Video games improve the mind-to-numbers relationship
A daily dose of computer games can boost students’ scores on standard math tests, says a new research. The study, which was carried out in Scottish schools, was conducted by Learning and Teaching Scotland (LTS) – the main organization for the development of the curriculum.

 
Breakthrough in animal testing
As Japanese consumers become ever more “fussy” over food safety issues, there is a growing demand for technology that improves food quality. To ease the minds of health-conscious meat-eaters, researchers at Japan’s National Institute of Animal Health (NIAH) have developed a convenient method for identifying cattle infected with mad cow disease, simply [...]

 
Car House (Salzburg, Austria)
The compact Volkswagen Beetle has always been a fuel-efficient car, but what about applying that conservationist model to a house? German architect Mark Voglreiter took up the challenge and nailed it with the “Auto Residence.” Its thermal insulation makes it very energy-efficient. The house was rented in 2004 for a pricey $2,500 [...]

Unusual new headphone design
The iSound, designed by Seohyun Baek, is a set of headphones that lets you to listen to your mp3 player while still hearing the background noise around you. That’s a pretty handy thing, especially when that background noise is oncoming traffic.

 
Z Pen 
The Z Pen is a fairly normal looking pen which can be used to write as normal. Once writing has been completed you can then download data from it and have the writing converted to text with OCR.

 
 ”Glass Forest”
The 2008 International Science and Engineering Visualization Challenge has just concluded with some pretty astonishing imagery in the winning slots. This picture, dubbed “Glass Forest,” is a scanning electron micrograph of diatoms (weird unicellular algae) clinging to a marine worm, and won the photography category: to my eyes it looks half like a palm [...]

FingerFood By designer Ken Goldman 
Take one look at this idea and you know it’s a good one. You’ve been there: you’re at a cocktail party, hungry enough to eat a horse, but you don’t have enough hands to hold your drink, a heaping plate of tasty vittles and a fork, and still be able to shake [...]

 
Could microSD cards – tiny devices the size of a fingernail – replace bulky CDs and intangible downloads for next-generation music lovers? Selling albums in microSD format is the latest concept from SanDisk, the California-based manufacturer of flash memory cards and developer of SD cards, which are now widely licensed.

 
Political conservatives operate out of a fear of chaos and absence of order while political liberals operate out of a fear of emptiness, a new Northwestern University study soon to be published in the Journal of Research in Personality finds.

One small sign of a larger social shift
Count this as another busted myth of modern times: In family life, the husband always wields the television remote. Lately, the wife is just as likely to be changing the channels. A poll released yesterday by the Pew Research Center showed that 21st century couples share decision making [...]