Interesting: Bronze Age 'Iceman' Had Brown Eyes and Was Lactose Intolerant

European Academy of Bolzano/Bozen (EURAC))

Eye color is just one of the fascinating things scientists are learning about the bronze age 'iceman'.

(My FOX DC)- Scientists already knew Oetzi, named that by researchers because they found him in the Italian part of the Oeztal Alps, died from an arrow. Now, the European Academy of Bolzano/Bozen reported, they know his entire genetic make-up.

DNA sequencing shows he was genetically predisposed to cardiovascular diseases, even though he wasn't overweight and he likely got lots of exercise.

"It indicates that cardiovascular disease is by no means an illness chiefly associated with modern lifestyles," anthropologist Albert Zink stated in the academy's press release.

Other facts discovered by the study, printed in the journal Nature , include that Oetzi had type-O blood, was lactose intolerant, and had a bacterium known to cause the tick-carried Lyme disease. Read more here...

A big rock is headed our way in 2040

There is already talk about how to deflect the 140 meter space rock 2011 AG5. The near-Earth asteroid 2011 AG5 currently has an impact probability of 1 in 625 for Feb. 5, 2040.

Scientists are keeping a close eye on a big asteroid that may pose an impact threat to Earth in a few decades.

The space rock, which is called 2011 AG5, is about 460 feet (140 meters) wide. It may come close enough to Earth in 2040 that some researchers are calling for a discussion about how to deflect it.

Talk about the asteroid was on the agenda during the 49th session of the Scientific and Technical Subcommittee of the United Nations Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (COPUOS), held earlier this month in Vienna.

 A UN Action Team on near-Earth objects (NEOs) noted the asteroid’s repeat approaches to Earth and the possibility — however remote — that 2011 AG5 might smack into our planet 28 years from now.

You can use this great calculator from Purdue University to see the damage that would be caused by an asteroid impact.  Click the image for link.

Dolphins have individual signature whistles

Dolphins have individual signature whistles that are unique to them and their species.

Bottlenose dolphins have whistles which they use to exclusively greet other members of their species, marine biologists in Scotland reported on Wednesday.

Using hydrophones, the researchers made recordings of dolphins swimming in St. Andrews Bay, off the northeastern coast of Scotland, in the summers of 2003 and 2004.

When groups of dolphins met up, they swapped whistles that outwardly sounded the same.
But forensic analysis showed the whistles were in fact individual signatures, for they were never matched or copied by other dolphins.

"Signature whistle exchanges are a significant part of a greeting sequence that allows dolphins to identify conspecifics [members of the same species] when encountering them in the wild," says the study.

The whistles are clearly important, as they were heard in 90 percent of the joinups, says the paper.

One particular signal came from what appeared to be the leader of a group, seemingly giving the OK to fellow dolphins in the team to join up with the other group. Keep on reading...

Official U.S. Navy video: Navy Tests High-Powered Electromagnetic Railgun

The Navy has test fired a working railgun prototype, which uses magnets to shoot bullets at speeds of up to Mach 7.

 

Unlikely: Cold Winters Due To Loss in Arctic Sea Ice?

high-resolution images:
• 1979 (1.2 MB JPEG)
• 2003 (1.2 MB JPEG)

Correlation does not equal causation...

ScienceDaily  — A new study led by the Georgia Institute of Technology provides further evidence of a relationship between melting ice in the Arctic regions and widespread cold outbreaks in the Northern Hemisphere. The study's findings could be used to improve seasonal forecasting of snow and temperature anomalies across northern continents.

Since the level of Arctic sea ice set a new record low in 2007, significantly above-normal winter snow cover has been seen in large parts of the northern United States, northwestern and central Europe, and northern and central China. During the winters of 2009-2010 and 2010-2011, the Northern Hemisphere measured its second and third largest snow cover levels on record.

"Our study demonstrates that the decrease in Arctic sea ice area is linked to changes in the winter Northern Hemisphere atmospheric circulation," said Judith Curry, chair of the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at Georgia Tech. "The circulation changes result in more frequent episodes of atmospheric blocking patterns, which lead to increased cold surges and snow over large parts of the northern continents."

The study was published on Feb. 27, 2012 in the online early edition of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Keep on reading...

Cool Video: 1894 video of cats boxing

Yes. People were obsessed with their cats in 1894 and yes there is video that old.

 1894 film

Neanderthals were already going extinct when modern man arrived in Europe

Neanderthals were already going extinct when modern humans arrived in Europe. This is one less thing on our collective conscience.

(BBC)- Neanderthals were already on the verge of extinction in Europe by the time modern humans arrived on the scene, a study suggests.

DNA analysis suggests most Neanderthals in western Europe died out as early as 50,000 years ago - thousands of years before our own species appeared.

A small group of Neanderthals then recolonised parts of Europe, surviving for 10,000 years before vanishing.
The work is published in the journal Molecular Biology and Evolution.

An international team of researchers studied the variation, or diversity, in mitochondrial DNA extracted from the bones of 13 Neanderthals.

This type of genetic information is passed down on the maternal line; because cells contain multiple copies of the mitochondrial genome, this DNA is easier to extract from ancient remains than the DNA found in the nuclei of cells.

The fossil specimens came from Europe and Asia and span a time period ranging from 100,000 years ago to about 35,000 years ago.

The scientists found that west European fossils with ages older than 48,000 years, along with Neanderthal specimens from Asia, showed considerable genetic variation.

But specimens from western Europe younger than 48,000 years showed much less genetic diversity (a six-fold reduction in variation compared to the older remains and the Asian Neanderthals).

In their scientific paper, the scientists propose that some event - possibly changes in the climate - caused Neanderthal populations in the West to crash around 50,000 years ago. But populations may have survived in warmer southern refuges, allowing the later re-expansion.

Who is up for a skateboard controlled by brain waves?

Awesomeness...

(PhysOrg.com) -- Austin, Texas-based Chaotic Moon Labs made a splash earlier this year with a high-tech Kinect-controlled skateboard moving by the rider's hand signals. Now they are showcasing another skateboard that moves beyond Kinect power and hand signals, over to a board that moves by just reading your mind. Think where you want to go and your board takes you there. From their Board of Awesomeness, their newest Board of Imagination is designed to show another twist to skateboard inventiveness and also to what travel might involve with enough technical ingenuity and creativity at play.

Who is up for a Playboy Strip Club in Space?

 Screen Capture From Here

Playboy is teaming up with Virgin Galactic to plan the first strip club in space.

