One of the oddest phenomena in the natural world — the sudden mass death of lemmings — has been resolved, according to a trio of European biologists. Unexplained population crashes of this rodent of the high northern latitudes have bred the myth that, whenever they become too numerous for the available food, the creatures band together and fling themselves off cliffs in a crazed suicidal rush. However researchers now say the truth is even more complex. Lemming populations, they say, surge spectacularly and fall just as quickly, thanks to the combined feasting of four predators: the stoat, arctic fox, snowy owl and a seabird called the long-tailed skua
US scientists have deliberately genetically engineered an extremely deadly form of mousepox. The new virus kills 100% of mice, even if they have been vaccinated and are treated with antiviral drugs
Researchers estimate that nano-velcro would be about 30 times stronger than conventional epoxy adhesives. It would bond most solids together so powerfully that the materials themselves would break before the pads of hooks came apart. It would also be about 3,000 times stronger than a microscopic version of Velcro made by carving tiny hooks into silicon wafers
Robots rarely seem cuddly, partly because of their hard metal exteriors. But designing supple skin for them has to fulfil two apparently opposing needs: being elastic enough to have the dexterity of a human, while carrying enough wiring to allow it to accurately sense its environment. Now electrical engineers at Princeton University have developed a hyper-stretchy metal film that might do the job
Miracle fuel additives that promise more kilometres per litre, cleaner engines and less pollution are as old as fuel itself. Such claims are often vague and rarely proven. But Oxonica says it has developed an additive, called Envirox, that makes diesel burn more efficiently, producing fuel savings of 10%
Rejected from Slashdot, so you get to enjoy it here…
BBC News is reporting the discovery of the first new method of generating electricity in over 150 years. Canadian scientists from U.Alberta have created a ‘water battery’ that can produce power without moving parts. The device stores water in thousands of 10 micron channels and generates electrity using charge separation. In the future, recharging your mobile phone could be a matter of pumping its water supply to high pressure…
Two of three types of GM crops tested in farm scale trials are worse for wildlife than conventional crops, according to the long-awaited results of government trials
A new species of frog — named nasikabatrachidae, which is Sanskrit for frog with a nose — has been discovered in the mountains of southern India. The purple, small-headed creature with tiny eyes, protruding snout and a bloated appearance belongs to a new family of frogs that scientists thought had either never existed or had disappeared without trace millions of years ago
SETI@home is preparing to make a major change to their client and backend. The new system ‘boinc‘ will be a general purpose client and accept work units from other projects (selected by the user). This will open-up SETI@Home’s millions strong user base to academic projects that cannot afford supercomputers. As boinc is an open source framework other distributed projects will also be able to use it giving boinc a larger installed base than SETI@Home
Cooligy is applying an idea from Victorian engineering to solving a key stumbling block in the development of high-performance chips — how to cool them down
A new battery — lauded as the smallest implantable battery in the world — may soon be powering tiny bionic neurons, devices that emit electrical micropulses to stimulate damaged nerves and muscles
Researchers at Loughborough University in central England say they may have worked out why the cookie crumbles and that the problem may be due to cooking techniques and humidity
The Ig Nobel awards for 2003 were presented at Harvard University.
Australia may be facing a permanent drought because of an accelerating vortex of winds whipping around the Antarctic that threatens to disrupt rainfall
Super Slurper, a starch-based polymer with a powerful thirst, has been employed in nappies and filters, but researchers want to turn the page and develop a different application: drying waterlogged books. It is being re-designed to aid librarians and archivists in their battle against flood damage
Sanyo has announced that the world’s first environment-friendly optical discs made from corn will hit the market from December this year
Townsville scientists in north Queensland have found a way to prevent ships bringing foreign marine creatures into Australian ports when they exchange their ballast water. Researchers at CRC Reef and James Cook University have launched a pilot plant to trial the sterilisation of ballast water, a process that may lead to sterilisation systems being installed aboard international ships
The full magnitude of the world’s largest ever rodent has been revealed — the now-extinct monster was the size of a cow. The creature weighed in at 700 kilograms and lived eight million years ago, roaming the lush banks of the ancient Orinoco delta in north-western Venezuela. But the 3m long, 1.3m tall behemoth was an evolutionary cousin of today’s humble guinea pig
Scientists have discovered that when it comes to detecting if you’ve been swindled out of a fair deal, monkeys can be just as sharp as humans
A widespread belief among physicists nowadays is that modern science requires squadrons of scientists and wildly expensive equipment. Craig Wallace, fresh out of Spanish Fork High School, had almost the entire physics faculty of Utah State University hovering (and arguing) over an apparatus he had cobbled together from parts salvaged from junk yards and charity drops. The apparatus is nothing less than the sine qua non of modern science: a nuclear fusion reactor, based on the plans of Philo Farnsworth, the inventor of television
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