You can whisper in American Sign Language, or you can shout. You can make poetry. And if you learn ASL later in life, you might be signing with an accent forever. In most ways, it is a language just like any other, with a complex grammar, slang, dialects, the whole shebang. But in some respects, ASL is much more than just a typical language. It’s visual and kinesthetic and is an essential component of Deaf culture in the United States, too—giving signers a special bond that non-signers may not fully understand.
A B-24 D-1 bomber associated with 11 American servicemen missing in action from World War II was recently found and documented in Hansa Bay off Papua New Guinea by Project Recover—a collaborative team of marine scientists, archaeologists and volunteers who have combined efforts to locate aircraft associated with MIAs from WWII.
In a new paper, published in the May 23 online issue of Science Translational Medicine, researchers at University of California San Diego School of Medicine report that adult rat myelin actually stimulated axonal outgrowth in rat neural precursor cells (NPCs) and human induced pluripotent (iPSC)-derived neural stem cells (NSCs).
As if taken from a Star Wars or Star Trek movie script, the term “exciton” (pronounced ˈek-sə-tän) comes from condensed matter physics. Excitons are bound states of electrons and electron holes attracted to each other by electrostatic force. They can be created both by light and transformed into light. Electrically neutral, these quasiparticles exist in systems like insulators and semiconductors, but University of California San Diego physicists have established a way that may bring them into future cell phones and laptops.
Researchers at University of California San Diego School of Medicine and their collaborators have developed a technique that allows them to speed up or slow down human heart cells growing in a dish on command — simply by shining a light on them and varying its intensity. The cells are grown on a material called graphene, which converts light into electricity, providing a more realistic environment than standard plastic or glass laboratory dishes.
Undergraduate students from UC San Diego designed and built an extremely affordable solar-powered lantern to provide not only light, but a source of income to a partner village in the Philippines. Their engineering and business savvy earned them the top spot in the Energy and Resources category at the Big Ideas social innovation competition at UC Berkeley, a third place finish at Booz Allen Hamilton’s Ideas Festival, and a spot at the Clinton Global Initiative University.
