Potential applications abound

In a milestone that conjures up the refrain to a Paul McCartney song, researchers at MIT and University College London have linked “hands across the water” in the first transatlantic touch, literally “feeling” each other’s manipulations of a small box on a computer screen.

Potential applications abound. “In addition to sound and vision, virtual reality programs could include touch as well,” said Mandayam A. Srinivasan, director of MIT’

An increased frequency of extreme precipitation events has been observed over the last 100 years in the United States. Global climate models project that similar trends may continue and even strengthen over the coming decades, due to climate change. Now, a study using computer climate and crop model simulations predicts that U.S. agricultural production losses due to excess rainfall may double in the next 30 years, resulting in an estimated $3 billion per year in damages.

Cynthia Rosenzweig

Dolphins, long considered the second-smartest species on the planet, recognize one another by name, possess a distinct concept of “self’ and, it turns out, have some surprisingly good ideas about techniques for keeping the hulls of maritime ships clean.

Karen L. Wooley, Ph.D., professor of chemistry at Washington University in St. Louis, has noted the shape and texture of dolphin skin and how it naturally prevents marine creatures from clinging to dolphin skin. The observation fits into h

In search of cosmic mayhem

A physicist at Washington University in St. Louis working with scientists at the Smithsonian Institution is unveiling the dark, violent side of the universe.

Studying the highest energy photons known to science, Washington University Associate Professor of Physics James H. Buckley, Ph.D., and his colleagues are analyzing bursts of gamma rays released from massive black holes at the center of so-called active galaxies.

Using the Whipple Ob

Sometime within the next two years, researchers will detect the first signals of gravity waves — those weak blips from the far edges of the universe passing through our bodies every second. Predicted by Einstein’s theory of general relativity, gravity waves are expected to reveal, ultimately, previously unattainable mysteries of the universe.

Wai-Mo Suen, Ph.D., professor of physics at Washington University in St. Louis is collaborating with researchers nationwide to develop waveform t

Texas research shows mid-September success with containerized trees

Most foresters hold to the straight and narrow when it comes to planting pine trees: nursery seedlings go in the ground between Dec. 1 and March 1. Period.

But a Texas Agricultural Experiment Station study is branching out to show that early planting — even as early as mid-September – can give slash pine trees a growing head start towards better survivability, thus faster regrowth on harvested or burnt area