Topics : Science World Report

Feb 21, 2012 03:39 PM EST

Research on Applying Enhanced Virtuality to Language Learning

These researchers have used an open code platform to create distributed three-dimensional virtual worlds (OpenWonderland), and they have made use of geolocalization, which is already incorporated in smartphones. The purpose is to take advantage of the immersion characteristics that virtual worlds of...

Feb 21, 2012 01:59 PM EST

Chess Experts Help Researchers Understand How We See the World

Just as expert chess players scrutinize a board to calculate their next moves, UT Dallas cognitive neuroscientists are studying the way these players' brains work to better understand how visual information is processed.

Feb 21, 2012 01:41 PM EST

Global Permafrost Zones in High-resolution Images on Google Earth

Thawing permafrost will have far-reaching ramifications for populated areas, infrastructure and ecosystems. A geographer from the University of Zurich reveals where it is important to confront the issue based on new permafrost maps -- the most precise global maps around. They depict the global distr...

Feb 21, 2012 11:51 AM EST

Penn Researcher Helps Discover and Characterize a 300-million-year-old Forest

Pompeii-like, a 300-million-year-old tropical forest was preserved in ash when a volcano erupted in what is today northern China. A new study by University of Pennsylvania paleobotanist Hermann Pfefferkorn and colleagues presents a reconstruction of this fossilized forest, lending insight into the e...

Feb 21, 2012 11:35 AM EST

Weight, Height, and Experience Key to Rugby World Cup Success

Rugby teams with the tallest backs, heaviest forwards, and greatest amount of collective experience are likely to be the most successful at World Cup level, reveals research published online in the British Journal of Sports Medicine.

Feb 21, 2012 11:09 AM EST

Robotic Dinosaurs on the Way for Next-gen Paleontology at Drexel

Researchers at Drexel University are bringing the latest technological advancements in 3-D printing to the study of ancient life. Using scale models of real fossils, for the first time, they will be able to test hypotheses about how dinosaurs and other prehistoric animals moved and lived in their en...

Feb 21, 2012 10:58 AM EST

New Sensor Construction Enables Supersensitive and High-frequency Non-electric Strain Measurement in Combination With Fast Mounting

A special sensor construction for strain measurement was developed in a research project at GÃ¼nter-KÃ¶hler-Institut fÃ¼r FÃ¼getechnik und WerkstoffprÃ¼fung GmbH (ifw) in Jena. This construction allows a multiple use of the fiber bragg grating sensors (FBGS), which are fixed in a way that ...

Feb 21, 2012 10:29 AM EST

Carbon Storage Project Combines Innovation and Outreach

Geologists are hoping to learn a great deal about geologic carbon sequestration from injecting 1 million metric tons of carbon dioxide into sandstone 7,000 feet beneath Decatur, Ill. And they're hoping the public learns a lot from the endeavor, too.

Feb 21, 2012 10:04 AM EST

1 in 10 Children Face Elevated Risk of Abuse, Future PTSD, Due to Gender Nonconformity

Children in the U.S. whose activity choices, interests, and pretend play before age 11 fall outside those typically expressed by their biological sex face increased risk of being physically, psychologically, and sexually abused, and of suffering from posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) by early adu...

Feb 21, 2012 07:57 AM EST

Maize Hybrid Looks Promising for Biofuel

Scientists at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign have identified a new contender in the bioenergy race: a temperate and tropical maize hybrid. Their findings, published in GCB Bioenergy, show that the maize hybrid is potentially capable of producing ethanol from biomass (plant material u...

Feb 20, 2012 04:36 PM EST

Flooding in Southeastern Australia

Along the border between the Australian states of Queensland and New South Wales, several communities were flooded in early February 2012. By mid-month, the flood waters had moved west. On February 19, online news source NineMSN reported that as many as 10,000 residents of northeastern New South Wal...

Feb 20, 2012 04:28 PM EST

UK Takes the Lead in Redefining the Kilogram

New research, published by the National Physical Laboratory (NPL), takes a significant step towards changing the international definition of the kilogram â€“ which is currently based on a lump of platinum-iridium kept in Paris. NPL has produced technology capable of accurate measurements of Pla...