Scientists have made a prototype biocomposite blockade up of a blend of bacteria, fungi and feedstock that can be assembled into human-sized, living structures with self-healing and environmental sensing capabilities.

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A post-doctoral researcher with the Advanced Science Research Center at the CUNY Graduate Center (CUNY ASRC) has made an important step toward understanding how complex mixtures of biomolecular building blocks form self-organized patterns.

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Navigation is a critical ability for animal survival and is important for food foraging, finding shelter, seeking mates and a variety of other behaviors. Given their fundamental role and universal function in the animal kingdom, it makes sense to explore whether space representation and navigation mechanisms are […]

Researchers have been working to create a superhydrophobic surface that prevents ice accumulation. New fabrication methods have enabled this scientific breakthrough. This scientific discovery will help to save human lives by preventing ice accumulation in areas that are unsafe for ice accumulation.

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Recent biological studies on water strider insects revealed how they maintain stability and maneuver on the surface of water. While macroscale bodies use buoyancy, these very small insects use surface tension force to balance their weight on water. This paper proposes a biologically inspired miniature robot that […]

Zhongning Goji berries (ZNG), a DMM, are illegally adulterated in the market by adding non Zhongning goji berries (NZNG). Consequently, the development of biomarker(s) is necessary for proper identification of ZNG and NZNG. In this study, a nontargeted metabolomics approach based on ultra high-performance liquid chromatography coupled with quadrupole time-of-flight mass […]

Scientists at Scripps Research have unveiled a new tissue-clearing method for rendering large biological samples transparent. The method makes it easier than ever for scientists to visualize and study healthy and disease-related biological processes occurring across multiple organ systems.

Described in a paper in Nature Methods on March 28, 2022, and […]

Thriving natural systems precisely regulate their complex chemical organizations in space and time by recruitment of a complex network of fuel-driven, kinetically controlled, out-of-equilibrium transformations. Indeed this provides an active, adaptive and autonomous smart actions & functions. In contrast, synthetic systems exhibit simpler behavior owing to thermodynamically driven supramolecular polymerization with […]

A study of orb weaver spiders finds their massive webs also act as auditory arrays that capture sounds, possibly giving spiders advanced warning of incoming prey or predators.

In experiments, the researchers found the spiders turned, crouched or flattened out in response to sounds, behaviors that spiders have been known to […]

Researchers from Monash University have discovered a new design motif derived from the rigid external covering of invertebrates that may help create more damage tolerant materials for future building and construction.

In a paper published in Nature Communications, Professor Wenhui Duan from the Department of Civil Engineering […]

The following paper explores the quill properties and structures of the Hystrix(Old World) and Erethizon(New World) porcupines. Both quills have a keratinous cortex filled with closed cell foam, that have good tensile strength, extensive deformation properties, and compressive capabilities. The main difference between the quills is the presence of stiffeners inside […]

Researchers from the University of Oregon have grown rodent retinal neurons on a fractal-patterned electrode, one that mimics the repeating branching pattern in which neurons naturally grow. These neurons, which themselves are fractals, will connect better to a fractal-patterned electrode than they do to more traditionally shaped electrodes, allowing better signal […]

While the advancements and technological discoveries humans make may seem useful to us, they often impact other animals or elements in our world very differently. We typically only acknowledge our own needs and design solutions for those, without realizing what affect it may have elsewhere. One example of this are the […]

Researchers at the Mississippi State University have discovered the exceptional energy dissipation abilities of the woodpecker’s beak. Woodpeckers use their beaks to make holes in trees for a variety of reasons, the most prevalent of which is to find food. Insect larvae discovered beneath the surface of tree bark are eaten […]

New research shows that hearing in a species of orb-weaving spider called the bridge spider (Larinioides sclopetarius) is not constrained by the organism’s body but is extended through outsourcing hearing to its proteinaceous, self-manufactured orb web.

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New biological tools provide new techniques to probe fundamental biological processes. Here we describe the burgeoning field of proteolysis-targeting chimeras (PROTACs), which are capable of modulating protein concentrations at a post-translational level by co-opting the ubiquitin-proteasome system. We describe the PROTAC technology and its application to drug […]

Transitions to terrestriality have been associated with major animal radiations including land snails and slugs in Stylommatophora (>20 000 described species), the most successful lineage of ‘pulmonates’ (a non-monophyletic assemblage of air-breathing gastropods). However, phylogenomic studies have failed to robustly resolve relationships among traditional pulmonates and affiliated marine lineages that comprise […]

Jacob Peters and L. Mahadevan from Harvard University, with Orit Peleg from the University of Colorado sought to detail the precise changes that a swarm of honeybees makes as air temperatures rise and fall. It was known that, when unable to relocate to a place with a more habitable temperature, a […]

“In modern societies, sleep deprivation is a serious health problem. This problem could be induced by a variety of reasons, including lifestyle habits or neurological disorders. Chronic sleep deprivation (CSD) could have complex biological consequences, such as changes in neural autonomic control, increased […]

Abstract:
Besides the life-as-it-could-be driver of artificial life research there is also the concept of extending natural life by creating hybrids or mixed societies that are built from natural and artificial components. In this paper we motivate and present the research program […]

Frequency Therapeutics is a biotech company that is seeking to reverse hearing loss not with implants or hearing aids but through regenerative therapy. By planting stem cells in the ear, it enables tiny hair cells to emerge enabling its users in fix their speech perception aka hearing. So far 200 people […]

Since the birth of synthetic hydrogel 60 years ago,
hydrogels possessing various useful properties and functions have
been developed. The research directions of hydrogels have
expanded to diverse application fields as well. However, in contrast
to natural hydrogels found in biological soft tissues, which have
elaborate […]

Bio-inspired defenses may help mitigate the threat of IED carrying drones in combat. The latest proof comes out of Australia, where researchers have mapped the visual systems of hovering insects as a means of detecting the acoustic signatures of drones up to 2.5 miles away. The hover fly, which can hover […]

To test if a single gene could affect an entire ecosystem, a research team conducted a lab experiment with a plant and its associated ecosystem of insects. They found that plants with a mutation at a specific gene foster ecosystems with more insect species. The discovery of such a ‘keystone gene’ […]

Scientists have published the first complete, gapless sequence of a human genome, two decades after the Human Genome Project produced the first draft human genome sequence. According to researchers, having a complete, gap-free sequence of the roughly 3 billion bases (or ‘letters’) in our DNA is critical for understanding the full […]

Despite having a trunk that weighs over 100 kg, elephants mainly feed on
lightweight vegetation. How do elephants manipulate such small items?
In this experimental and theoretical investigation, we filmed elephants at
Zoo Atlanta showing that they can use suction to grab food, performing […]

My graduate research explores some of evolution’s most impressive inventions, many of which can be found in birds. Specifically, I study bird flight behaviours and how relationships between body mass, wing sizes, species relatedness and other biological traits have evolved to generate the extravagant flight we see in many species.

Animals can move using a regular gait, or an irregular gait. A regular gait means that the steps (however one defines it) occur on a regular interval, however this is not true of irregular gaits. An example of irregular gait is horse galloping. Humans practice a regular gait walking or running. […]

New findings describe a novel way to reduce the energy people spend to walk, as much as by half, which could have applications for therapy received by patients with impaired walking abilities. The metabolic rate of walking can be reduced by applying a constant forward force at the center of mass. […]

The potential for using marine microbes for biodiscovery is severely limited by the lack of laboratory
cultures. It is a long-standing observation that standard microbiological techniques only isolate a very
small proportion of the wide diversity of microbes
that are […]

New study is first anatomical evidence for how two major groups of bats use echolocation differently.

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