Brain activity changes may reduce risk of Alzheimer's

Brain activity changes may reduce risk of Alzheimer's: Activity lingers longer in certain areas of the brain in those with Alzheimer’s than it does in healthy people, researchers who created a map of the brain found. The results suggest varying brain activity may reduce the risk of Alzheimer’s disease.

New model of Alzheimer's disease developed

New model of Alzheimer's disease developed: Scientists have developed the first cell-based model of Alzheimer's disease (AD) by reprogramming skin cells of Alzheimer's patients to become brain cells that are affected in Alzheimer's. This will allow researchers to work directly on living brain cells suffering from Alzheimer's, which until now had not been possible.

Our brains often fail to notice key words that can change the whole meaning of a sentence

Our brains often fail to notice key words that can change the whole meaning of a sentence: After a plane crash, where should the survivors be buried? If you are considering where the most appropriate burial place should be, you are not alone. Scientists have found that around half the people asked this question, answer it as if they were being asked about the victims not the survivors. Far from processing every word we read or hear, our brains often do not even notice key words that can change the whole meaning of a sentence, according to new research.

Replacing coal with natural gas would reduce global warming

Replacing coal with natural gas would reduce global warming: A debate has raged in the past couple of years as to whether natural gas is better or worse overall than coal and oil from a global warming perspective. The back-and-forth findings have been due to the timelines taken into consideration, the details of natural gas extraction, and the electricity-generating efficiency of various fuels. A new analysis which focuses exclusively on potential warming and ignores secondary considerations, such as economic, political, or other environmental concerns, finds that natural gas is better for electricity generation than coal and oil under all realistic circumstances.

How the Navy's Incompetence Sunk the 'Green Fleet'

How the Navy's Incompetence Sunk the 'Green Fleet': On Wednesday, the Navy will sail its eco-friendly "Great Green Fleet" for the first time -- and maybe the last. The Navy has screwed up its once-promising biofuel plan with a blend of bad politics and questionable analysis, alienating Congress and Pentagon insiders alike. And that's before they get socked with a $1.8 billion annual bill for all that green fuel.

Man Physically Assaulted At McDonald's For Wearing Digital Eye Glasses

Man Physically Assaulted At McDonald's For Wearing Digital Eye Glasses:



RockoW writes "Steve Mann, a long-time researcher of computer vision systems, (i.e. Augmented reality, Digital Eyeglass) had an incident at a McDonald's in Paris, France. He was assaulted by three men during his visit to get food with his family. They had a problem with his digital eye glasses and tried to take them off his head. 'The eyeglass is permanently attached and does not come off my skull without special tools.' The men also tore up Mann's documentation and a letter from his doctor explaining the device's use. Fortunately, the rough treatment of the device caused it to keep recent images in its memory, instead of quickly overwriting them, so Dr. Mann has pictures of the men who assaulted him."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Very cool physics

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yQz0VgMNGPQ&feature=player_embedded

A father's love is one of the greatest influences on personality development

A father's love is one of the greatest influences on personality development: A father's love contributes as much -- and sometimes more -- to a child's development as does a mother's love. That is one of many findings in a new large-scale analysis of research about the power of parental rejection and acceptance in shaping our personalities as children and into adulthood.

Nature or nurture? It may depend on where you live

Nature or nurture? It may depend on where you live: The extent to which our development is affected by nature or nurture -- our genetic make-up or our environment -- may differ depending on where we live, according to new research.

HIV drug may slow down metastatic breast cancer

HIV drug may slow down metastatic breast cancer: The HIV drugs known as CCR5 antagonists may also help prevent aggressive breast cancers from metastasizing, researchers say.

Fish show autism-like gene expression in water with psychoactive pharmaceuticals

Fish show autism-like gene expression in water with psychoactive pharmaceuticals: Psychoactive medications in water affect the gene expression profiles of fathead minnows in a way that mimics the gene expression patterns associated with autism spectrum disorder in genetically susceptible humans, according to new research.

