Northwestern University researchers have shown that a new nano-engineered gel inhibits the formation of scar tissue at the injury site and enables the severed spinal cord fibers to regenerate and grow. The gel is injected as a liquid into the spinal cord and self -assembles into a scaffold that supports the new nerve fibers as they grow up and down the spinal cord, penetrating the site of the injury. When the gel was injected into mice with a spinal cord injury, after six weeks the animals had a greatly enhanced ability to use their hind legs and walk. The research is ...

Pundamilia nyererei fish. Nuptial coloration in males of the cichlid species Pundamilia nyererei and Pundamilia pundamilia is adapted to the red or blue ambient light of their respective habitats and to the corresponding visual sensitivity of the females. (Credit: Copyright Eawag) A study of brightly coloured fish has now demonstrated that this has less to do with aesthetics than with the sensitivity of female eyes, which varies as a result of adaptation to the environment. Females more attuned to blue will choose a metallic blue mate, while those better able to see red will ...

Hurricane Ike in Texas showing condominiums with rising rushing waters. A combination of rising seas and dammed rivers could flood large swaths of wetlands this century in one or more bays from Alabama to Texas. (Credit: iStockphoto/Susan Long) The findings, which will be presented at next week’s annual meeting of the Geological Society of America in Houston, stem from bayfloor sediment samples, radiocarbon tests and seismic surveys compiled over 30 years. "In terms of sea-level increases and river sediments flowing into the bays, we’re rapidly approaching a time when bays will face conditions they last ...

This image shows a cross-sectional view of one-half of a solar-mass target cloud being struck by a supernova shock front that is traveling downward. The colors represent the target cloud, with redder colors representing denser regions. The solid black contours delineate material that was originally in the supernova shock front, where short-lived radioisotopes are being injected into the collapsing target cloud. (Credit: Image courtesy of Alan Boss) Now, astrophysicists at the Carnegie Institution’s Department of Terrestrial Magnetism (DTM) have shown for the first time that a supernova could indeed have triggered the Solar System’s ...

Rod Ruoff, professor of mechanical engineering at The University of Texas at Austin. (Credit: Image courtesy of University of Texas at Austin) To get an idea of the nanomaterial graphene, imagine a lightweight material having the strongest chemical bond in nature and, thus, exceptional mechanical properties. In addition it conducts heat better than any other material and has charge carriers moving through it at a significant fraction of the speed of light. Just an atom thick, graphene consists of a "chickenwire" (or honeycomb) bonding arrangement of carbon atoms—also known as a single layer of ...