It would certainly be the club all men would want to go to.

Playboy have teamed up with Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic in designing a futuristic gentleman's club that literally is, 'out of this world'.

In the March issue of the iconic magazine, readers will be treated to a sci-fi themed depiction of fun and games aboard a space station.

Live Science reports that the imagined super-club features a zero-gravity dance club, a casino featuring 'human roulette' and a restaurant for fine dining as just some of the amenities envisioned by artist Thomas Tenery.

Writing on the science website, Playboy's editorial director Jimmy Jellinek said: 'As Virgin Galactic gets closer to becoming the world's first commercial space line, Playboy is eagerly pondering the creation of the ultimate intergalactic entertainment destination. Keep on reading...

Rare Video: Dana Point Massive Dolphin Stampede Video

A boatload of tourists got a rare treat; a 2000 dolphin 'dolphin stampede.' This video was shot off California's Orange County coastline at Dana Wharf.

Raw Video: Dana Point Dolphin Stampede Dana Wharf

California, dolphins, stampede, video,

Sunday Fun Science Video: The Briggs-Rauscher Iodine Oscillator

Via YouTube:

This reaction is an extremely interesting reaction that is a rare phenomenon in chemistry - an oscillating reaction. Three clear solutions are combined, and the color gradually changes to amber. Suddenly, the whole thing goes dark blue! This remains for a bit, then fades back into amber and the whole cycle repeats.

This reaction is an extremely interesting reaction that is a rare phenomenon in chemistry - an oscillating reaction. Three clear solutions are combined, and the color gradually changes to amber. Suddenly, the whole thing goes dark blue! This remains for a bit, then fades back into amber and the whole cycle repeats.

Obvious: Teach monkeys the meaning of money and you get a prostitute monkey

An economist/psychologist duo from Yale taught capuchins the meaning of money and how they could use it to buy food. Theft and prostitution soon occurred...

An economist/psychologist duo from Yale back in 2005, however, managed to train seven capuchin monkeys how to use money, and I’m pretty sure from here on some of you might be able to guess what happened from there on.[..]

Do they understand the value of money or do the monkeys just follow nice treats? Well, on a particular day, a researcher cut circular slices of cucumber, similar to the discs that were handed out to the capuchin as money, and fed them to the monkeys instead of the usual cube-like shape. One of the monkeys took a slice, chewed a bit on it, and then immediately went to one of the researchers to see if she could buy something tastier with it. Oh, and then again there’s stealing too. Not a single monkey saved any of the tokens, but most of them tried to substrate a few more tokens when they were handed out. The monkeys were given tokens one at a time by inserting them in a separate chamber from that of their living quarters, but on one occasion everything sprung into chaos when a capuchin tried to make a run for it with a tray filled with tokens and ended up back with all the other monkeys. That was a tough time for researchers.

Something else happened then too, tough , in what’s maybe the most evident form of one’s grasp upon currency. The idea is that you can use money as a form of currency to exchange for goods or services, as in not just food. Well, one of the researchers, during the chaos event, observed how one of the monkeys exchanged money to another for sex. After the act was over, the monkey which was paid immediately used it to buy a grape… Keep on reading...

Saturday Video: Big Bang & Birth of the Earth

Big Bang & Birth of the Earth (video)

Did small changes in rainfall destroy the Mayan Civilization?

Reductions of only 25 to 40 per cent in annual rainfall took place during the decline of the Mayan Civilization.

ScienceDaily — A new study reports that the disintegration of the Maya Civilization may have been related to relatively modest reductions in rainfall.

The study was led by Professors Martín Medina-Elizalde of the Yucatan Center for Scientific Research in Mexico and Eelco Rohling of the University of Southampton in the UK. Professor Rohling says: "Our results show rather modest rainfall reductions between times when the Classic Maya Civilization flourished and its collapse -- between AD 800-950. These reductions amount to only 25 to 40 per cent in annual rainfall. But they were large enough for evaporation to become dominant over rainfall, and open water availability was rapidly reduced. The data suggest that the main cause was a decrease in summer storm activity."

The study combines records of past climate changes from stalagmites and shallow lakes to model 40 per cent reductions in summer rainfall and reduced tropical storm activity over the region. The work is published in the leading scientific journal Science.

Professor Medina-Elizalde, who led the study while at the National Oceanography Centre in Southampton working with Professor Eelco Rohling, says: "For more than a century, researchers have related the demise of the Classic Maya civilization to climate change, and especially to drought. No sound estimates had been made about the severity of this drought, but some have suggested extreme scenarios. New data made it possible to finally get detailed estimates. To do this, we developed a model that coherently explains changes in critical datasets of change in the region's balance between evaporation and rainfall."  Keep on reading...

Video: Mind-reading helmets for fighter pilots

Researchers have miniaturized EEG brain scanners, allowing them to fit into a fighter pilot's helmet.

 

Who is up for a swarm of 'nomad planets'?

Credit: Greg Stewart / SLAC National Accelerator

There may be 100,000 times more "nomad planets" in the Milky Way than stars.

(PhysOrg.com) -- Our galaxy may be awash in homeless planets, wandering through space instead of orbiting a star.

In fact, there may be 100,000 times more "nomad planets" in the Milky Way than stars, according to a new study by researchers at the Kavli Institute for Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology (KIPAC), a joint institute of Stanford University and the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory.

If observations confirm the estimate, this new class of celestial objects will affect current theories of planet formation and could change our understanding of the origin and abundance of life.

"If any of these nomad planets are big enough to have a thick atmosphere, they could have trapped enough heat for bacterial life to exist," said Louis Strigari, leader of the team that reported the result in a paper submitted to the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. Although nomad planets don't bask in the warmth of a star, they may generate heat through internal radioactive decay and tectonic activity.

Searches over the past two decades have identified more than 500 planets outside our solar system, almost all of which orbit stars. Last year, researchers detected about a dozen nomad planets, using a technique called gravitational microlensing, which looks for stars whose light is momentarily refocused by the gravity of passing planets. Keep on reading...

Video: Science fiction or science fact

 Which science fiction concepts are grounded in science? (video)

Report: Those faster than light neutrinos may have just been faulty wiring

Credit

I guess this means your warp drive is on hold indefinitely.

(PHYSORG)- Ever since the news came out on September 22 of last year that a team of researchers in Italy had clocked neutrinos traveling faster than the speed of light, the physics world has been resounding with the potential implications of such a discovery — that is, if it were true. The speed of light has been a key component of the standard model of physics for over a century, an Einstein-established limit that particles (even tricky neutrinos) weren’t supposed to be able to break, not even a little.

