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A mathematician at the University of Glasgow is helping to find an answer to one of the last unsolved problems in classical mechanics. Andrew Baggaley, of the University's School of Mathematics and Statistics, has published a paper in the journal Physical Review Letters ,which extends our understanding of the chaotic motion of fluids, commonly known as turbulence.

How people experience time may be affected by the way that they perceive cause and effect, new research by the University has shown. Marc Buehner of the School of Psychology examined how causal belief - understanding that one thing leads to another (for example flicking a switch and a light coming on) - influences time perception.

MIT researchers find that lubricated, nanotextured surfaces improved performance of condensers in power and desalination plants. Condensers are a crucial part of today's power generation systems: About 80 percent of all the world's powerplants use them to turn steam back to water after it comes out of the turbines that turn generators.

Researchers in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering are using models derived in mechanical labs to look at how ultraviolet radiation changes the protective functions of human skin. Reinhold Dauskardt , professor of materials science and engineering at Stanford, has been studying skin for years.

Unique device uses light to control light MINNEAPOLIS / ST. PAUL (10/02/2012) —A team of scientists and engineers at the University of Minnesota has invented a unique microscale optical device that could greatly increase the speed of downloading information online and reduce the cost of Internet transmission.

Although the wind may blow smoothly onto a wind turbine, it comes out the other end shredded into a complex collage of whorls, large and small. In a wind farm, the turbulent wake generated by the first row of turbines drives the turbines in the next rows, which produce up to 40% less power and suffer more from bumpier winds.

A new optical technique, capable of producing laser beams with unusual modes of electric field, has been developed by scientists at the University of Liverpool. The new technique could have a major impact on laser micro-machining, by increasing process efficiency and quality through the use of different modes of 'polarisation' or electric fields.

MIT team discovers way of making perfectly ordered and repeatable surfaces with patterns of microscale wrinkles. The wrinkles on a raisin result from a simple effect: As the pulp inside dries, the skin grows stiff and buckles to accommodate its shrinking size. Now, a team of researchers at MIT has discovered a way to harness that same principle in a controlled and orderly way, creating wrinkled surfaces with precise sizes and patterns.

Snow avalanches, a real threat in countries from Switzerland to Afghanistan, are fundamentally a physics problem: What are the physical laws that govern how they start, grow and move, and can theoretical modeling help predict them? Cornell researchers have uncovered some clues.

From cars to commercial airplanes to military drones, global positioning system (GPS) technology is everywhere - and Cornell researchers have known for years that it can be hacked, or as they call it, "spoofed." The best defense, they say, is to create countermeasures that unscrupulous GPS spoofers can't deceive.

Formula One teams are more likely to cross the finish line first if their boss is a former F1 driver, according to new research conducted by the University of Sheffield and the Cass Business School. The pioneering study shows putting money on teams like Red Bull and Sauber, which are headed by experts not general managers, is a wise move as former drivers and mechanics win twice as often as other types of F1 leaders.

The future of prostate cancer therapy may lie in a tiny, "sticky" silicon chip dubbed GEDI (Geometrically Enhanced Differential Immunocapture, pronounced like the "Star Wars" forces of good) that can identify and collect cancer cells from a patient's bloodstream.

Neuroscientists had once believed that the neurons that control movement send specific external information such as distance, direction and velocity to the muscles of the body. In a surprising new finding, however, researchers at Stanford University have proposed a new model that says motor neurons instead send basic rhythmic patterns down the spine to drive movement.

Drawing on powerful computational tools and a state-of-the-art scanning transmission electron microscope, a team of University of Wisconsin-Madison and Iowa State University materials science and engineering researchers has discovered a new nanometer-scale atomic structure in solid metallic materials known as metallic glasses.

  Light and strong at the same time - this is what designers want from a material that can be used to manufacture energy-efficient components. Lightweight components made of carbon-fiber reinforced plastic possess these characteristics. They consist of two components: high-quality carbon fibers and a plastic matrix into which these fibers are embedded.

It's not little green men, but it could be a step in that direction: astronomers, using data from the NASA Kepler Mission, have identified three Earthlike planets orbiting their own suns, all of which could be hospitable to life. The team of astronomers used the Cornell-built Near-Infrared Triple Spectrograph (TripleSpec) at California's Mount Palomar Observatory to measure the temperatures and metallicities of small stars called M dwarfs, first recorded by the NASA Kepler mission, which then led to observations of planets orbiting these stars.

Orangutans may be smarter than previously thought if a new study into the sophisticated way they build nests is any indication. Scientists at The University of Manchester spent a year observing and filming (video footage available) orangutans at a research facility in Indonesia and found they apparently possess complex knowledge of mechanical design and material properties.

A breakthrough using cutting-edge stem cell research could speed up the discovery of new treatments for motor neurone disease ( MND ). The international research team has created motor neurones using skin cells from a patient with an inherited form of MND . Role of protein Using patient stem cells to model MND in a dish offers untold possibilities for how we study the cause of this terrible disease as well as accelerating drug discovery by providing a cost-effective way to test many thousands of potential treatments.

A breakthrough using cutting-edge stem cell research could speed up the discovery of new treatments for motor neurone disease (MND). Researchers have discovered that key pathological events can be detected in motor neurones derived from MND patient skins cells that had been reprogrammed to become stem cells.

The quest for treatments for motor neurone disease, spinal cord injury and strokes could be helped by new research that shows how key cells are produced. University scientists have been able to manipulate the production of motor neurones - which control all muscle activity - in zebrafish. Zebrafish are important in helping scientists understand how motor neurones are produced, because unlike mammals, they are able to create new motor neurones as adults.