Research News
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Modelling sheds new light on bacteria behaviour
A new study into how bacteria move, behave, and form colonies could allow a better understanding of infections, and pave the way to new antimicrobial treatments. For their paper, published today in the New Journal of Physics, the interdisciplinary team from the Max Planck Institute and Helmholtz-Center, Dresden, and from Brooklyn College of the City […]
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Could Rudolph and friends help to slow down our warming climate?
Reindeer may be best known for pulling Santa’s sleigh, but a new study suggests they may have a part to play in slowing down climate change too. A team of researchers, writing in the journal Environmental Research Letters, found that when reindeer reduce the height and abundance of shrubs on the Arctic tundra through grazing, […]
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New type of travelling wave pattern could contain biological coordinates
‘Stretchable map’ is a logical way to understand how bacteria manage cell division Physicists in Israel and the US have proposed a new type of travelling wave pattern — one that can adapt to the size of physical system in which it is embedded – reporting the work in the New Journal of Physics. According […]
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Can you bounce water balloons off a bed of nails? Yes, says new study
A group of first year students at Roskilde University, supervised by Dr Tina Hecksher, have shown that water-filled balloons behave very similarly to tiny water droplets, by bouncing them on a bed of nails. Their work, published today in the European Journal of Physics in collaboration with Professor Julia Yeomans at Oxford University, was inspired […]
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Researchers measure vortex breakdown in a bird’s wake for the first time – thanks to 3D printed goggles
New research has shed light for the first time on how the breakdown of strong vortices birds create by flapping their wings limits our ability to calculate the lift they generate to fly. Using a high speed laser, four cameras running at 1,000 frames per second, and a willing slow-flying parrotlet called Obi, equipped with […]
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Link and node analysis charts language survival
Model examines the interplay between the use of a language and the preference or attitude of the speakers towards it Bilingual speakers play an important role in language survival, according to the results of a new study published in the New Journal of Physics. The work – performed by researchers from the Institute for Cross-Disciplinary […]
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Study finds evidence of Deepwater Horizon oil in land-based birds
Results highlight food-web link between oil exposure and a terrestrial ecosystem The ecological consequences of an environmental disaster can extend further than one may imagine as effects propagate through interconnected food webs. Most recently, researchers in the US have found evidence suggesting that oil from the Deepwater Horizon (DWH) spillage has been incorporated into birds […]
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Novel reaction microscope scheme targets biologically relevant molecules
Latest spectrometer design is more sensitive to chemical fragments and can distinguish between isomers with more than one carbon atom Researchers in Germany and the US have upgraded the performance of a reaction microscope so that the technique — known as Cold Target Recoil Ion Momentum Spectroscopy, or COLTRIMS for short — can be extended […]
