Author Archives: admin

Birds perceive ‘warm’ colors differently from ‘cool’ ones

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Birds perceive ‘warm’ colors differently from ‘cool’ ones. Duke Today, May 29, 2019. Birds may not have a word for maroon. Or burnt sienna. But show a zebra finch a sunset-colored object, and she’ll quickly decide whether it looks more “red” or “orange.” A new study shows that birds mentally sort the range of hues on the blue-green side of the spectrum into two categories too, but the line between them is fuzzier, perhaps because “either/or” thinking is less useful in this part of the spectrum, researchers say.

Could better tests help reverse the rise of superbugs?

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Could better tests help reverse the rise of superbugs? Duke Today, May 16, 2019. Faster, more accurate tests for drug-resistant infections are hailed as a promising tool in the fight against antibiotic resistance, so much so that the U.S. and Britain are offering millions in prize money for their development. A modeling study led by Duke University game theorist David McAdams shows that better tests could, in theory, change the game and put drug-resistant bacteria at a reproductive disadvantage relative to more easily-treated strains — but with a caveat.

Shining light on dark energy

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Shining light on dark energy. 1,100 Words on Duke Research. May 1, 2019. At this observatory high on a Chilean mountaintop, scientists spent six years surveying the night sky to better understand dark energy, the mysterious force that makes the universe expand at an ever faster rate. Now for the first time, they’ve been able to combine four different measurement techniques in a single experiment to verify its existence and figure out what it’s like.

Giant meat-eater

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Giant meat-eater. 1,100 Words on Duke Research. April 18, 2019. Matt Borths was visiting a museum in Kenya when he opened a drawer and saw a gigantic jaw and dagger-like teeth glinting up at him, larger than a lion’s. Now the 22 million-year-old fossils, hidden for decades, have given scientists their first look at one of the largest meat-eating mammals ever to walk the Earth. 

Tiny light-up barcodes identify molecules by their twinkling

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Tiny light-up barcodes identify molecules by their twinkling.
1,100 Words on Duke Research, April 12, 2019. An imaging technique developed at Duke University could make it possible to peer inside cells and watch dozens of different molecules at once — by labeling them with short strands of light-up DNA that blink on and off with their own unique rhythm. Though they’re all the same color, the technique makes it possible to distinguish as many as 56 types by their twinkling, more cheaply than traditional methods and without fading over time. Picked up by Engadget.

Infiltrating an ovary

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Infiltrating an ovary. 1,100 Words on Duke Research. April 2, 2019. 
What might look like a green gumdrop or strands of red tinsel is actually a dense network of nerves forming within a developing mouse ovary. 

Clues to resistance

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Clues to resistance. 1,100 Words on Duke Research. February 5, 2019. In 2000, 23-year-old Gimble from Gombe National Park — made famous by Jane Goodall — became the first wild chimpanzee to test positive for simian immunodeficiency virus (SIV), the primate precursor to HIV. Now, he and hundreds of other wild chimpanzees across sub-Saharan Africa are helping researchers understand what makes some chimps more resistant to infection.

Fates intertwined

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Fates intertwined. 1,100 Words on Duke Research. January 9, 2019. To most people, life-forms like this orange lichen are little more than curious decorations on rocks and trees, often overlooked. But to one Duke biologist, they represent one of the world’s oldest quid pro quos: a symbiosis between two kingdoms whose evolutionary fates are tightly intertwined.

Bard or bot?

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Bard or bot? Duke Today, November 15, 2018. Could a computer write sonnets convincing enough to fool people into thinking they were written by human poets? These students created an algorithm to find out.

Home advantage

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Home advantage. 1,100 Words on Duke Research. November 7, 2018. These yellow monkeyflowers grow within a few feet of their wildflower cousins without spreading into each other’s turf.

Kooky, spooky Dukies

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Kooky, spooky Dukies. October 17, 2018. When a teenage girl brings a boy home for the first time, a simple dinner party can turn into a night from hell — especially when her family’s idea of hospitality is to visit their moat and show off their torture devices.