Entries Tagged 'Science' ↓

Brain Fingerprinting

第三届 Science and Engineering Visualization Challenge 结果 已经公布了，上面这幅描画突触的作品赢得了最佳 illustration。在九月23日的 Science 上对这幅画还有个简单的描述。这个比赛共有五个大类，大家可以去其官方网站看看。

News from Nature: Free mice herald launch of Asia−Pacific network

“Developmental biologists in Asia−Pacific countries have come up with an intriguing incentive to boost research in the region — giving away transgenic mice for free.”

“To kick things off, the RIKEN Center for Developmental Biology (CDB) in Kobe, Japan, will make transgenic mice to order for scientists in the region, free of charge.”

“The CDB will start its mouse service this month with collaborators in India. Researchers should receive the mice within a year of sending the DNA constructs or sequence data needed to make the animals.” Continue reading →

很多人可能都知道 Cornell 笔记格式, 格式可见下图。

现在有人制作了这种格式的PDF文件生成器。所以大家不用去买什么笔记本了，打印出来，做个活页夹就好。

Continue reading →

EPOD (Earth Science Picture of the Day) posted a picture of Hurricane Katrina taken from a NOAA “Hurricane Hunter” aircraft (WC130) over the Gulf of Mexico before it ruined New Orleans.

Parasites brainwash grasshoppers into death dive from New Scientist

Stand in a line for TEM
Originally uploaded by lalawow.

这是在科大大家为了能预约上本学期使用透射电镜，而在半夜就开始排队的场景。大家都不容易。最终有160人预约成功。

[来自]: Hiking Observer

来自三个机构 ( Harvard University, the University of California, Berkeley, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, and the Max-Planck-Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology) 的联合研究表明人的皮层，小脑和猩猩的皮层在随着年龄变化的基因表达有重大差异：在人皮层的不同区域之间这种变化很一致，而且有这种变化的基因在皮层比小脑要多；另一方面猩猩皮层的变化与人皮层的变化一点也不一致。毫无疑问，这个发现对目前我们所使用的各种神经退行性疾病模型的合理性提出了重大挑战。

新闻可见Human cerebellum and cortex age in very different ways at Eureka Alert

论文：Aging and Gene Expression in the Primate Brain at PLoS Biology

我知道迁徙的鸟很好看 (buy it here)，不过随着在青海湖候鸟，斑头雁的死亡与夏季大量鸟类向北极圈的迁徙，禽流感进一步向全球蔓延的可能性在不断加大。事实上，人们已经在西西伯利亚的Novosibirsk的家禽中发现了致死的H5N1型禽流感。可怕啊。美国人正在担心Alaska也会有这种致死病毒传播。

可见Carriers of avian flu could migrate to Alaska by Scripps Howard News Service

之前我写了娇鹟的善舞，当然它也能歌。在上周的Science 上两位鸟类学家发表了一篇论文介绍了雄性 Club-winged Manakins 求爱时的奇特发声机制：依靠翅膀振动来发声。在它的翅膀上长有两种不同的羽毛，通过这两种羽毛间高频的相互磨擦（有100赫兹）就可以发声。这种发声方式有点象蟋蟀，不过能以100赫兹的速度振动翅膀也是个了不起的成就。

Link:

[1] 论文：Courting bird sings with stridulating wing feathers, PubMed 上的摘要

[2] NY Times 上的一篇介绍：A New Kind of Birdsong: Music on the Wing in the Forests of Ecuador (需注册，如果没有的话去BugMeNot 找一个）

[3] 论文所附的视频：正常速度 和 慢动作