Cambridge, Mass. – January 23, 2012 – New research at Harvard explains how bacterial biofilms expand to form slimy mats on teeth, pipes, surgical instruments, and crops. Through experiment and mathematical analysis, researchers have shown that the extracellular matrix (ECM), a mesh of proteins and sugars that can form outside bacterial cells, creates osmotic pressure that forces biofilms to...

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COLUMBUS, Ohio – New research shows that infectious disease-fighting drugs could be designed to block a pathogen’s entry into cells rather than to kill the bug itself. Historically, medications for infectious diseases have been designed to kill the offending pathogen. This new strategy is important, researchers say, because many parasites and bacteria can eventually mutate their way around drugs...

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The sound of babies crying is uniquely able to get adults to react at speed, Oxford University researchers have found. They compared the scores of 40 volunteers on the classic arcade game ‘Whack-a-mole’ after listening to babies crying, with their scores after hearing sounds of adults in distress or birdsong similar in pitch and variability to infants’ cries. The...

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Rice University researchers tag excitons in search for hues’ clues Rice University researchers have figured out what gives armchair nanotubes their unique bright colors: hydrogen-like objects called excitons.   Their findings appear in the online edition of the Journal of the American Chemical Society. Armchair carbon nanotubes – so named for the “U”-shaped configuration of the atoms at their uncapped tips...

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