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The additional offender groans.

You’re not as different from Albert Einstein and Charles Darwin after all, at least when it comes to patterns of correspondence.

A new Northwestern University study of human behavior has determined that those who wrote letters using pen and paper — long before electronic mail existed — did so in a pattern similar to the way people use e-mail today.

The study, published today (Sept. 25) by the journal Science, demonstrates the similarity of these two seemingly different activities, with the underlying pattern of human activity linking letters and e-mails.

The researchers examined extensive letter correspondence records of 16 famous writers, performers, politicians and scientists, including Einstein, Darwin, Sigmund Freud, Karl Marx, and Ernest Hemingway, and found that the 16 individuals sent letters randomly but in cycles.
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The hunting strategy of a slender fish from the Amazon is giving researchers more insight into how to balance the metabolic cost of information with the metabolic cost of moving around to get that information.

A new study from Northwestern University’s McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science answers the question: In behaviors in which you have to move to get information, when should the animal spend more energy on locomotion versus spending more energy on getting more information?

The study is published by the journal PLoS Computational Biology.

Malcolm MacIver, assistant professor of mechanical engineering and of biomedical engineering at McCormick, led a team that analyzed the hunting behavior of the weakly electric black ghost knifefish, native to the Amazon. It hunts at night using a self-generated electric field to sense its surroundings, like a bat uses sonar. This particular animal has become the fruit fly of studies on how animals process sensory information. (The fruit fly has been used extensively to study genetics and developmental biology.)
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The concept of a wind-powered vehicle that can be used to explore the surface of Mars – a so-called “tumbleweed rover” that would roll over the surface of Mars like a tumbleweed – has been around for more than 10 years, but so far there has been no consensus on exactly what that vehicle should look like. Now researchers from North Carolina State University have developed a computer model that allows engineers to test the attributes of different vehicle designs. This will allow researchers to select the best design characteristics before spending the time and money necessary to create prototypes for testing in real-world conditions.
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A new Northwestern University study of mentor-protege relationships has found something that parents and children have known for a long time: the generation gap is real, and it matters. It not only affects communication but also who mentors young mathematicians successfully and who does not.

Northwestern researchers analyzed 60 years of a “family tree” of mathematicians and the doctoral students they advised. They found very successful academics do a good job mentoring students during the first third of their careers but do a bad job during the last third of their careers. (The researchers used data from the Mathematics Geneology Project, which stretches back to Isaac Newton’s time.)

“It’s a phenomenon in our culture that as you gain more importance and success you are expected to oversee more and more people, which means that face time with your protégés goes down,” said R. Dean Malmgren, a postdoctoral fellow in chemical and biological engineering in the McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science and first author of the study. “This tradeoff has negative consequences.”
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Responding specifically to the need of locating and reading several barcode types from scanned images, Auto Search Barcode Software is offering barcode reading as a Windows based program and as a DLL library or VBX/OCX component that can be called from an existing program. (UNIX versions are available on request.)
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As part of the 2010 Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences, two teams of researchers led by Professor Barbara Layne of Concordia University, Montreal, and Professor Janis Jefferies at Goldsmiths, University of London, U.K., have brought research in intelligent textiles to a new level.

The research teams have developed a highly sophisticated concept of interactive clothing whereby the body’s physical and emotional state triggers the transfer of personalized memory back to the wearer.

The project, titled Wearable Absence, uses a system of wearable devices never before seen in the expanding field of intelligent textiles. Combining uniquely engineered adaptors and soft cabling systems with fashionable clothing designs, the prototype garments incorporate wireless technologies and bio-sensing devices to activate a rich database of image and sound, creating a narrative, or string of messages, from an ‘absent’ person.
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Ben-Gurion University of the Negev students have developed an innovative optical radar system that helps blind people maneuver around obstacles.

The radar system incorporates a computer, two video cameras and a scanning light source to warn the blind of obstacles with audible alerts. The system detects obstacles — even those overhead — by scanning the depth of its surroundings, taken from two different angles – similar to that of the human eye.

Developed by two engineering students, Elad Kuperberg and Einav Tasa, under the supervision of Professor Shlomi Arnon, the system was shown for the first time last week as part of the annual conference of projects in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering.

The number of vision-impaired people worldwide is estimated to be between 40 and 45 million. Many types of assistance “devices”, such as seeing-eye dogs and sticks equipped with sensors are available to help the blind avoid obstacles so they can move around “freely.”

“Each system has its disadvantages,” according to Prof. Arnon. A seeing-eye dog needs extensive and expensive training, and can only work for an average of seven years. There is also a severe shortage of guide dogs. Additionally, the sensor sticks cannot identify barriers above floor level and their use requires many skills. All of these systems restrict the use of one hand.
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Stock market might seem to be a bit erratic, but the possibility of earning profits with little effort makes it attractive to many. And to be the achiever everybody try their best to understand the market trends. People coming to the trade first have the attitude that they try their luck. Most people do business in the market do not have any know how about the trade, as a result they find some options to seek help from someone knowledgeable- Broker houses, financial organizations provide services to them.

For people who need help have a very convenient and easy way to make their decision other than depending on their luck or forecasting ability. People who do not have any know how and trying to get the picture and the behavior of stock market can use stock trading software to make decision on their favor. There are different kinds of stock trading software that that will help you to make a decision which has the better possibility to earn greater profit. This software is even available on web for free. Visual representations of the software can help you to by displaying charts on the ups and downs of the market. Specific bars representing the values of the increase and decrease of the market will take you a DecisionBar . This kind would help investors to research on the stocks to help them analyze and manage their bids.

These automated software which do not require users to know anything on the software technology. Stock trading software makes stocks business to be a very simpler task. Clicking on the bars takes user to a Decision Bar , Of course, someone have to apply his ability to judge in favor of the profit and should know that this software have artificial intelligence to make our work easier and simpler.

When loaded with an anticancer drug, a delivery system based on a novel material called nanosponge is three to five times more effective at reducing tumor growth than direct injection.

That is the conclusion of a paper published in the June 1 issue of the journal Cancer Research.

“Effective targeted drug delivery systems have been a dream for a long time now but it has been largely frustrated by the complex chemistry that is involved,” says Eva Harth, assistant professor of chemistry at Vanderbilt, who developed the nanosponge delivery system. “We have taken a significant step toward overcoming these obstacles.”

The study was a collaboration between Harth’s laboratory and that of Dennis E. Hallahan, a former professor of radiation oncology at Vanderbilt who is now at the Washington University School of Medicine. Corresponding authors are Harth and Roberto Diaz at Emory University, who was working in the Hallahan laboratory when the studies were done.
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A development model of the Mars Rover, called Bridget, was on display at the University today- Friday June 4- providing invited schoolchildren as well as staff and students with an exciting glimpse into the shape of things to come.

The event coincides with celebrations marking the 50th anniversary of space research at the University of Leicester.

Scientists from the University of Leicester are involved in five instruments on board the ExoMars mission, including building the hardware for three of the instruments on board the craft. The ExoMars mission is one of the key missions under the remit of the newly formed UK Space Agency.

ExoMars (Exobiology on Mars) is a European-led robotic mission to Mars, developed by the European Space Agency (ESA) and NASA. It is part of ESA’s Aurora programme for robotic exploration of the Solar System and its aim is to further characterise the chemical, geological and possible biological environment on Mars in preparation for robotic missions and then human exploration. Data from the mission will also provide invaluable input for broader studies of exobiology - the search for life on other planets.
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