Featured Invention at the Colorado Inventor Showcase 2009
WOKER™ is Poker using words!  It’s a fun, new card game that combines the challenges of word games with the quickness of poker!  The goal is to make the highest scoring words with your cards based on the points associated with each letter.  It’s like a brainteaser for [...]

Leonard DaVinci’s masterpiece Mona Lisa
The secret behind Mona Lisa’s enigmatic smile has been explained by scientists who believe it changes depending on which part of the eye sees it first.  One of the charms of the world’s most famous painting is that she appears radiant one moment and then serious and sardonic the next.  Now [...]

Featured Product at the Colorado Inventor Showcase 2009
ZUN is a unique carbonated energy supplement that proposes to fight cognitive degeneration.  Fuzzee Bee Beverage Company launched a one-of-a-kind functional beverage called ZUN Brain Boosting Energy. 
 

Researchers have identified a cellular pathway that may explain the link between alcohol consumption and cancer.

Alcohol consumption has long been linked to cancer and its spread, but the underlying mechanism has never been clear. Now, researchers at Rush University Medical Center have identified a cellular pathway that may explain the link.

Are you a nervous first time mom-to-be who wants nothing but the very best for your little one? Most people would say yes, and figure out that if their kid listens to Mozart or other musical geniuses while they were in the womb, they would turn out to be at the top of the class [...]

In a discovery that could help tackle sleep disorders, scientists found that our internal body clocks are shaped by the weather as well as by the seasons and environmental signals.
 

Heavy users may face a higher risk of developing brain tumours later in life
Long-term use of mobile phones may be linked to some cancers, a landmark international study will conclude later this year.  A £20million, decade-long investigation overseen by the World Health Organisation (WHO) will publish evidence that heavy users face a higher risk of developing [...]

Vampires
One dark and stormy evening, Spanish neurologist Juan Gomez-Alonso was watching a vampire movie when he realized something strange; he noticed that vampires behave an awful lot like people with rabies. The virus attacks the central nervous system, altering the moods and behaviors of those infected. Sufferers become agitated and demented, and, much like vampires, [...]

Brain signals can drive arm movement in a monkey with a paralyzed arm.
A monkey with a paralyzed arm can still grasp a ball, thanks to a novel system designed to translate brain signals into complex muscle movements in real time. The research, presented at the Society for Neuroscience conference in Chicago this week, could one [...]

As part of a project to understand how the brain learns, biologists have written memories into the cells of a fruitfly’s brain, making it think it had a terrible experience.
 

Scientists use fiber-optic cables to control neural activity in mice
Molecular “light switches” can reveal exactly which neurons are involved in creating a memory, allowing scientists to trigger that memory using only light. The finding, presented at the Society for Neuroscience conference in Chicago this week, is just one example of how a novel technology called [...]

Man juggling several small balls.
Learning to juggle leads to changes in the white matter of the brain, an Oxford University study has shown.

It’s not all in the mind — the so-called placebo effect is real and reaches right down to the spine, German scientists said.  The finding may help in the hunt for better ways to tackle pain and other disorders.
 

Tool transfer upon recipient’s request.
The evolution of altruism has long puzzled researchers and has mainly been explained previously from ultimate perspectives—”I will help you now because I expect there to be some long-term benefit to me”. However, a new study by researchers at the Primate Research Institute (PRI) and the Wildlife Research Center (WRC) of [...]

Preparation of a solution of sensor nanoparticles.
Scientists at Queen’s University Belfast are developing new sensors to detect chemical agents and illegal drugs which will help in the fight against the threat of terrorist attacks.

Above: CCD image sensor. Below: Optical fibers.
The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has decided to award the Nobel Prize in Physics for 2009 with one half to Charles K. Kao, Standard Telecommunication Laboratories, Harlow, UK, and Chinese University of Hong Kong “for groundbreaking achievements concerning the transmission of light in fibers for optical communication”, and [...]

Good news for procrastinating students: a nasal spray developed by a team of German scientists promises to give late night cram sessions a major boost, if a good night’s sleep follows.
Good news for procrastinating students: a nasal spray developed by a team of German scientists promises to give late night cram sessions a major boost, [...]

A new study estimates that people with a gun are 4.5 times more likely to be shot in an assault than those not possessing a gun.
In a first-of its-kind study, epidemiologists at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine found that, on average, guns did not protect those who possessed them from being shot in [...]

Using text message language – the OMGs, m8s and 2mros – does not harm children’s spelling abilities, new research suggests, and may even be a good sign.  The study, carried out by Canadian researchers at the University of Alberta, suggested that children who are good at spelling “real” words are also good at spelling in text [...]

Do infants only start to crawl once they are physically able to see danger coming? Or is it that because they are more mobile, they develop the ability to sense looming danger? According to Ruud van der Weel and Audrey van der Meer, from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Trondheim, infants’ ability [...]

scientists have developed a pair of glasses that receive visual data from a camera mounted on a them and send the images to a chip attatched on the side of the eyeball.

Inspired by the success of cochlear implants that can restore hearing to some deaf people, researchers at MIT are working on a retinal implant [...]

Scientists say they have found a link between toxic fumes on planes and brain damage in pilots
Poisons in the air pumped into plane cabins and cockpits have been linked to brain damage.  Cabin crew and pilots have long blamed exposure to jet engine fumes for memory loss, tremors, lethargy and other symptoms of so-called [...]

Spy toy gadget maker Brando has this “Magic GIANT 12-Surface IQ Pentagon – Fantastic Edition” for $49.90.

The FANTASTIC SIZE and COMPLEX IQ Cube!! The GIANT 12 surfaces IQ Pentagon! You may never face this complicated one! Your home cannot miss this one. You may not solve it, you can just disassemble it and try it [...]

For the first time, researchers have pinpointed the mechanism that takes place during sleep that causes learning and memory formation to occur.

A Rutgers University, Newark and Collége de France, Paris research team has pinpointed for the first time the mechanism that takes place during sleep that causes learning and memory formation to occur.

A skeleton, found at one of the most important, but least understood, Roman sites in Britain is puzzling experts from The University of Nottingham.
A skeleton, found at one of the most important, but least understood, Roman sites in Britain is puzzling experts from The University of Nottingham.