Can you blame it on the booze?
Have you made a rash or regrettable decision after a few cold Coors Lights. You can blame it on the booze, right? The University of Missouri College of Arts and Sciences sheds light on how the brain processes mistakes in the presence of alcohol in a new study.
Continue reading… “Can you blame your bad decisions on booze? Maybe not”
Companies are filing overly broad patents on obvious ideas in the hope that one day the technology will become feasible.
The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development reports that “the quality of patent filings has fallen dramatically over the past two decades. The rush to protect even minor improvements in products or services is overburdening patent offices. This slows the time to market for true innovations and reduces the potential for breakthrough inventions.”
Continue reading… “OECD warns quality of patents ‘falling dramatically’”
Mind reading could become a reality after scientists unveiled a device which translates what we are seeing in our heads onto a screen.
Researchers were able to recreate a moving picture similar to the real footage being played by monitoring the brain activity of people while they watched Hollywood movie trailers.
The Apple App Store has more than 90,000 apps for the iPad.
The marketplace for tablet apps is expanding quickly. The Apple App Store alone has more than 90,000 apps for the iPad. Although many marketers are rushing to get their tablet apps to market, usage data indicates that consumers regularly use a limited number of apps.
Continue reading… “Are there too many apps?”
Featured invention at the DaVinci Inventor Showcase 2011
No time to exercise? Long hours at the computer? Tired? No energy? No problem!
Introducing the GoFidget Xerciser™, your fitness solution to sit-down days. The GoFidget Xerciser™ is an omni-directional fitness device that is easy to use while sitting and working at a computer. With its 360 degrees of movement and non-impact design, the GoFidget Xerciser™ is a whole new way to strengthen muscles from feet to knees, up to thighs and hips! GoFidget™ at home or in the office. It is convenient, effective and surprisingly fun!
Continue reading… “GoFidget Xerciser – fitness device easy to use while sitting”
Tissue engineers create artificial blood vessels on a 3D printer.
Tissue engineers are building a handful of new body parts, from intestines to tracheas — but progress on larger organs has been slow. This is mainly because tissues need nutrients to stay alive, and they need blood vessels to deliver those nutrients. It’s difficult to build those vascular networks, but now a team from Germany may have a solution: Print some capillaries with a 3-D printer.
Continue reading… “Artificial blood vessels made on a 3D printer”
People yawned almost twice as much in winter, when their body temperature was higher than the air around them.
The brain is like a computer and works best when it is cool, but putting too great a strain on it can lead to overheating which reduces its ability to process information. Yawning is not just a sign of tiredness or boredom – it is the body’s method of keeping our brain cool, scientists have found.
Touch Bionics has recently introduced a new photographic system that is designed to precisely match a prosthesis to a person’s skin tone.
Touch Bionics, a prosthetic technology company, has unveiled an ultra-realistic range of limbs with features such as freckles, hairs and even tattoos.
NeverWet™ coatings are a featured product at the DaVinci Inventor Showcase 2011
NeverWet™ coatings are Superhydrophobic and Oleophobic. Water on NeverWet™ surfaces sits as an almost perfect sphere. Water beads “glide” over the surfaces like a skate gliding over ice, with almost no surface friction. Superhydrophobic surfaces such as the leaves of the lotus plant have surfaces that are highly hydrophobic, i.e., extremely difficult to wet. “Oleophobic” (from the Greek (oleo) “oil”) refers to the physical property of a molecule that is repelled from oil.
Continue reading… “NeverWet – revolutionary new product that repels liquids”
The volume of photos on Facebook are 10,000 times larger than the Library of Congress.
One picture may be worth a thousand words, but Facebook photos could be worth 140 quadrillion words, which is equal to 140 billion photos — more than a third of all digital photos taken in one year.
Continue reading… “More than a third of all digital photos taken in a year are on Facebook”
World’s smallest camera
It may look barely big enough to cover a picture-taking fingertip and it’s so small you could lose it in a snap.
Continue reading… “World’s smallest digital camera no bigger than a fingertip”
73% of cellphone owners text.
Eighty-three percent of American adults own cell phones and 73% send and receive text messages. The Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project asked those texters in a survey how they prefer to be contacted on their cell phone and 31% said they preferred texts to talking on the phone, while 53% said they preferred a voice call to a text message. Another 14% said the contact method they prefer depends on the situation.
Continue reading… “One third of Americans prefer texting to talking on the phone”