VLT Interferometer Measurements of Achernar Challenge Stellar Theory

To a first approximation, planets and stars are round. Think of the Earth we live on. Think of the Sun, the nearest star, and how it looks in the sky.

But if you think more about it, you realize that this is not completely true. Due to its daily rotation, the solid Earth is slightly flattened (“oblate”) – its equatorial radius is some 21 km (0.3%) larger than the polar one. Stars are enormous gaseous spheres

Humans became hairless to reduce the effects of the many biting flies and other disease-carrying parasites that live in fur and to enhance sexual attractiveness and selection, according to scientists from the Universities of Reading and Oxford. The new theory, which challenges the accepted view that human hairlessness evolved to control body temperature in hot climates, is to be published by the Royal Society in Biology Letters, a new companion to Proceedings: Biological Sciences.

Humans ar

Advanced Control Research Ltd (ACR) is developing a new microchip system that will give prosthetic arm users more movement and control of their artificial limbs thanks to an Invention & Innovation award of £65,000 from NESTA (the National Endowment for Science, Technology & the Arts), the organisation that invests in UK creativity and innovation.

The ACR system uses myoelectric technology to transfer the user’s thought processes into a range of movements. It does this by interpreting electr

Genetically modified crops could help small-scale farmers in developing countries according to the Nuffield Council on Bioethics in The use of genetically modified crops in developing countries, a Discussion Paper published today. The Nuffield Council is inviting comments on the draft paper which aims to contribute to ‘GM Nation?’, the public debate organised by the government in the UK during the next six weeks.

In 1999, the Nuffield Council recommended that there was a moral imperative f

In experiments conducted at the University of California, Berkeley, researchers have found a way to tap into the telltale electrical signals that mark cell death, opening the door to the creation of a “canary on a chip” that can be used to sound the alarm of a biochemical attack or test drug toxicity on human tissue.

In a study appearing in the June 15 issue of Sensors and Actuators, researchers used a microchip to electrically determine cell viability by detecting changes in the electrica

If the world’s human population continues to rise at its current rate, the planet will increase the numbers of threatened species at least 7 percent worldwide in the next 20 years and twice that many by the year 2050.

In a recent model of the impact human population growth has on biological diversity, Ohio State University anthropologist Jeffrey McKee and his colleagues warn that the United States alone will add at least 10 additional species to the “threatened” list within 50 years.