Latest Duke University Stories
DURHAM, N.C., June 16, 2011 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Victor J. Dzau, M.D., Duke University chancellor for health affairs and chief executive officer of Duke University Health System, has been awarded an honorary Doctor of Science degree from the University of Glasgow, Scotland. Presentation of the honorary degree came June 15 on the university's Commemoration Day celebrating its founding in 1451. The honorary degree recognizes Dzau's distinction in and major contribution to the field of...
KANNAPOLIS, N.C., June 9, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- The David H. Murdock Research Institute (DHMRI) today announced the acquisition of the Immune Tolerance Institute, Inc. (ITI) as a next step in the continued growth of the Institute, located on the North Carolina Research Campus in Kannapolis, NC. Driven by a mission to accelerate the discovery and development of breakthrough treatments for the range of immune-related diseases, the DHMRI provides integrated, state-of-the-art genomic, cellular,...
Birds do it. Bees do it. Even little kids picking strawberries do it.Every creature that forages for food decides at some point that the food source they're working on is no richer than the rest of the patch and that it's time to move on and find something better.This kind of foraging decision is a fundamental problem that goes far back in evolutionary history and is dealt with by creatures that don't even have proper brains, said Michael Platt, a professor of neurobiology and director of the...
Electrical engineers at Duke University have determined that unique man-made materials should theoretically make it possible to improve the power transfer to small devices, such as laptops or cell phones, or ultimately to larger ones, such as cars or elevators, without wires.This advance is made possible by the recent ability to fabricate exotic composite materials known as metamaterials, which are not so much a single substance, but an entire man-made structure that can be engineered to...
Strobe-like eyewear designed to train the vision of athletes may have positive effects in some cases, according to tests run by a team of Duke University psychologists who specialize in visual perception.The eyewear has lenses that alternate between clear and opaque states, producing a strobe experience. Nearly 500 people participated in more than 1,200 training sessions and had their visual abilities tested before and after they wore the eyewear. They completed visual-motor tasks, such as...
MILFORD, Mass., May 11, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- Waters Corporation (NYSE: WAT) today welcomed into its Centers of Innovation Program the Proteomics Core Facility at the Duke University School of Medicine (Durham, NC). In a ceremony at Duke University, Waters recognized Associate Research Prof. M. Arthur Moseley, Director of Proteomics, for his research and support of ongoing research at the Duke University School of Medicine to bring about improvements in human health. Proteomics is a...
A report released in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences on Monday reveals that a controversial natural gas production technique, which is key to a century of U.S. domestic supply, is causing contamination of drinking water. Scientists from Duke University collected 68 drinking water samples that showed potentially harmful levels of methane in drinking water near drilling sites in Pennsylvania and New York. "In aquifers overlying the Marcellus and Utica shale...
A study by Duke University researchers has found high levels of leaked methane in well water collected near shale-gas drilling and hydrofracking sites. The scientists collected and analyzed water samples from 68 private groundwater wells across five counties in northeastern Pennsylvania and New York."At least some of the homeowners who claim that their wells were contaminated by shale-gas extraction appear to be right," says Robert B. Jackson, Nicholas Professor of Global...
Lichen, those drab, fuzzy growths found on rocks and trees, aren't as cuddly and charismatic as kangaroos or intriguing as opossums, but they could be a fungal equivalent, at least evolutionarily.A Duke research team has found that lichen that seem identical in all outward appearances and produce the same internal chemicals are in fact two different species, one living in North America and one in Australia. They're an example of "convergent evolution," in which two species evolve...
Scientists have observed a "super-aggregation" of more than 300 humpback whales gorging on the largest swarm of Antarctic krill seen in more than 20 years in bays along the Western Antarctic Peninsula.The sightings, made in waters still largely ice-free deep into austral autumn, suggest the previously little-studied bays are important late-season foraging grounds for the endangered whales. But they also highlight how rapid climate change is affecting the region.The Duke...
