Clipart Source: PD CD

At any given time there are many research projects going on all over the world. Many are aimed at improving life, many are being conducted to discover how we can destroy life more efficiently and then there is the other research that might be in any area and for any of a million reasons. Here is a look at some more or less current research.

MSU (Mississippi State University) has been conducting research into ants. There are a lot of species of ants in Mississippi and the university was studying them along with the Mississippi Entomological Museum. 152 species of ants have been identified. They have discovered a species of ant that uses asphids as cows to produce honeydew. They build barns to keep the herds of asphids in. They have found another species of ant that raids the mounds of other ants and steals the pupa to raise as workers. This species actually uses slave labor to feed itself.

Washington State University has been planting unusual plants, usually not known for their eatable fruits and berries. They are investigating the possibility of new food resources from plants that are already known. Some of the plants they are testing are:
Brunswick, Contessina, Desert King, De Dalmatie, Desert King, Goutte D'Or, Lattarula, Madeleine, Neveralla, Norland, Pastiliere, Peter's Honey, Petite, Negri, Sultane, Tashkent Uzbekistan and Vern's Brown Turkey.|

In 1997 there was a study conducted by scientists at the University of Houston. Half inch magnets were taped to sore spots on 29 people with post-polio pain while 21 other patients with the same symptoms had fake magnets taped to their sore spots. The patients with the real magnets taped to them reported that on a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being the most severe, they had experienced a reduction in pain from an average of 9.6 to an average of 4.4. Those with the fake magnets reported a reduction in pain from the average of 9.9 to an average of 8.4.

The University of Texas at Austin was conducting research into the meteor crash at Odessa, Texas. The meteor hit over 25,000 years ago and is believed to have been at least 10 meters wide. The crater it created was about 175 yards wide. What makes this meteor strike so unusual is the shallow angle that it hit from. There was only a 1% chance it would hit from this angle, but it did. It was almost a ricochet. It was previously believed that the meteor was only 2 meters wide and struck more directly.

The University of North Carolina Highway Safety Research Center video taped 70 people as they went around performing their normal driving habits for one week. Cameras had been installed in their vehicles and on the roads they traveled. The results of the tests were astonishing. "We found that 30 percent of our subjects talked on cell phones, 40 percent read or wrote -- chiefly when their cars were stopped at signs or lights -- almost 46 percent groomed themselves in some way, 71 percent ate or drank beverages and almost 92 percent fiddled with radios or CD players." The people in the test were told that only traffic was being studied. It was confirmed that drivers face multiple distractions.

US Department of Transportation researchers announced that they had conducted research into environmentally friendly snow and ice control. They discovered that cheap feedstocks, such as cheese whey, can be used to make inexpensive calcium magnesium acetate (CMA), an environmentally-friendly snow and ice control material used for roadway deicing and anti-icing.

Scientists from the Australian National University have conducted research into the platypus a most unusual animal. Not only is the animal unusual but what was found was extremely unusual. It was found that the platypus has five chromosomes determining sex, the rest of the world has one. What this means is that they have five X chromosomes and five Y chromosomes. Females have 2 copies of each of the 5 x and y chromosomes and males have one copy of each of the 5 x and y chromosomes.

Department of Defense scientists at the Brookhaven National Laboratory have found that bombarding certain compounds, called cuprates, with very bright light in short pulses makes the material give off long lived sound waves instead of heat energy. This may have some interest to the wireless communication industry.

University of California scientists are studying spider silk. They have found that it can be stretched 30% to 50% before breaking and it is stronger than steel and about the strength of Kevlar. "The major interest is to use it as material for bulletproof vests, armor and tethers; there are many possibilities," said first author Emin Oroudjev, a researcher at UC Santa Barbara.

So much for research for now, we will probably revisit it some time in the future.