Tool use isn't unique to humans. Chimpanzees use sticks as tools. Dolphins, crows, and elephants are known for their tool-use abilities, too. Now a report in Current Biology on November 8, 2024, highlights elephants' remarkable skill in using a hose as a flexible shower head. As an unexpected bonus, researchers say they also have evidence that a fellow elephant knows how to turn the water off, perhaps as a kind of "prank."
When people have an audience watching them, it can change their performance for better or worse. Now, researchers reporting in iScience on November 8 have found that chimpanzees' performance on computer tasks is influenced by the number of people watching them.
Food productivity is dependent on the availability of fertilizer, says Utah State University biochemist Lance Seefeldt. "We need nitrogen to survive, but we can't take it in from the air," says Seefeldt, professor and head of USU's Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry.
Chemists have synthesized a highly complex natural molecule through a new strategy of functionalizing normally inert carbon-hydrogen (C-H). The journal Science has published the breakthrough. Led by chemists at Emory University and Caltech, the work is the most dramatic example yet of a sequence of C-H functionalization reactions selectively transforming low-cost materials into complex building blocks of organic chemistry.
Culturing, a term for growing microorganisms in the laboratory, is a basic yet indispensable method in microbiology research. Microorganisms are often cultured in a liquid medium that provides essential nutrients, and this process is both simple and highly effective. In addition to nutrients, oxygen availability is also critical for the growth of aerobic microorganisms. However, oxygen does not dissolve easily in the liquid medium. As a result, the medium needs to be forcibly aerated, usually by shaking.
How do you encourage a skeptical public to support a new policy? New research by Georgia State University economist Stefano Carattini and his co-authors suggests that experience with a policy can lead people to change their beliefs about the policy and increase public support for it.
A team of neurobiologists at Harvard Medical School's Howard Hughes Medical Institute has uncovered the neural mechanism involved in the unique way hairy animals such as dogs shake themselves when wet. In their study published in the journal Science, the group applied oils to the necks of mice while looking for a response from several mechanosensory neurons.
Biosensors play a key role in medical research and diagnostics. At present, however, they generally have to be specially developed for each application. A team led by LMU chemist Philip Tinnefeld has developed a general, modular strategy for designing sensors that can be easily adapted to various target molecules and concentration ranges.
All living things have a blueprint provided by the DNA that is stored in every one of their cells. Yet the amount of DNA in each cell—what we refer to as genome size—spans an incredible range across the tree of life.
A team in Utah has found that bee deaths due to collisions with automobiles in the western parts of the United States may be in the tens of millions every day.
The patient arrived with a bladder stone, grimacing in pain and moping about. He wouldn't even chew his cud. The patient, you see, was a goat. And while treated for his bladder stone—a common ailment in the small ruminants—he was also contributing to new research that aims to accurately measure pain not only in goats, but other domestic animals as well and even, one day, in people.
Yokohama National University scientists have developed a promising bubble printing method that enables high-precision patterning of liquid metal wiring for flexible electronics. This technique offers new options for creating bendable, stretchable, and highly conductive circuits, ideal for devices such as wearable sensors and medical implants. Their study was published in Nanomaterials on Oct. 17.
A new study highlights the importance of kindness in academic workplaces, especially as many health professionals face increasing levels of burnout. Kanoho Hosoda, director of the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa's Native Hawaiian Center of Excellence at the John A. Burns School of Medicine (JABSOM), led the research, which was recently published in PLOS One.
A team of chemists and engineers in China has developed a new, efficient way to separate oil and water mixtures. In their paper published in the journal Science, the group describes how they developed their new technique, how it works and the many possible uses for it.
As air temperatures stay elevated through fall months, people may still want clothes that cool them down while outside, especially if they live in cities that stay warmer than rural landscapes. Researchers who previously demonstrated a cooling fabric coating now report on additional tests of a treated polyester fabric in an article published in ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces. Fabric treated with the team's chalk-based coating kept the air underneath up to 6°F cooler in warmer urban environments.
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