Project’s success spawns a new effort to study other local sky events
SEATTLE — While many astronomical collaborations use powerful telescopes to target individual objects in the distant universe, a new project at The Ohio State University is doing something radically different: using small telescopes to study a growing portion of the nearby universe all at once. (more…)
One of Arizona’s largest watersheds – home to many native species of fish already threatened by extinction – is providing a grim snapshot of what could happen to watersheds and fish in arid areas around the world as climate warming occurs.
New research by University of Washington and Ohio State University scientists suggests that, by 2050, the Verde River Basin in Arizona will have up to one-fifth more streams dry up each season and at least a quarter more days with no water flow, a problem when fish are trying to reach spawning habitats and refuges where water still remains. (more…)
Study shows limits of ‘liberation technology’ in advancing change
COLUMBUS, Ohio – The serious air pollution problem in China has attracted the attention of online activists who want the government to take action, but their advocacy has had only limited success, a new study has revealed. (more…)
For corals adjusting to climate change, it’s survival of fattest and most flexible
The future health of the world’s coral reefs and the animals that depend on them relies in part on the ability of one tiny symbiotic sea creature to get fat — and to be flexible about the type of algae with which it cooperates. (more…)
Conflicts in the Middle East have made archaeological work increasingly difficult, but the work must go on, scholars said at a recent conference organized with the help of the Oriental Institute.
The task of digging ancient sites and studying artifacts always has been historically challenging, but recent regime changes and civil war further burden scholars who must maneuver through national bureaucracies and forge relationships for help. “By any stretch of the imagination, work during the last four years has become particularly difficult,” said Gil Stein, director of the Oriental Institute. (more…)
Study more than triples the number of facial expressions researchers can use to track the origins of emotions in the brain
COLUMBUS, Ohio—Researchers at The Ohio State University have found a way for computers to recognize 21 distinct facial expressions—even expressions for complex or seemingly contradictory emotions such as “happily disgusted” or “sadly angry.”
In the current issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, they report that they were able to more than triple the number of documented facial expressions that researchers can now use for cognitive analysis. (more…)
After chronic stress, primed immune cells in spleen lead to excessive reaction to later event
COLUMBUS, Ohio – Chronic stress that produces inflammation and anxiety in mice appears to prime their immune systems for a prolonged fight, causing the animals to have an excessive reaction to a single acute stressor weeks later, new research suggests.
After the mice recovered from the effects of chronic stress, a single stressful event 24 days later quickly returned them to a chronically stressed state in biological and behavioral terms. Mice that had not experienced the chronic stress were unaffected by the single acute stressor. (more…)
Ants can lift up to 5,000 times their own body weight, new study suggests
COLUMBUS, Ohio — High hopes may help move a rubber tree plant (as the old song goes), but the real secret to the ant’s legendary strength may lie in its tiny neck joint.
In the Journal of Biomechanics, researchers report that the neck joint of a common American field ant can withstand pressures up to 5,000 times the ant’s weight. (more…)