Now, according to a breaking news article by Edwin Cartlidge on AAAS’ ScienceInsider, the neutrinos may be cleared of any speed violations.

“According to sources familiar with the experiment, the 60 nanoseconds discrepancy appears to come from a bad connection between a fiber optic cable that connects to the GPS receiver used to correct the timing of the neutrinos’ flight and an electronic card in a computer,” Cartlidge reported.

Video: Sharks killing sea otters in larger numbers

Have otter movements placed them in predators' path?

Strange: NASA is hiring chefs to cook Mars food

NASA is hiring chefs for simulated Mars mission. Wouldn't our money be better spent on getting a manned launch vehicle? We have to get to mars before we have to worry about what to cook when we get there. If you are interested, you can apply here.

(Newser) – NASA is on the lookout for a few good cooks to experience life on Mars. Researchers backed by the space agency are seeking a team of volunteers for a simulation of the journey. Its aim: to determine what to put on the menu for a hypothetical future trip, which would last three years. Participating in the simulation would mean spending four months in a base on a Hawaii lava flow, wearing imitation spacesuits and eating what astronauts currently eat—plus cooking using a selection of durable ingredients.

NASA wants to choose inexpensive, healthy foods—and it wants to ensure astronauts don't get sick of the offerings. "It's important to keep astronauts eating well," says a researcher at Cornell, where the pre-Hawaii training sessions will be held. "It goes to mission success and astronaut safety."

Designer creates a house that will float when caught up in floodwater

Just gather two of each kind of animal.../snark

(MNN)- London-based Baca Architects — a soggy-minded architectural firm that’s worked on projects in two particularly flood-prone areas, The Netherlands and New Orleans — has received permission by the Environment Agency to construct the U.K’s very first amphibious home on a small island situated on the River Thames in historic Marlow, Buckinghamshire.

Designed to, as World Architecture News puts it, “respond to the uncertainties of future climate change,” the three-bedroom, timber-framed contemporary home measuring 2,400-square feet is an intriguing work of green home design — features include high levels of insulation and high-performance glazed windows — never mind the fact that when the Thames, located just 30-odd feet away, runneth over, the residence transforms into a free-floating pontoon, rising up to nine feet from its fixed foundations and floating atop the floodwaters. The home is anchored in its reinforced concrete dock by four permanent vertical guideposts normally found at your run-of-the-mill marina called dolphins. I guess you could think of the home, when in flood-mode, as a houseboat that doesn't go anywhere. Keep on reading...

New poisonous snake discovered in Australia

Is everything in Australia poisonous?

(ABC News Australia)- Scientists have discovered a new species of venomous snake in the Gulf of Carpentaria off far north Queensland.

The species has been dubbed the rough-scaled sea snake because of its unique raised scales.

University of Queensland Associate Professor Bryan Fry says it was discovered in waters off Weipa, where fishing trawlers do not operate.

He says it is one of three new sea snakes discovered in waters which are closed to trawlers.

He says the discovery could result in important medical breakthroughs.

"It's a good illustration of the fact that there are so many more of these animals out there than we realise," he said. Keep on reading...

NASA Video: The Shrinking [Expanding] Moon

The Shrinking [Expanding] Moon


NASA can't launch a human into space, but they do make some very nice videos.
Via YouTube:

From NASA's Scientific Visualization Studio. New images from NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) spacecraft show the moon's crust is being stretched, forming minute valleys in a few small areas on the lunar surface. Scientists propose this geologic activity occurred less than 50 million years ago, which is considered recent compared to the moon's age of more than 4.5 billion years.

Pic of the Day: Scientists launch rocket into aurora

The rocket was launched from Poker Flat Research Range in Fairbanks, Alaska.

(PhysOrg.com) -- With the full sky shimmering in green aurora, Saturday night (Feb. 18, 2012) a team of scientists, including space physicist Marc Lessard and graduate students from the University of New Hampshire's Space Science Center, launched an instrument-laden, two-stage sounding rocket from the Poker Flat Research Range in Fairbanks, Alaska. The precision measurements from the rocket's instruments will shed new light on the physical processes that create the northern lights and further our understanding of the complex sun-Earth connection.

Cool Video: Yosemite Firefall (Horsetail Fall)

Fiery illusion: Mid-February sunsets in Yosemite National Park lights a natural firefall from Glacier Point illuminating one of the park's lesser-known waterfalls so precisely that it resembles molten lava.


Waterfall, Yosemite National Park, video, Horsetail Fall

Will some diseases become impossible to treat?

Scientists fear antibiotic-resistance will make some diseases impossible to treat.

Britain is facing a "massive" rise in antibiotic-resistant blood poisoning caused by the bacterium E.coli – bringing closer the spectre of diseases that are impossible to treat

Experts say the growth of antibiotic resistance now poses as great a threat to global health as the emergence of new diseases such as Aids and pandemic flu.

Professor Peter Hawkey, a clinical microbiologist and chair of the Government's antibiotic-resistance working group, said that antibiotic resistance had become medicine's equivalent of climate change.

The "slow but insidious growth" of resistant organisms was threatening to turn common infections into untreatable diseases, he said. Already, an estimated 25,000 people die each year in the European Union from antibiotic-resistant bacterial infections.

"It is a worldwide issue – there are no boundaries," he said. "We have very good policies on the use of antibiotics in man and in animals in the UK. But we are not alone. We have to think globally." Between 2005 and 2009 the incidence of E.coli "bacteraemias" [the presence of bacteria in the blood] rose by 30 per cent, from 18,000 to over 25,000 cases. Those resistant to antibiotics have risen from 1 per cent at the beginning of the century to 10 per cent.

"Only one in 20 of infections with [resistant] E.coli is a bacteraemia, so the above data are only the tip of an iceberg of infected individuals," says a report produced by Professor Hawkey's group, commissioned by the Department of Health and the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.

Astronomy Pic of the Day: A Message From Earth

               Image Credit: Frank Drake (UCSC) et al., Arecibo Observatory (Cornell, NAIC) 

We could potentially hear an answer in about 50,000 years.


