Howard Hughes Medical Institute researchers are beginning to unravel how a mysterious sixth sense guides animal attraction. The scientists have made the first-ever recordings of patterns of brain activity in a mouse as it explores the sex and identity of a newly encountered animal.

The research team, led by Lawrence C. Katz, a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator at Duke University Medical Center, recorded the firing of neurons in the accessory olfactory bulb, part of a poorly under

When it comes to visual entertainment, three-dimensional viewing can be quite eye-opening. So, too, in science where a recent finding involving University of Iowa researchers used three-dimensional imaging to understand how a bacterial enzyme can take oxygen from air and use it to convert certain molecules into useful chemicals.

Specifically, the scientists saw that naphthalene dioxygenase, a bacterial enzyme, can bind oxygen (to iron) in a side-on fashion and add it on to naphthalene, a hy

Scientists at the Department of Global Ecology of the Carnegie Institution of Washington in Stanford, California, have found that climate trends significantly affect corn and soybean yields. David Lobell and Dr. Gregory Asner analyzed 17 years of data on crop yields, temperature, precipitation, and solar radiation throughout the U.S. for their study and published their results in the February 14, 2003, issue of Science.

The investigation showed that gradual increases in temperature cause si

If you sniff a rose this Valentine’s Day, your brain will recognize almost a hundred different molecules that collectively give the flower its heady scent-but how? Scientists are now discovering how the brain identifies odors and their mysterious counterparts, the pheromones. New research, to be presented today at the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) Annual Meeting and forthcoming in the journal, Science, explains how the mouse brain is exquisitely tuned to recognize an

Researchers at the University of Warwick’s Warwick Process Technology Group are leading a programme called “Hydrofueler” to develop technology to connect petrol stations to the normal natural gas supply to fuel hydrogen powered vehicles. The 2.8 million euro EC funded three year research programme has already drawn interest from Exxon Mobil, and BMW.

One of the problems with using hydrogen powered cars is how do you keep their fuel cells supplied with a ready source of hydrogen? The Warwick

A revolutionary new car, which averages more than 200 miles per gallon in the city, is being developed at the University of Southampton.
Postgraduate research student Dennis Doerffel has turned a hatchback into a hybrid electric car. It uses the latest lithium ion batteries linked to a small petrol engine, which cuts in automatically if more power or range is required.

He said: “More than 90 per cent of all car journeys are less than 50 miles long. That is the range of the battery and it