The Discovery Files

Putting her research into practice, the head of Carnegie Mellon's CORAL (Cooperate, Observe, Reason, Act, and Learn) lab founded a robot soccer dynasty. Manuella Veloso's research on artificial intelligence focused on duplicating the success with which humans plan, learn, and execute tasks. Driven by its multi-robot aspect, she and her students developed a team for RoboCup -- an international robot soccer project to foster advances in artificial intelligence and intelligent robotics research.

Social psychologists from the University of California, Santa Barbara, are studying cultural differences that affect how people seek support from their social networks. Contrary to popular thought, people from collectivistic cultures do not often seek help from one another. Current research suggests that cultures such as Asian Americans are more concerned with the negative implications of asking for help. They fear any effort to bring attention to personal problems may undermine the harmony of the group.

Inspired by an uncharged cell phone in the middle of the night, an MIT researcher thought "wouldn't it be great if this thing charged itself?" So, he looked to known physics principles to uncover new ways to transmit energy. He and his colleagues did find support in the laws of physics and are looking into the future of wireless recharging, using non-radiative energy tranfer.

New study finds that human activities are boosting ocean temperatures and likely increasing hurricane intensity. Rising ocean temperatures in key hurricane breeding grounds of the Atlantic and Pacific oceans are due primarily to human-caused increases in greenhouse gas concentrations. The rising temperatures are not the sole determinant of hurricane intensity, but they are likely to be one of the most significant influences.

New research from the National Center for Atmospheric Research indicates that the recent retreat of Arctic sea ice is likely to accelerate so rapidly that the Arctic Ocean could become nearly devoid of ice during the summer over the next few decades. Researchers also concluded that different rates of greenhouse gas emissions affect the probability of abrupt ice loss, noting that society can still take steps to minimize the impacts on Arctic ice.

Insects may be useful models to understand more about metabolic dysfunction in humans. Penn State researchers found that parasite-infected dragonflies suffer the same metabolic disorders that lead to obesity and diabetes in humans. Their discovery links metabolic disease to a supposedly harmless parasite living inside the dragonfly and suggests the study of microbes found in human intestines may hold clues to the root causes of human metabolic dysfunction.

Cornell researchers used synthetic DNA to develop inexpensive hydrogels that offer great control for drug delivery and hold promise for tissue engineering and repair. These biocompatible and biodegradable hydrogels can be easily formed into any desired shape for biomedical applications.

Findings of palentologists from the American Museum of Natural History are forcing a revision of popular beliefs on dinosaur behavior. After re-examining fossils, they overturned a 1950s claim that theropod dinosaurs were cannibals that ate juveniles of their own kind. They found that the evidence of juvenile remains once thought to be inside the adult was really just an illusion.

Could gas conservation be another reason to diet? Maybe so, according to recent findings from researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and Virginia Commonwealth University. As Americans' waistlines have expanded over the past few decades, so has their gas consumption and costs -- a direct result of extra weight in vehicles causing an extra drain on fuel economy.

University of Utah biologists invented a hairdryer-like device -- the "LouseBuster" -- to rid children of head lice infestations. Their "weapon" effectively eradicates infestations with a single 30-minute treatment that requires no chemicals but instead uses dry, hot air to exterminate the eggs and kills enough lice to prevent them from reproducing.

Researchers from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California, San Diego, sent a fleet of unmanned aerial drones through the pollution-filled skies over the Indian Ocean and achieved an important milestone in tracking pollutants responsible for dimming Earth's atmosphere. Based on the project's success, more drones will be used to document how humans contribute to "global dimming" and to help provide an early warning system for potential environmental disasters.

Much of the world could face longer heat waves, more intense precipitation, and other weather extremes by the end of the century, say NCAR scientists and colleagues, based on a new study using the world's most advanced climate models. The good news is... we may be able to recast this dismal weather outlook by lowering the output of greenhouse gases.

New technology uses cell phone positioning to identify traffic speed and congestion. Engineers from IntelliOne Technologies have developed a system that converts ordinary cell-phone signaling data to live roadway information for emergency responders and other vehicles to avoid traffic jams.

No ice at the poles... could it be true? Yes, if you're talking about the moon. Despite earlier thoughts of plentiful ice at the lunar poles, astronomers from Cornell and the Smithsonian Institution, using high-resolution radar-mapping techniques, found no evidence of ice deposits on the moon.

Multi-tasking... we all do it, but is it a good idea? Researchers at UCLA say not if you're trying to learn something new that you hope to remember. Psychologists report that multi-tasking affects the brain's learning systems, so we don't learn as well when distracted.