Brain wave meter knows what you're thinking, so get your mind out of the gutter (video)

Brain wave meter knows what you're thinking, so get your mind out of the gutter (video):

A team from Keio University has built a brain scanner that knows when you're stressed, sleepy or interested. Resembling John McEnroe's headband, the device examines the frequency rather than the type of waves your noggin produces. That data, combined with the team's algorithm enables your thoughts and feelings to be examined in real time. Advertisers might want to use the tech to learn what holds our interests, but there's probably plenty of better uses we could think of -- you can come up with some yourself when you watch the footage after the break.
Continue reading Brain wave meter knows what you're thinking, so get your mind out of the gutter (video)

Brain wave meter knows what you're thinking, so get your mind out of the gutter (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 07 Jun 2012 01:14:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Army scientists juice battery voltage, hike life up to 30 percent

Army scientists juice battery voltage, hike life up to 30 percent:

With the modern US soldier turning into a walking gadget, the army has some heavy reasons to lower battery weights. Its own scientists might have the answer, claiming 30 percent energy density jumps could happen using additives they developed. Those "sacrificial agent" materials would bond with electrodes to allow five volts instead of the four they've been stuck on, permitting a "quantum leap" in efficiency and weight. We'll have to see if that'll come to pass, but given the sheer volume of tech that soldiers are strapping on these days, it couldn't be too soon. To see a video of how it works, zap past the break.
Continue reading Army scientists juice battery voltage, hike life up to 30 percent

Army scientists juice battery voltage, hike life up to 30 percent originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 06 Jun 2012 04:53:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Buttons That Morph Out of Your Touchscreen

Buttons That Morph Out of Your Touchscreen:



kkleiner writes "Wouldn't it be awesome if our tablets and smartphones could have buttons that morphed out of the touchscreen, and then went away again when we didn't need them? It sounds like magic, but now it is reality. Created by Tactus Technology, a Fremont, California-based start-up, Tactus is a deformable layer that sits on top of a touchscreen sensor and display. 'The layer is about 0.75mm to 1mm thick, and at its top sits a deformable, clear layer 200 nm thick. Beneath the clear layer a fluid travels through micro-channels and is pushed up through tiny holes, deforming the clear layer to create buttons or shapes. The buttons or patterns remain for however long they are needed, just for a few seconds or for hours when you’re using your iPad to write that novel. And because the fluid is trapped inside the buttons, they can remain for however long without additional power consumption. They come or go pretty quickly, taking only a second to form or disappear.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Macabre Cat humor

This article is about a guy who loved his cat and then after it died, turned it into a catcopter.

http://motherboard.vice.com/2012/6/4/why-hate-the-catcopter-drones-are-the-real-flying-death--2

Brain scans support Freud: Guilt plays key role in depression

Brain scans support Freud: Guilt plays key role in depression: Scientists have shown that the brains of people with depression respond differently to feelings of guilt -- even after their symptoms have subsided.

New statistical model lets patient's past forecast future ailments

New statistical model lets patient's past forecast future ailments: Analyzing medical records from thousands of patients, statisticians have devised a statistical model for predicting what other medical problems a patient might encounter.

Artist's Catcopter Causes a Stir

Artist's Catcopter Causes a Stir:



derekmead writes "I'm not sure that Dutch artist Bart Jansen had political commentary in mind when he created the Orvillecopter — combining a stuffed cat with a quadrotor, and naming it after Orville Wright — but indeed it's art, whose meaning will lie in the eye of the beholder. And for those that say stitching up a dead animal around the guts of a helicopter and flying it around is 'sick,' what of the massive drone industry, which, more than just producing a symbol, actually is creating flying death?"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Physicists close in on a rare particle-decay process: Underground experiment may unlock mysteries of the neutrino

Physicists close in on a rare particle-decay process: Underground experiment may unlock mysteries of the neutrino: In the biggest result of its kind in more than ten years, physicists have made the most sensitive measurements yet in a decades-long hunt for a hypothetical and rare process involving the radioactive decay of atomic nuclei. If discovered, the researchers say, this process could have profound implications for how scientists understand the fundamental laws of physics and help solve some of the universe's biggest mysteries.

