Climate change plus population growth are setting the stage for water shortages in parts of the U.S. long before the end of the century, according to a new study in the AGU journal Earth’s Future. Even efforts to use water more efficiently in municipal and industrial sectors won’t be enough to stave off shortages, say…
The oldest distinguishing feature between humans and our ape cousins is our ability to walk on two legs — a trait known as bipedalism. Among mammals, only humans and our ancestors perform this atypical balancing act. New research led by a Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine professor of anatomy provides evidence for greater…
Tracking the firings of individual neurons is like trying to discern who is saying what in a football stadium full of screaming fans. Until recently, neuroscientists have had to tediously track each neuron by hand. “People spent more time analyzing their data to extract activity traces than actually collecting it,” says Dmitri Chklovskii, who leads…
Searching for better security during data transmission, governments and other organizations around the world have been investing in and developing technologies related to quantum communication and related encryption methods. Researchers are looking at how these new systems — which, in theory, would provide unhackable communication channels — can be integrated into existing and future fiber-optic…
New work leveraging machine learning could increase the efficiency of optical telecommunications networks. As our world becomes increasingly interconnected, fiber optic cables offer the ability to transmit more data over longer distances compared to traditional copper wires. Optical Transport Networks (OTNs) have emerged as a solution for packaging data in fiber optic cables, and improvements…
If you are making an overseas phone call or using cloud computing, there is a 99 percent chance an undersea fiber optic cable is being utilized. Now, new work with lasers shows promise for squeezing more data through these cables, to help meet the growing demand for data flow between computers in North America and…
The fungus Candida albicans is found in the gastrointestinal tract of about half of healthy adults with little if any effect, yet it also causes an oft-fatal blood infection among patients with compromised immune systems, including those with HIV/AIDS. New research from Brown University helps show how this fungus gets the flexibility to live in…
Protecting and expanding suitable habitats for wildlife is key to the conservation of endangered species, but owing to climate and land use change the ideal habitats of today may not be fitting in 30 or 50 years. An international team of scientists therefore predicted range shifts of Asian elephants in India and Nepal using species…
Temnothorax americanus is a slavemaking ant found in northeastern America. These tiny social insects neither rear their offspring nor search for food themselves. Instead, they raid nests of another ant species, Temnothorax longispinosus, kidnap their larvae and pupae to bring these back to their own nest. Once these have reached adulthood, the abducted ants must…
Scientists at the University of Bath have identified how a mutant gene in fish is involved in controlling stem cells. A new study from the group of Professor Robert Kelsh in the Department of Biology & Biochemistry looks at how a novel group of stem cells are controlled by mutations in a gene called parade.…