Via APOD:

Explanation: What are these Earthlings trying to tell us? The above message was broadcast from Earth towards the globular star cluster M13 in 1974. During the dedication of the Arecibo Observatory - still the largest single radio telescope in the world - a string of 1's and 0's representing the above diagram was sent. This attempt at extraterrestrial communication was mostly ceremonial - humanity regularly broadcasts radio and television signals out into space accidentally. Even were this message received, M13 is so far away we would have to wait almost 50,000 years to hear an answer. The above message gives a few simple facts about humanity and its knowledge: from left to right are numbers from one to ten, atoms including hydrogen and carbon, some interesting molecules, DNA, a human with description, basics of our Solar System, and basics of the sending telescope. Several searches for extraterrestrial intelligence are currently underway, including one where you can use your own home computer.

Geckskin: New Glue Inspired by Gecko Feet

"Geckskin" can hold 700 pounds on a smooth wall.

ScienceDaily — For years, biologists have been amazed by the power of gecko feet, which let these 5-ounce lizards produce an adhesive force roughly equivalent to carrying nine pounds up a wall without slipping. Now, a team of polymer scientists and a biologist at the University of Massachusetts Amherst have discovered exactly how the gecko does it, leading them to invent "Geckskin," a device that can hold 700 pounds on a smooth wall.

Doctoral candidate Michael Bartlett in Alfred Crosby's polymer science and engineering lab at UMass Amherst is the lead author of their article describing the discovery in the current online issue of Advanced Materials. The group includes biologist Duncan Irschick, a functional morphologist who has studied the gecko's climbing and clinging abilities for over 20 years. Geckos are equally at home on vertical, slanted, even backward-tilting surfaces.

"Amazingly, gecko feet can be applied and disengaged with ease, and with no sticky residue remaining on the surface," Irschick says. These properties, high-capacity, reversibility and dry adhesion offer a tantalizing possibility for synthetic materials that can easily attach and detach heavy everyday objects such as televisions or computers to walls, as well as medical and industrial applications, among others, he and Crosby say.

Video: A close look at a solar tornado on the sun

Awesome...

Vast solar tornado spied on sun (video)

Sun, solar, tornado, new video,

Monday is the 50th anniversary of John Glenn's orbital flight

50 years ago, the U.S. was preparing to launch John Glenn for his orbital flight. Veterans of NASA’s Project Mercury reunited Saturday to celebrate the milestone. Sadly, on the 50th anniversary of this historic milestone, the U.S. can't launch an astronaut to space at all.

WaPo: [...] Earlier in the afternoon, the Mercury brigade traveled by bus to Launch Complex 14. That’s the pad from which Glenn rocketed away on Feb. 20, 1962.

Some retirees were in wheelchairs, while others used walkers or canes. Most walked, some more surely than others. But they all beamed with pride as they took pictures of the abandoned pad and of each other, and went into the blockhouse to see the old Mercury photos on display and to reminisce.

As retired engineer Norm Beckel Jr. rode to the pad Saturday, he recalled being seated in the blockhouse right beside Scott Carpenter as the astronaut called out to Glenn right before liftoff, “Godspeed John Glenn.”

But there’s more to the story.

“Before he said that, he said, ‘Remember, John, this was built by the low bidder,’” Beckel, 81, told The Associated Press. Keep on reading...

Coming Soon: Spider Silk Inspired Functional Microthreads

Studying spider webs is leading to new kinds of medical sutures embedded with medication.

(PhysOrg.com) -- The study of spider webs has led to a discovery that will generate new kinds of medical sutures embedded with medication. The University of Akron scientists have developed a novel synthetic material similar to a specific kind of silk spun by an orb spider. The specific web design is known as BOAS because it looks like beads-on-a-string in a circular web. The beads are glue droplets. The replication of this design can potentially be used as strong and flexible sutures that contain medication embedded in these bead-like structures.

The researchers developed the new biocompatible thread after meeting with physicians who specialize in wound healing and who expressed the need for better material-related solutions to medical problems.

The scientists published their findings in the American Chemical Society journal Langmuir in an article titled Spider Silk Inspired Functional Microthreads and will present at two upcoming scientific conferences. The next step is to apply for funding to speed the commercialization process to create medical materials that can help heal injured tendons or tissue. Keep on reading...

Bizarre: Massive Diamond Planet Orbits Neutron Star (Video)

Bizarre: Massive Diamond Planet Orbits Neutron Star (Video)

Walking speed is a good prediction for developing dementia later in life

Slow walking is a good prediction of dementia later in life. Speed up...

(BBC News)- The speed someone walks may predict the likelihood of developing dementia later in life, according to researchers in the US.

They also told a conference that grip strength in middle-age was linked to the chance of a stroke.

The scientists said more studies were needed to understand what was happening.
Experts said the findings raised important questions, but more research was needed.
Suggestions of a link between slow walking speed and poor health have been made before.

A study, published in the British Medical Journal in 2009, said there was a "strong association" between slow walking speed and death from heart attacks and other heart problems. A Journal of the American Medical Association study suggested a link between walking faster over the age of 65 and a longer life.

Dr Erica Camargo, who conducted the latest study at the Boston Medical Centre, said: "While frailty and lower physical performance in elderly people have been associated with an increased risk of dementia, we weren't sure until now how it impacted people of middle age." Keep on reading...

New technique allows mass production of robotic insects

New technique allows mass production of robotic insects.

ScienceDaily  — A new technique inspired by elegant pop-up books and origami will soon allow clones of robotic insects to be mass-produced by the sheet.

Devised by engineers at Harvard, the ingenious layering and folding process enables the rapid fabrication of not just microrobots, but a broad range of electromechanical devices.
In prototypes, 18 layers of carbon fiber, Kapton (a plastic film), titanium, brass, ceramic, and adhesive sheets have been laminated together in a complex, laser-cut design. The structure incorporates flexible hinges that allow the three-dimensional product -- just 2.4 millimeters tall -- to assemble in one movement, like a pop-up book.

The entire product is approximately the size of a U.S. quarter, and dozens of these microrobots could be fabricated in parallel on a single sheet.

"This takes what is a craft, an artisanal process, and transforms it for automated mass production," says Pratheev Sreetharan (A.B. '06, S.M. '10), who co-developed the technique with J. Peter Whitney. Both are doctoral candidates at the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS).

Sreetharan, Whitney, and their colleagues in the Harvard Microrobotics Laboratory at SEAS have been working for years to build bio-inspired, bee-sized robots that can fly and behave autonomously as a colony. Appropriate materials, hardware, control systems, and fabrication techniques did not exist prior to the RoboBees project, so each must be invented, developed, and integrated by a diverse team of researchers.

