Why elephants don't shed their skin
The African elephant is known for its thick, wrinkly skin. But look closer and you'll see an intricate network of tiny crevices that covers its skin in water or mud to keep cool. Now, researchers believe they have discovered that these cracks form as a result of the stress of skin bending, not shrinking. Their explanation, published in Nature Communications, might hold clues to treating a human genetic skin disorder. Michel Milinkovitch, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Geneva in Switzerland, and his team found that dead elephant skin cells resemble those of humans suffering from ichthyosis vulgaris, a disease found in 1 of every 250 people that prevents the shedding of skin. But in African elephants, the lack of shedding causes the skin to build up, eventually bending and breaking over the layer of papillae, which provides the animal the means to stay cool.
Earthquake table to get upgrade
The University of California, San Diego's outdoor shake table will soon give engineers a truer sense of the fury released when big earthquakes erupt. The National Science Foundation gave the school $16.3 million to upgrade the center so it can more accurately simulate quakes. The table is the largest of its kind. The upgrade will mean "we will be able to reproduce earthquake motions with the most accuracy of any shake table in the world," said Joel Conte, the structural engineer. "This will accelerate the discovery of the knowledge engineers need to build new bridges, power plants, dams, levees, telecommunication towers, wind turbines, retaining walls, tunnels, and to retrofit older structures."
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