Chinese Censors Accidentally Block Shanghai Index

Chinese Censors Accidentally Block Shanghai Index:



New submitter Vulcan195 writes "Now this is amusing in so many ways ... Today (June 4, 1989 ... i.e. 6/4/89) is the 23rd anniversary of the Tiananmen Square crackdown. Naturally, the Chinese Censors were working overtime to block anything that made remote or oblique references to that event. Well, sometime during the day the Shanghai Composite Index dropped by 64.89 points; You can guess what happened next."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Mosquitos Have Little Trouble Flying in the Rain

Mosquitos Have Little Trouble Flying in the Rain:



sciencehabit writes with an interesting article about the (surprisingly not well studied) effects of rain on flying insects. From the article: "When a raindrop hits a mosquito, it's the equivalent of one of us being slammed into by a bus. And yet the bug will survive and keep flying. That's the conclusion of a team of engineers and biologists, which used a combination of real-time video and sophisticated math to demonstrate that the light insect's rugged construction allows the mosquito to shrug off the onslaught of even the largest raindrop. The findings offer little aid in controlling the pest but could help engineers improve the design of tiny flying robots."

Bats, unfortunately, aren't so lucky: "...these furry fliers need about twice as much energy to power through the rain compared with dry conditions."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

NASA gets two 'Hubble-class' military telescopes, fist-pumps with joy

NASA gets two 'Hubble-class' military telescopes, fist-pumps with joy:

Imagine all you wanted for Christmas was a telescope. As you frantically peel off layer after layer of wrapping, there it is -- your brother's old one. Well, okay, if your brother was the National Reconnaissance Office (and you were NASA) this might not seem quite as unjust. Thankfully so, as that's effectively what's just happened. The NRO has given NASA two 2.4-meter "space qualified" telescopes and satellite casings for it to play with. The gifts -- which can observe about 100 times the area of the Hubble telescope -- could complement existing projects and provide much-needed resources at the space agency. As there is currently no funded mission for them, however, they'll remain firmly on the ground for now, but at least this implies they're not needed elsewhere -- hinting at improved international relations. Unless the NRO just got an upgrade?

NASA gets two 'Hubble-class' military telescopes, fist-pumps with joy originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 05 Jun 2012 05:26:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Physicist Writes Mathematical Study to Avoid Traffic Ticket

By Wired UK 

Email Author 

April 16, 2012 |  

11:45 am |  

Categories: Physics

By Katie Scott, Wired UK

A physicist faced with a fine for running a stop sign has proved his innocence by publishing a mathematical paper, and has even won a prize for his efforts.

Dmitri Krioukov is a physicist based at the University of California in San Diego. When faced with a court hearing over allegedly driving through a stop sign, he put together a paper called The Proof of Innocence, which he has since published. The abstract for the paper reads: “A way to fight your traffic tickets. The paper was awarded a special prize of $400 that the author did not have to pay to the state of California.”

Krioukov’s argument is based upon the premise that three coincidences happened at the same time to make the police officer believe that he had seen the physicist run a red light, when, in fact, he hadn’t. He writes: “[In this paper], we show that if a car stops at a stop sign, an observer, e.g., a police officer, located at a certain distance perpendicular to the car trajectory, must have an illusion that the car does not stop, if the following three conditions are satisfied: (1) The observer measures not the linear but angular speed of the car; (2) The car decelerates and subsequently accelerates relatively fast; and (3) There is a short-time obstruction of the observer’s view of the car by an external object, e.g., another car, at the moment when both cars are near the stop sign.”

As Physics Central explains, because the police officer was around 30m from the intersection where the stop sign was situated, “a car approaching the intersection with constant linear velocity will rapidly increase in angular velocity from the police officer’s perspective”.

The physicist even created graphs showing what happens would have happened to his angular velocity if he had either been driving at a constant linear velocity or had made a quick stop then accelerated back to speed, which is what he claims happens (actually, he sneezed, causing him to brake harder than usual). It was during this sneeze stop that another vehicle obscured the police officer’s view of Krioukov’s car, argues the paper.

The conclusion of the paper? It isn’t the police officer’s fault but he/she was wrong as their “perception of reality did not properly reflect reality”. Bet that’s a statement the other officers loved to remind them of.

Neat Google Search

Go to Google:  Search for the term “Zerg Rush”

Cool Star Wars Theme