Researchers have discovered a genetic variation that may contribute to how empathetic a human is, and how that person reacts to stress. In the first study of its kind, a variation in the hormone/neurotransmitter oxytocin’s receptor was linked to a person’s ability to infer the mental state of others.
Many people think that the hearing impaired would have lost a large part of being human, that is, being unable to experience the joy of music. Well, have you ever attended a deaf church’s worship service? Those involve drums that lets the congregation literally feel the beat of the song, and the Sounzzz concept is a visual, audio, tactile MP3 player that can not only work for the hearing impaired but is universal enough for everyone to have a go. Sound will be translated into a range of vibrations, where you will need to hug the device in order to feel the music.
Wii boxing
People could expend more energy playing the Wii Sports games or doing aerobics and yoga with the Wii Fit than during a brisk walk, the researchers found.
Covcoa BIO in Spain claim that special amino acids contained in the recipe trick your brain into believing you’re not hungry
It’s a sweet idea that sounds too good to be true - a chocolate that helps you lose weight. Yet according to the makers, that’s exactly what a new brand of chocolate will do.
When Holden Thorp, the chancellor of the University of North Carolina, was looking for ways to cut the university’s budget, he did what many executives in private industry do — hired a management consultant.
Here’s one way to deal with the brutal U.S. job market: Leave the country. With the nation’s unemployment rate at a 26-year-high of 10.2%, more Americans are hunting for, and landing, work overseas, according to staffing companies and executive search firms.
Search engine giant Google is sending a representative to China this week to talk with the country’s copyright watchdog. The move is designed to cool Chinese authors’ heated complaints against the company over copyright violations, a Google senior executive said yesterday.
Sirenia Avendano cries as she speaks of sending money to her sons in the U.S.
During the best of the times, Miguel Salcedo’s son, an illegal immigrant in San Diego, would be sending home hundreds of dollars a month to support his struggling family in Mexico. But at times like these, with the American economy out of whack and his son out of work, Mr. Salcedo finds himself doing what he never imagined he would have to do: wiring pesos north.
Investigators at Burnham Institute for Medical Research (Burnham), the University of British Columbia’s Centre for Molecular Medicine and Therapeutics and the University of California, San Diego have found that normal synaptic activity in nerve cells (the electrical activity in the brain that allows nerve cells to communicate with one another) protects the brain from the misfolded proteins associated with Huntington’s disease. In contrast, excessive extrasynaptic activity (aberrant electrical activity in the brain, usually not associated with communication between nerve cells) enhances the misfolded proteins’ deadly effects.
Penguins that died 44,000 years ago in Antarctica have provided extraordinary frozen DNA samples that challenge the accuracy of traditional genetic aging measurements, and suggest those approaches have been routinely underestimating the age of many specimens by 200 to 600 percent.
The US’s first marijuana cafe opened on Friday, posing an early test of the Obama administration’s move to relax policing of medical use of the drug.
Physicists at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have demonstrated the first “universal” programmable quantum information processor able to run any program allowed by quantum mechanics — the rules governing the submicroscopic world — using two quantum bits (qubits) of information. The processor could be a module in a future quantum computer, which theoretically could solve some important problems that are intractable today.
A study appearing in Science Translational Medicine puts scientists one step closer to clinical trials to test a gene delivery strategy to improve muscle mass and function in patients with certain degenerative muscle disorders.
The Sun is a bubbling mass. Packages of gas rise and sink, lending the sun its grainy surface structure, its granulation. Dark spots appear and disappear, clouds of matter dart up — and behind the whole thing are the magnetic fields, the engines of it all. The SUNRISE balloon-borne telescope, a collaborative project between the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research in Katlenburg-Lindau and partners in Germany, Spain and the USA, has now delivered images that show the complex interplay on the solar surface to a level of detail never before achieved.
Captured on film
Obsessed with cameras much? While you can probably deny it, the owner of this vehicle – the Camera Van – can’t. Literally decked in thousands of cameras, it’s what the Google Street View cars would have looked like if their designers had some panache. Or were clinically insane. Either will do.
First created by Harrod Blank back in 1994, the van has made the novelty art/car show rounds for the last fifteen years (and still has a full book of appearances scheduled). I guess it’s hard to resist the allure of staring at a monstrous vehicle that sports wall-to-wall carpeting with functional cameras, continually snapping photos of people in awe at its veritable insanity.
Households that could afford to have one spouse stay home find roles upended by layoffs in male-dominated industries
Jeff and Vicki Grenz celebrated their 25th anniversary on Sept. 12, 2007. The date marked another milestone for the California couple: Ms. Grenz went back to work.
Even as drug makers promise to support Washington’s health care overhaul by shaving $8 billion a year off the nation’s drug costs after the legislation takes effect, the industry has been raising its prices at the fastest rate in years.
Speaker lineup for this week’s ExpoManagement 2009 Summit in Mexico City
On November 19th Futurist Thomas Frey will take the stage at the ExpoManagement 2009 Summit in Mexico City with eight other global visionaries to help leading business executives in Mexico think through the challenges that lie ahead as businesses struggle to regain their footing in today’s turbulent economy.
That’s one pissed fish!
The Angry Mermaid Award is named after the iconic Copenhagen mermaid who is angry about the destruction being caused by climate change
Thousands of members of the public are expected to vote at www.angrymermaid.org between today and Sunday 13 December for the candidate which they believe has done the most to sabotage effective action to tackle climate change.
Lobby groups representing oil, coal, aviation, the chemicals industry and emissions trading are all on the shortlist for the Angry Mermaid Award 2009, alongside biotech company Monsanto, oil giant Shell and energy company Sasol. The winner of the angry mermaid award will be announced at the Copenhagen climate talks on Tuesday 15 December 2009.
The tallest fountain in the world (with water reaching as high as 150 meters), near the tallest building in the world (see here) was recently completed and tested with this water/light/music extravaganza. The musical piece is the “Time To Say Goodbye”, performed by Andrea Bocelli and Sarah Brightman.
“Whoa dude! Clean your lens or something”
The photos we have this week are guaranteed to hit you from left field. In fact, that’s where we keep all the things we want to hit you with – left field. If you are ever interested in going to left field, just turn around, you’ll find it on your blind side. (Pics)
Holding the hand of a loved one during times of distress really can reduce their discomfort, scientists believe. Researchers revealed that, at least for women, the touch or look of a boyfriend seems to anaesthetise them from pain. Even a photograph of their partner is enough to have an effect.
Today’s 60-year-olds are the first modern generation to be less healthy than their immediate predecessors. A health timebomb is hitting baby boomers: the over-60 year olds are sufferring more illnesses caused by bad diet and lack of exercise.
Finger touching
A new wearable device that anyone can communicate with that is easier and lighter in mobile circumstances corresponding to the 3.5G, 4G communication standard. Human hand is the most basic communication method. For easier and simpler controls, it uses the instinctive input method “finger joint”. Excluding the thumb, each finger joint makes up twelve buttons, with “the knuckle button”, using the cell phone’s 3X4 keypad, likely being the most popular input method.
Loading ...