Could humans live to 150 years-old?

New advances mean the next generation could live past 100. 

Suspended animation: Can it save soldiers?

New research aims to better understand hibernation and use it to stabilize war fighters in field-forward positions for transport to medical facilities. And black bears are the guinea pigs.

Scientists develop theory to make buildings invisible to earthquakes

An earthquake invisibility cloak? Scientists develop theory to make buildings invisible to earthquakes

ScienceDaily  — University of Manchester mathematicians have developed the theory for a Harry Potter style 'cloaking' device which could protect buildings from earthquakes.

Dr William Parnell's team in the University's School of Mathematics have been working on the theory of invisibility cloaks which, until recently, have been merely the subject of science fiction.

In recent times, however, scientists have been getting close to achieving 'cloaking' in a variety of contexts. The work from the team at Manchester focuses on the theory of cloaking devices which could eventually help to protect buildings and structures from vibrations and natural disasters such as earthquakes.

Writing in the Proceedings of the Royal Society A, Dr Parnell has shown that by cloaking components of structures with pressurised rubber, powerful waves such as those produced by an earthquake would not 'see' the building -- they would simply pass around the structure and thus prevent serious damage or destruction. The building, or important components within it, could theoretically be 'cloaked'.

This 'invisibility' could prove to be of great significance in safeguarding key structures such as nuclear power plants, electric pylons and government offices from destruction from natural or terrorist attacks.

Scientists creat world's smallest Valentine (nano-sized Valentine)

Credit: University of Birmingham, Nanoscale Physics Research Laboratory

This tiny heart measures approximately 5 nm x 3.5 nm.

(PhysOrg.com) -- Shattering their own world record from two years ago, scientists from the University of Birmingham in the UK have created the unofficial world’s smallest atomic valentine. Their tiny heart measures approximately 5 nm x 3.5 nm, a significant downsizing of the 8-nm heart from 2010. 

The nanosized valentine is too small to be seen by the human eye or even with an optical microscope since it’s smaller than a visible wavelength of light. PhD student Alina Bruma, under the supervision of Dr. Ziyou Li, took a few images of the heart last weekend using a JEOL 2100F electron microscope, which uses electrons rather than photons to produce images. The scientists work at the university’s Nanoscale Physics Research Laboratory, which is headed by Prof. Richard Palmer.

As Li explained, the “bumps” that make up the heart are made of palladium (Pd) atoms and gold (Au) atoms, which are arranged on an amorphous carbon film. The different colors are false colors produced by imaging software. The key to making the nanoparticles form the heart shape was heating the nanoparticles, which causes a structure transformation.

Mars Lost: NASA budget will reportedly scrap proposed Mars missions

President Obama is going to throw Mars exploration under the bus.

Intergalactic space is not empty but filled with dark matter

Researches claim intergalactic space between galaxies if full of missing dark matter.

(PHYSORG)- Researchers at the University of Tokyo’s Institute for the Physics and Mathematics of the Universe (IPMU) and Nagoya University used large-scale computer simulations and recent observational data of gravitational lensing to reveal how dark matter is distributed around galaxies.

 The new research concludes that galaxies have no definite “edges.” Instead galaxies have long outskirts of dark matter that extend to nearby galaxies and the intergalactic space is not empty but filled with dark matter.

 The research article has been published in the February 10th issue of The Astrophysical Journal. (preprint)

It is well known that there is a large amount of unseen matter called “dark matter” in the universe. It constitutes about 22 percent of the present-day universe while ordinary matter constitutes only 4.5 percent. An important question still remains: Where is most of the dark matter in the universe? Keep on reading...

Monday Fun Video: British thrill-seeker reaches speeds of up to 70 MPH on granny's mobility scooter

Raw video: British thrill-seeker reaches speeds of up to 70 MPH on unlikely vehicle

 

Are there really plenty of fish in the sea?

Actually, the number of fish in the sea is very few according to on researcher.

(PhysOrg.com) -- A Stony Brook University researcher has found that, contrary to popular belief, there are not plenty of fish in the sea. 


In an article entitled “Why are there so few fish in the sea?,” published on-line this week in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B, John J. Wiens, Ph.D., an Associate Professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolution at Stony Brook University, addresses why the oceans contain only 15-25 percent of all of Earth's species even though they cover about 70 percent of Earth’s surface.

Dr. Wiens and student Greta Carrete Vega examined the evolutionary and ecological causes of the low species numbers of marine environments by studying the biodiversity of ray-finned fish, the most species rich group of marine vertebrates, containing 96 percent of all fish species. They performed analyses using evolutionary trees based on molecular data and fossils, and using a large database on the habitats of nearly all living fish species.

The study found a surprising difference in diversity between freshwater and saltwater habitats.
“There are more fish species in freshwater than in saltwater habitats, despite the much greater area and volume of the oceans,” he said, noting that freshwater environments occupy only about 2 percent of the Earth’s surface. “More remarkably, our results suggest that most marine fish alive today are descended from freshwater ancestors (even though fish and animals in general first evolved in the oceans).”

Sunday Video: Cosmic Journeys: Birth of the Moon (Video)

 Cosmic Journeys: Birth of the Moon (Video)

This video is both educational and entertaining.

The latest episode of Cosmic Journeys, enjoy in full HD 1080p. Scientists have been reconstructing the history of the moon by scouring its surface, mapping its mountains and craters, and probing its interior. What are they learning about our own planet's beginnings?

moon, video,

U.S. Navy Tests Gun of the Future

Credit: US Navy photo by John F. Williams

The U.S. Navy will soon test the first industry Electromagnetic (EM) Railgun prototype launcher.

The Office of Naval Research (ONR)'s Electromagnetic (EM) Railgun program will take an important step forward in the coming weeks when the first industry railgun prototype launcher is tested at a facility in Dahlgren, Va., officials said Feb. 6.

"This is the next step toward a future tactical system that will be placed on board a ship some day," said Roger Ellis, program manager of EM Railgun.

The EM Railgun launcher is a long-range weapon that fires projectiles using electricity instead of chemical propellants. Magnetic fields created by high electrical currents accelerate a sliding metal conductor, or armature, between two rails to launch projectiles at 4,500 mph to 5,600 mph.

With its increased velocity and extended range, the EM Railgun will give Sailors a multi-mission capability, allowing them to conduct precise naval surface fire support, or land strikes; cruise missile and ballistic missile defense; and surface warfare to deter enemy vessels. Navy planners are targeting a 50- to 100-nautical mile initial capability with expansion up to 220 nautical miles.

