Logically, you would think a sleek surface has optimal aerodynamics—but recent research at Tohoku University turns this fundamental principle on its head. Applying an irregular microscale surface texture reduced the aerodynamic drag of a test model. The innovation has potential applications in the design of fuel-efficient vehicles. The study is published in the Journal of Fluid Mechanics.
Continue Reading »
Moss may well be something that most of us barely give a second thought, but there is far more to this small nonvascular plant than meets the eye. A new study published in the journal Royal Society Open Science reports that it displays a surprising amount of electrical activity.
Continue Reading »
"It's not personal, it's strictly business." This line, which echoes throughout Francis Ford Coppola's 1972 gangster film "The Godfather," epitomizes the classic view of management: Doing business is, above all, about making money, even if it means sacrificing all the personal and social aspects of work.
Continue Reading »
Elementary school children equipped with thermal cameras are helping redesign their schools to cope with hotter summers, thanks to a University of Surrey program that gives pupils the tools to spot dangerous heat hotspots and develop their own cooling solutions.
Continue Reading »
Dogs are humans' best friends in many places across the globe. But does a dog in New York City respond in the same way as a dog in Kyoto or Buenos Aires?
Continue Reading »
Feeding a growing global population is no longer enough. Scientists say the next generation of crops must also deliver better nutrition while withstanding the increasing impacts of climate change.
Continue Reading »
A team of NASA-sponsored scientists and engineers has developed a novel approach to observing high-energy particles in the near-Earth space environment, incorporating miniaturized sensors into a compact, multiview particle-detection instrument unlike any before it.
Continue Reading »
When stars similar to the Sun grow old, they expand into red giants. During this phase, their outer layers churn and gradually drift into space, while the dense cores left behind shrink into white dwarfs. Because this is the fate of most stars, white dwarfs are among the most common stellar remnants in the universe.
Continue Reading »
McGill researchers have found that dangerous crowd conditions leading to surges and stampedes may not emerge suddenly but instead develop gradually, as repeated physical contact and pushing accumulate and become synchronized among nearby individuals. Recognizing how these conditions arise could help organizers strengthen security, site management and evacuation planning, reducing the likelihood of injuries during large-scale public events.
Continue Reading »
Marine biologists have observed the Arctic bobtail squid in its natural habitat in the North Atlantic Ocean for the first time, including the rare discovery of a mature female with eggs. Dr Paige Maroni, from The University of Western Australia's School of Biological Sciences, is lead author of the study published in Polar Biology, which recorded the Arctic bobtail squid, Rossia moelleri, in Northeast Greenland National Park.
Continue Reading »