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UH students develop prototype device that translates sign language

Thanks to a group of University of Houston students, the hearing impaired may soon have an easier time communicating with those who do not understand sign language. During the past semester, students in UH's engineering technology and industrial design programs teamed up to develop the concept and prototype for MyVoice, a device that reads sign language and translates its motions into audible words.

Some butterfly species particularly vulnerable to climate change

A recent study of the impact of climate change on butterflies suggests that some species might adapt much better than others, with implications for the pollination and herbivory associated with...

Electric moon jolts the solar wind

With the moon as the most prominent object in the night sky and a major source of an invisible pull that creates ocean tides, many ancient cultures thought it could...

University of Nevada, Reno scientists confirm Sierra Nevada 200-year megadroughts

The erratic year-to-year swings in precipitation totals in the Reno-Tahoe area conjures up the word "drought" every couple of years, and this year is no exception. The Nevada State Climate...

Catching solar particles infiltrating Earth's atmosphere

On May 17, 2012 an M-class flare exploded from the sun. The eruption also shot out a burst of solar particles traveling at nearly the speed of light that reached...

X-ray 'echoes' map a supermassive black hole's environs

An international team of astronomers using data from the European Space Agency's (ESA) XMM-Newton satellite has identified a long-sought X-ray "echo" that promises a new way to probe supersized black...

Geoengineering: A whiter sky

One idea for fighting global warming is to increase the amount of aerosols in the atmosphere, scattering incoming solar energy away from Earth's surface. But scientists theorize that this solar...

Vertebrates share ancient neural circuitry for complex social behaviors, biologists find

Humans, fish and frogs share neural circuits responsible for a diversity of social behavior, from flashy mating displays to aggression and monogamy, that have existed for more than 450 million...

Dark chocolate could prevent heart problems in high-risk people

Daily consumption of dark chocolate can reduce cardiovascular events, such as heart attacks and strokes, in people with metabolic syndrome (a cluster of factors that increases the risk of developing...

Sex: It's a good thing

Sure, sex may be fun, but it's a lot of work, and the payoff is by no means certain. Scientists have speculated for a long time on why all living...

Cosmic calculations

A University of Delaware-led research team reports an advance in the June 1 issue of Science that may help astrophysicists more accurately analyze the vast molecular clouds of gas and...

Arizona State University astronomers discover faintest distant galaxy

Astronomers at Arizona State University have found an exceptionally distant galaxy, ranked among the top 10 most distant objects currently known in space. Light from the recently detected galaxy left...

Quantum computers will be able to simulate particle collisions

Quantum computers are still years away, but a trio of theorists has already figured out at least one talent they may have. According to the theorists, including one from the...

Human hands leave prominent ecological footprints

Early human activity has left a greater footprint on today's ecosystem than previously thought, say researchers working at the University of Pittsburgh and in the multidisciplinary Long Term Ecological Research...

New understanding of terrestrial formation has significant and far reaching future implications

The current theory of continental drift provides a good model for understanding terrestrial processes through history. However, while plate tectonics is able to successfully shed light on processes up to...

The cell's 'New World'

n one of the most famous faux pas of exploration, Columbus set sail for India and instead 'discovered' America. Similarly, when scientists at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) in...

New small solid oxide fuel cell reaches record efficiency

Individual homes and entire neighborhoods could be powered with a new, small-scale solid oxide fuel cell system that achieves up to 57 percent efficiency, significantly higher than the 30 to...

Nanotechnology breakthrough could dramatically improve medical tests

A laboratory test used to detect disease and perform biological research could be made more than 3 million times more sensitive, according to researchers who combined standard biological tools with...

Predicting burglary patterns through math modeling of crime

Pattern formation in physical, biological, and sociological systems has been studied for many years. Despite the fact that these subject areas are completely diverse, the mathematics that describes underlying patterns...

On early Earth, iron may have performed magnesium's RNA folding job

On the periodic table of the elements, iron and magnesium are far apart. But new evidence suggests that 3 billion years ago, iron did the chemical work now...

We need to talk: How cells communicate to activate notch

During formation of multi-cellular organisms, cells need to talk to each other to make critical decisions as to what kind of cell to become, as well as when and where...

Genetic discovery unlocks biosynthesis of medicinal compound in poppy

Scientists at the University of York and GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) Australia have discovered a complex gene cluster responsible for the synthesis of the medicinal compound noscapine.