The EM Railgun program, part of ONR's Naval Air Warfare and Weapons Department, previously relied upon government laboratory-based launchers for testing and advancing railgun technology. The first industry-built launcher, a 32-megajoule prototype demonstrator made by BAE Systems, arrived at Naval Surface Warfare Center (NSWC) Dahlgren Jan. 30. One megajoule of energy is equivalent to a 1-ton car traveling at 100 miles per hour.

Alzheimer's disease reversed in mice

Bexarotene quickly reverses Alzheimer's symptoms in mice.

ScienceDaily — Neuroscientists at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine have made a dramatic breakthrough in their efforts to find a cure for Alzheimer's disease. The researchers' findings, published in the journal Science, show that use of a drug in mice appears to quickly reverse the pathological, cognitive and memory deficits caused by the onset of Alzheimer's. The results point to the significant potential that the medication, bexarotene, has to help the roughly 5.4 million Americans suffering from the progressive brain disease.

Bexarotene has been approved for the treatment of cancer by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for more than a decade. These experiments explored whether the medication might also be used to help patients with Alzheimer's disease, and the results were more than promising.

Alzheimer's disease arises in large part from the body's inability to clear naturally-occurring amyloid beta from the brain. In 2008 Case Western Reserve researcher Gary Landreth, PhD, professor of neurosciences, discovered that the main cholesterol carrier in the brain, Apolipoprotein E (ApoE), facilitated the clearance of the amyloid beta proteins. Landreth, a professor of neurosciences in the university's medical school, is the senior author of this study as well.

Landreth and his colleagues chose to explore the effectiveness of bexarotene for increasing ApoE expression. The elevation of brain ApoE levels, in turn, speeds the clearance of amyloid beta from the brain. Bexarotene acts by stimulating retinoid X receptors (RXR), which control how much ApoE is produced.

President Obama unwilling to put his money where his mouth is on Mars exploration

In April of 2010, President Obama went to the Kennedy Space Center and made what was touted as a "bold new course" for the future of space exploration. Obama committed to a manned mission to Mars within the next three decades.

KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, Florida, President Barack Obama Thursday set a bold new course for the future of US space travel, planning to send American astronauts into Mars orbit within the next three decades.

And he sought to quell a storm of outrage which met earlier plans unveiled by his administration, vowing before NASA staff that he was “100 percent committed” to their mission and the US space agency’s future.

“As president, I believe that space exploration is not a luxury, it’s not an afterthought in America’s quest for a brighter future. It is an essential part of that quest,” he said at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

Less than two years later, President Obama is preparing to gut the Mars exploration budget.

WASHINGTON (CBSDC/AP) — Scientists say NASA is about to propose major cuts in its exploration of other planets, especially Mars. And NASA’s former science chief is calling it irrational.

With limited money for science and an over-budget new space telescope, the space agency essentially had to make a choice in where it wanted to explore: the neighboring planet or the far-off cosmos.

Mars lost.

Two scientists who were briefed on the 2013 NASA budget that will be released next week said the space agency is eliminating two proposed joint missions with Europeans to explore Mars in 2016 and 2018. NASA had agreed to pay $1.4 billion for those missions. Some Mars missions will continue, but the fate of future flights is unclear, including the much-sought flight to return rocks from the red planet.

The two scientists, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the budget, said the cuts to the Mars missions are part of a proposed reduction of about $300 million in NASA’s $1.5 billion planetary science budget. More than $200 million in those cuts are in the Mars program, they said. The current Mars budget is $581.7 million.

Video: Woolly Mammoth found out in the wilds of Siberia?

A Russian civil engineer has filmed what he thinks is a live Woolly Mammoth out in the wilds of Siberia.

Who is up for an "Avatar" robot?

Japan scientist makes 'Avatar' robot

Yokohama: A Japanese-developed robot that mimics the movements of its human controller is bringing the Hollywood blockbuster "Avatar" one step closer to reality.

Users of the TELESAR V don special equipment that allows them not only to direct the actions of a remote machine, but also to see, hear and feel the same things as their doppelganger android.

"When I put on the devices and move my body, I see my hands having turned into the robot hands. When I move my head, I get a different view from the one I had before," said researcher Sho Kamuro.

"It's a strange experience that makes you wonder if you've really become a robot," he told AFP.

Professor Susumu Tachi, who specialises in engineering and virtual reality at Keio University's Graduate School of Media Design, said systems attached to the operator's headgear, vest and gloves send detailed instructions to the robot, which then mimics the user's every move.

Image of the Day: The Milky Way Creates Shadow

The Milky Way Creates Shadow

Chinese internet video posted Jan. 25 showing sea trials for China’s first aircraft carrier

Chinese internet video posted Jan. 25 showing sea trials for China’s first aircraft carrier.

Strange Video: Mythical 'Worm Monster' makes appearance in Fljotsdal Valley

What is this strange creature(object?) in an Iceland lake?

Amateur video shows mysterious 'creature' in Iceland

What does the giant black hole at the center of our galaxy eat when it has the munchies

Credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/MIT/F. Baganoff et al.; Illustrations: NASA/CXC/M.Weiss

Asteroids...

ScienceDaily — The giant black hole at the center of the Milky Way may be vaporizing and devouring asteroids, which could explain the frequent flares observed, according to astronomers using data from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory.

For several years Chandra has detected X-ray flares about once a day from the supermassive black hole known as Sagittarius A*, or "Sgr A*" for short. The flares last a few hours with brightness ranging from a few times to nearly one hundred times that of the black hole's regular output. The flares also have been seen in infrared data from ESO's Very Large Telescope in Chile.


"People have had doubts about whether asteroids could form at all in the harsh environment near a supermassive black hole," said Kastytis Zubovas of the University of Leicester in the United Kingdom, and lead author of the report appearing in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. "It's exciting because our study suggests that a huge number of them are needed to produce these flares."

Zubovas and his colleagues suggest there is a cloud around Sgr A* containing trillions of asteroids and comets, stripped from their parent stars. Asteroids passing within about 100 million miles of the black hole, roughly the distance between Earth and the sun, would be torn into pieces by the tidal forces from the black hole.

These fragments then would be vaporized by friction as they pass through the hot, thin gas flowing onto Sgr A*, similar to a meteor heating up and glowing as it falls through Earth's atmosphere. A flare is produced and the remains of the asteroid are swallowed eventually by the black hole.

