Research Stories

A lack of individual options among ants minimizes their opportunities to make mistakes. As a result, they may be more rational in their decision making than we big-brained humans. --by Margaret Coulombe

What weighs 2,600 pounds, would fill a Smart Car to overflowing, and comes to ASU from all over the world? --by Robert Burnham

A new study shows that early modern humans on the South African coast used fire in toolmaking as long as 72,000 years ago. The work offers evidence that complex cognition in humans developed earlier than scientists previously thought. --by Carol Hughes

Nanotechnology has the potential to affect our freedom, privacy, health and safety in both positive and negative ways. David Guston, director of ASU's Center for Nanotechnology in Society, talks about social concerns related to nanotech and how we can address them. --by Joe Kullman

How do we decide what kinds of water conservation measures to implement when we don't know what future precipitation, temperatures, or population will be? Craig Kirkwood helps people make decisions when conditions are uncertain. --by Diane Boudreau

Scientists have new pictures of the old Apollo landing sites, just in time for the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 mission that put humans on the moon. --by Nicole Staab

Brian Sullivan studies toad toes to understand cross-breeding between two Arizona species. --by Matt Crum

Scientists and public officials are studying the features of past pandemics in order to deal with the current swine flu and potential future outbreaks. --by Diane Boudreau

Prepare to see more advertising when you go to the movies. Research shows product placement in films boosts stock prices, with a couple of interesting exceptions. --by Debbie Freeman

ASU geologists Paul Knauth and Don Burt have some ideas about Mars that don’t quite jive with those of many of their colleagues. They say that scientists really know nothing about the first 400 to 500 million years of the history of Planet Earth. And we know nothing about Mars in the same time period. Mars could’ve been an Eden. But we have no record of any of that. --by Skip Derra