Scientists often look to nature for inspiration in the search for ways to make new materials. A new study of the clamworm, an intertidal creature, shows that it has jaws made partly of zinc, making them strong, stiff and tough –– fundamental properties by which all materials are evaluated.

The properties of the clamworm jaws are described in this week´s online publication of the Proceedings of the National Academies of Sciences (PNAS). The research began with questions by scientists a

The search for life on other planets could soon extend to solar systems that are very different from our own, according to a new study by an Ohio State University astronomer and his colleagues.

In fact, finding a terrestrial planet in such a solar system would offer unique scientific opportunities to test evolution, said Andrew Gould, professor of astronomy here. In a recent issue of Astrophysical Journal Letters, he and his coauthors calculated that NASA’s upcoming Space Interferome

The promise of the genomics revolution – the ability to compare important genes and proteins from many different organisms – is that such detailed knowledge will produce new scientific insights that will improve human quality of life. In work on a key human enzyme, PBGS (porphobilinogen synthase), the laboratory of Fox Chase Cancer Center scientist Eileen K. Jaffe, Ph.D., has characterized a rare mutation that results in an unprecedented rearrangement of the enzyme´s structure. The discovery provides

Researchers of the Bochvara All-Russian Scientific Research Institute for Inorganic Materials, supported by the International Scientific and Technical Center have developed new tilth technology, which allows to get rid of radioactive or poisonous dust, to transform dust-forming slag-heaps into green lawn and even to grow forest in the desert.

The technology is based on the polyelectrolytes developed by chemists of the Lomonosov Moscow State University. The polyelectrolytes are polymers, the

A research team in Austria has been unravelling the secrets of the charging of plastic foams. Its findings open the way for the development of flat microphones and loudspeakers, as well as “smart” surfaces that could be used as floor coverings, among other things. The interest in the success of the group´s work – which was co-funded by the Austrian Science Fund (FWF) – has resulted in the integration of the project in a European interdisciplinary research network.

During a thunder st

The Liverpool Telescope, the world’s largest fully robotic telescope, has snapped its first images of the heavens this week. This 2 meter optical telescope is owned by the Astrophysics Research Institute (ARI) of Liverpool John Moores University (JMU), but observes autonomously from its site on La Palma in the Canary Islands. The telescope was designed, constructed and commissioned by Telescope Technologies Ltd., a subsidiary company of JMU.

The Liverpool Telescope’s unique capabilities of