Daredevil adventurer Felix Baumgartner's plans to plunge 23 miles from the edge fo space back to Earth

Daredevil to attempt hypersonic jump from space

Seagrass Holds Secrets of the Most Ancient Living Organism On Earth

Ancient giant Posidonia oceanica may be more than 100,000 years old.

ScienceDaily — It's big, it's old and it lives under the sea -- and now an international research collaboration with The University of Western Australia's Ocean's Institute has confirmed that an ancient seagrass holds the secrets of the oldest living organism on Earth.

Ancient giant Posidonia oceanica reproduces asexually, generating clones of itself. A single organism -- which has been found to span up to 15 kilometres in width and reach more than 6,000 metric tonnes in mass -- may well be more than 100,000 years old.

"Clonal organisms have an extraordinary capacity to transmit only 'highly competent' genomes, through generations, with potentially no end," said Director of UWA's Oceans' Institute Winthrop Professor Carlos Duarte. Keep on reading...

Cool Video: Stunning Footage from Space

Stunning Footage from Space

Via YouTube:

Time lapse sequences of photographs taken by the crew of expeditions
28 & 29 onboard the International Space Station from August to October,
2011.

Russians take more than 20 years to drill into the lake

Credit NOAA

Reportedly, Russian scientists have drilled into the never-before-touched Lake Vostok in Antarctica.

Russian scientists have drilled into the vast, dark and never-before-touched Lake Vostok 2.2 miles below the surface of Antarctica, the state-run Russian news agency RIA Novosti said Monday.

“Yesterday, our scientists stopped drilling at the depth of 3,768 meters and reached the surface of the subglacial lake,” the news agency quoted a source as saying. The team had “finally managed to pierce” the ice sheet into Vostok, the source said.

The report could not be verified Monday, but numerous Antarctica experts in the United States said they were hearing the same unconfirmed news. Sergei Lesenkov, spokesman for the Arctic and Antarctic Scientific Research Institute, told Agence France-Presse in Moscow on Monday that there was the possibility of a “fundamental scientific development.”

It has taken the Russians more than 20 years to drill into the lake, operating in some of the most brutal weather conditions in the world. Their reported accomplishment comes just as the Antarctic summer ends at Vostok and the cold becomes so great that machinery can’t be operated and airplanes can’t come in or go out.

Fun Video: Zero G Fun With Water Droplets and a Knitting Needle (From ISS)

Zero G Fun With Water Droplets and a Knitting Needle

Weird: Whole neighborhood's garage doors quit working at the same time.

Weird: Whole neighborhood's garage doors quit working at the same time. Wireless pollution?

ST. CHARLES, Mo. (AP/KMOX) — It’s a puzzling phenomenon: On one street in St. Charles County, garage door openers have stopped working.

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports that no one knows what exactly is going on at Westhampton View Court. The garage door openers at all five homes on the court stopped working shortly after Christmas.
“It’s a weird, weird thing,” Joe Sullivan told the Post-Dispatch. “And the timing for it all to go haywire for everybody at the same time can’t be coincidence, right?”

Garage door companies say interference problems are common at individual homes — they blame what is known as “frequency pollution.... Keep on reading...

American scientists repair severed nerves to almost full function

American scientists repair severed nerves to almost full function in weeks.

ScienceDaily — American scientists believe a new procedure to repair severed nerves could result in patients recovering in days or weeks, rather than months or years. The team used a cellular mechanism similar to that used by many invertebrates to repair damage to nerve axons.

Their results were recently published in the Journal of Neuroscience Research.

"We have developed a procedure which can repair severed nerves within minutes so that the behavior they control can be partially restored within days and often largely restored within two to four weeks," said Professor George Bittner from the University of Texas. "If further developed in clinical trials this approach would be a great advance on current procedures that usually imperfectly restore lost function within months at best."

The team studied the mechanisms all animal cells use to repair damage to their membranes and focused on invertebrates, which have a superior ability to regenerate nerve axons compared to mammals. An axon is a long extension arising from a nerve cell body that communicates with other nerve cells or with muscles.

This research success arises from Bittner's discovery that nerve axons of invertebrates which have been severed from their cell body do not degenerate within days, as happens with mammals, but can survive for months, or even years. Keep on reading...

33,000 year-old domesticated dog skull found in Siberia

Man's best friend has been around a long time.

(FOX News)- An ancient dog skull found in Siberia and dating back 33,000 years presents some of the oldest known evidence of dog domestication.

When combined with a similar find in Belgium, the two skulls indicate that the domestication of dogs by humans occurred repeatedly throughout early human history at different geographic locations -- rather than at a single domestication event, as previously believed.

"Both the Belgian find and the Siberian find are domesticated species based on morphological characteristics," said Greg Hodgins, a researcher at the University of Arizona's Accelerator Mass Spectrometry Laboratory and co-author of a study reporting the find.

"Essentially, wolves have long thin snouts and their teeth are not crowded, and domestication results in this shortening of the snout and widening of the jaws and crowding of the teeth."

The Altai Mountain skull is extraordinarily well preserved, Hodgins said, enabling scientists to make multiple measurements of the skull, teeth and mandibles that might not be possible on less well-preserved remains. "The argument that it is domesticated is pretty solid," he said. "What's interesting is that it doesn't appear to be an ancestor of modern dogs."

At 33,000 years old, neither the Belgian nor the Siberian domesticated lineages appear to have survived earth's last ice age. Still, they show, just how far back our special relationship with our canine companions goes, Hodgins said.

Raw video: Florida couple doing everything they can to give exceptionally rare cat a chance to live

Two-faced kitten in good hands

 

Can repulsive gravity explain an ever expanding universe?

 

Image credit: Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0)

Can repulsive gravity explain an ever expanding universe?

(PhysOrg.com) -- When scientists discovered in 1998 that the Universe is expanding at an accelerating rate, the possibility that dark energy could explain the observation was intriguing. But because there has been little progress in figuring out exactly what dark energy is, the idea has since become more of a problem than a solution for some scientists. One physicist, Massimo Villata of the National Institute for Astrophysics (INAF) in Pino Torinese, Italy, describes dark energy as “embarrassing,” saying that the concept is an ad hoc element to standard cosmology and is devoid of any physical meaning. Villata is one of many scientists who are looking for new explanations of the Universe’s accelerating expansion that involve some form of repulsive gravity. In this case, the repulsive gravity could stem from antimatter hiding in voids.

