Some people are never satisfied. First, nanotechnology researchers at Cornell built a device so sensitive it could detect the mass of a single bacterium - about 665 femtograms. Then they built one that could sense the presence of a single virus - about 1.5 femtograms. Now, with a refined technique, they have detected a single DNA molecule, weighing in at 995,000 Daltons - a shade more than 1 attogram - and can even count the number of DNA molecules attached to a single receptor by noting the difference in mass. (May 18, 2005)
U.S. President George Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld may not all get a library, airport or highway named after them. But each has a slime-mold beetle named in his honor.
Although most people think of bats as stealthy mammals that flit about in the night sky, at least one species has evolved a terrestrial trot never before seen in bats, according to a recent study.
For nearly nine years Cornell University researcher Christopher Clark has been listening to whale songs and calls in the North Atlantic using the navy's antisubmarine listening system.
Robots that walk like human beings are common in science fiction but not so easy to make in real life. The most famous current example, the Honda Asimo, moves smoothly but on large, flat feet. And compared with a person, it consumes much more energy.
Without enough estrogen-like hormone in their systems, female plainfin midshipman fish turn a deaf ear to the alluring love songs of the males. And, according to Cornell biologists, a similar steroid-sensitive response could underlie changes in the hearing sensitivity of humans.
Japanese shore crabs, a square-shaped crustacean that poses a direct threat to soft-shell (steamer) clams, mussels and lobsters, were discovered July 13 by Cornell University marine biologists in Owl's Head, Maine, on the shores of Penobscot Bay. The detection of this crab, which has the potential to hurt Maine's seafood industry.
The tiny Belding's ground squirrels appear to be "kissing". Instead, they are sniffing to analyze secretions from facial scent glands, hoping to learn from the complex odor bouquet who is family and who's not.
