house to detect genes showing interesting baseline and differential expression patterns."

The vision of a national digital library has been circulating among librarians, scholars, educators, and private industry representatives since the early 1990s, but it has not yet materialized. Efforts led by a range of organizations, including the Library of Congress, HathiTrust, and the Internet Archive, have successfully built resources that provide books, images, historical records, and audiovisual materials to anyone with Internet access. Many universities, public libraries, and other public-spirited organizations have digitized materials that could be brought together under the frame of the DPLA, but these digital collections often exist in silos.

Heather is currently conducting her doctoral research at Carnegie Mellon's Robotics Institute and running Marilyn Monrobot Labs in NYC, which creates socially intelligent robot performances and sensor-based electronic art. Founder of the Robot Film Festival and Cyborg Cabaret, Heather was on the 2011 Forbes List for 30 under 30 in Science.

eScholarship@UMMS is a digital repository offering worldwide access to the research and scholarly output of the University of Massachusetts Medical School community. The goal is to bring together all of the University's research under one umbrella, in full text whenever possible, in order to showcase, preserve, and provide access to that research. eScholarship@UMMS is administered by the Lamar Soutter Library.

If there is organic life deep under the ice on Europa, why would we need to disturb it at all? Potential source of unknown viruses etc. Risks of releasing something are low I guess, but the assumption that whatever may be there needs Earth-like conditions to survive and multiply is dangerous.

Has a cheap and effective treatment for chronic pain been lying under clinicians' noses for decades? Researchers have found that a very high dose of an opiate drug that uses the same painkilling pathways as morphine can reset the nerve signals associated with continuous pain - at least in rats. If confirmed in humans, the procedure could reduce or eliminate the months or years that millions of patients spend on pain-managing prescription drugs. The results of the study are described today in Science1.

The Tetherless World Constellation (TWC) at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) explores the research and engineering principles that underlie the Web, to enhance the Web's reach beyond the desktop and laptop computer, and develops new technologies and languages that expand the capabilities of the Web under three themes: Future Web, Xinformatics and Semantic Foundations.

"Our Juliets (as parents longing for grandchildren will recognize with a sigh) may experience the tumult of love for 20 years before they settle down into motherhood. And our Romeos may be poetic lunatics under the influence of Queen Mab until they are well into graduate school. What happens when children reach puberty earlier and adulthood later? The answer is: a good deal of teenage weirdness. Fortunately, developmental psychologists and neuroscientists are starting to explain the foundations of that weirdness. Photos: The Trials of Teenagers View Slideshow [SB10001424052970204573704577187080963983566] Everett Collection James Dean in the 1955 film 'Rebel Without A Cause' The crucial new idea is that there are two different neural and psychological systems that interact to turn children into adults"

Piazza-a place where students can come together to ask, answer, and explore under the guidance of their instructor. It'll save you time, and your students will love using it. It's also free, and easy to get started. Learn more...

Tetherless World Constellation (TWC) at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) explores the research and engineering principles that underlie the Web, to enhance the Web's reach beyond the desktop and laptop computer, and develops new technologies and languages that expand the capabilities of the Web under three themes: Future Web, Xinformatics and Semantic Foundations.

A collection of IT training resources at UCLA. LearnIT is your one-stop shop for online IT training resources at UCLA. Please use the buttons on the right under the heading "IT Resources" to log in to the various websites anytime, anywhere.

the complete (non-proprietary) content of the Cyc knowledge base is being made available to the research community (for research-only purposes) under a ResearchCyc license. Yes, Cyc, the world's largest and most complete general knowledge base and commonsense reasoning engine, is at your disposal!

""A ship is safe in harbor, but that's not what ships are for." By Christie Wilcox | February 14, 2013 A year and a half ago, the decision to pack up shop at ScienceBlogs and begin blogging at Scientific American was an easy one. The inimitable Bora Zivkovic had assembled a blogging dream team, a group of people I respected and admired and couldn't wait to call networkmates. Under Bora's nurturing oversight, we all have flourished, and the SciAm blog network has become the most diverse and prolific science blogging network around"

"MIT-based researchers and instructors Marcelo Coelho and Skylar Tibbits teamed up to tackle this very problem. Working under a grant from Ars Electronica, the pair conceived of a whole new way to do 3-D printing. Hyperform is a new strategy for designing and printing large objects irrespective of a printer's bed size. So not only can you print out that chair at home, you can also print a table, bed frame, and everything else you need to furnish a bedroom. The solution is breathtakingly simple. By merely folding the object you want to print, you can jig it to fit into a small-scale printer. In Tibbits and Coelho's project, the object is rendered in 1-D--a line--and endlessly folded into a space-filling curve proportioned to the printer's cubic dimensions. (The designers partnered with Formlabs and iterated the process using a Form 1 tabletop printer.) When the object is exhumed from the printer bed, it doesn't at all resemble its final shape. Rather, it's a dense cluster of thin but sturdy polymer links packaged in a three-dimensional puzzle that can be intuitively assembled"