“Cosmic voids (and in particular the nearby Local Void) are observationally very well known and constitute the largest structures of which our Universe is composed,” Villata told PhysOrg.com. “The problem is whether they are really empty or contain the repulsive antimatter.”

In Villata’s paper, which will soon be published in Astrophysics and Space Science, he suggests that antimatter could be hiding in these large voids, separated from matter by mutual gravitational repulsion. As he explained previously, the gravitational repulsion between matter and antimatter is a prediction of general relativity. In this scenario, matter has a positive gravitational charge while antimatter has a (hypothetical) negative gravitational charge. As a result, both matter and antimatter are gravitationally self-attractive, yet mutually repulsive. The gravitational repulsion between matter and antimatter could be so powerful, in fact, that Villata has calculated that it could be responsible for the accelerated expansion of the Universe, eliminating the need for dark energy and possibly dark matter.

Repulsive gravity of this form could even theoretically explain some observations that dark energy cannot, even theoretically, explain. Recently, scientists observed an anomalous motion of the “Local Sheet,” the part of the Universe that includes the Milky Way and other nearby galaxies, which has its own peculiar velocity distinct from other parts of the Universe. Astronomers have identified three components that contribute to the velocity of the Local Sheet: one is due to the well-known attraction to the nearby dense Virgo Cluster; the second component, although its origin is less clear, is thought to be due to the attraction to the Centaurus Cluster; and the third component is what astronomers call the “local velocity anomaly” because the force is not directed toward any significant structure. Keep on reading...

Finally, an iPad app for your kitty

Just in time for Caturday!

Who is up for terrifying "supergiant" amphipods?

Scientists have retrieved, near the coast of New Zealand, the largest complete "supergiant" amphipod specimen ever collected!

Scientists on an expedition to sample a deep-sea trench got a surprise when their traps brought back seven giant crustaceans glimpsed only a handful of times in human history.

The "supergiant" amphipods are more than 20 times larger than their typical crustacean relatives, which are generally less than a half-inch (1 centimeter) long, and thrive in lakes and oceans around the world. They are sometimes called the "insects of the sea."

"We pulled up the trap, and lying among the fish were these absolutely massive amphipods, and there was no inkling whatsoever that these things should be there," said Alan Jamieson, a lecturer at the University of Aberdeen in Scotland, and leader of the expedition that turned up the fantastical creatures in November 2011.

The largest of the seven specimens was about 11 inches (28 cm) long.

"They actually don't feel real," Jamieson told OurAmazingPlanet. "They feel like plastic toys. They have a waxy texture to them." [See image of the supergiant crustacean.]

The pale, leggy creatures were found 4 miles (6 kilometers) down in the Kermadec Trench, off the northeast coast of New Zealand, one of the deepest trenches on Earth.

In addition to the animals captured in the trap, a seafloor camera more than a mile (2 km) away spied at least nine supergiant amphipods. It's not clear why so many of the typically elusive creatures were in the area. A week later, when the expedition returned to the same spot, there was no sign of the supergiant amphipods, which was "very, very strange," Jamieson said.

It appears the Aberdeen expedition has retrieved the largest complete specimen ever collected. (In 1983, an albatross regurgitated a supergiant amphipod, that, not surprisingly, was in poor shape. Researchers estimated at the time that, when alive, the creature would have been 13 inches (34 cm) long.). Keep on reading...

Video: UFO caught on police video

UFO or Meteor? Police Camera Captures Light in the Sky

ufo, Police, video,

A massive super Earth has been found 20 light-years away, but how do astronomers find these planets?

How do we detect far away planets?

Archaeologists discover 'wing' shaped building in Norway

The function of the circa 300 AD wing-shaped building isn't clear, but it may have been a temple.

(PhysOrg.com) -- A unique ‘wing’ shaped building discovered close to the ancient capital of the Iceni in Norfolk is mystifying archaeologists.

A building without obvious parallel in Roman Britain or the rest of the Roman Empire — that is how archaeologists at The University of Nottingham have described the discovery south of the Roman site of Venta Icenorum, which is known today as Caistor St. Edmund, in Norfolk.

Trial excavations suggest the building dates to around the third century AD. The preliminary findings have been published in the most recent edition of the Journal of Roman Archaeology.

Dr. Will Bowden, from the Department of Archaeology, said: “This building is a mystery to us. We don’t know what function it would have had although a temple seems the most likely explanation. It is of a design that is very unusual for Britain and indeed the rest of the Roman Empire. It is particularly intriguing to find such a structure in the former territory of the Iceni (the tribe of Boudica) as villas and other monumental structures are relatively rare in this area.”

The structure, built 1800 years ago, was discovered in 2007 during a particularly unusual spell of very wet then very dry weather. This resulted in a series of crop marks appearing at the highest part of the site. These crop marks indicated the presence of a ‘winged’ building that had never been seen by archaeologists before. Keep on reading...

Video: GRAIL Mission Returns First Video of Moon's Far Side

GRAIL Mission Returns First Video of Moon's Far Side

Butterflies Help Builders of Bug-Size Flying Robots

 Credit: Robert J. Wood, associate professor, and Pratheev Sreetharan, Harvard Microrobotics Lab, Harvard University.

The military possibilities are enormous.

ScienceDaily — To improve the next generation of insect-size flying machines, Johns Hopkins engineers have been aiming high-speed video cameras at some of the prettiest bugs on the planet. By figuring out how butterflies flutter among flowers with amazing grace and agility, the researchers hope to help small airborne robots mimic these maneuvers.

U.S. defense agencies, which have funded this research, are supporting the development of bug-size flyers to carry out reconnaissance, search-and-rescue and environmental monitoring missions without risking human lives. These devices are commonly called micro aerial vehicles or MAVs.

"For military missions in particular, these MAVs must be able to fly successfully through complex urban environments, where there can be tight spaces and turbulent gusts of wind," said Tiras Lin, a Whiting School of Engineering undergraduate who has been conducting the high-speed video research. "These flying robots will need to be able to turn quickly. But one area in which MAVs are lacking is maneuverability."

To address that shortcoming, Lin has been studying butterflies. "Flying insects are capable of performing a dazzling variety of flight maneuvers," he said. "In designing MAVs, we can learn a lot from flying insects."

Lin's research has been supervised by Rajat Mittal, a professor of mechanical engineering. "This research is important because it attempts to not only address issues related to bio-inspired design of MAVs, but it also explores fundamental questions in biology related to the limits and capabilities of flying insects," Mittal said.