Someday, physically touching our electronic devices will be as archaic as standing up from the recliner to change the channel. Voice recognition systems and home assistants can turn on lights, pull up podcasts and order paper towels on command. Cameras in video game systems and televisions can do our bidding with a gesture.
And to the list of hands-free methods of component control, we can add electronic skin.
E-skins have been garnering a lot of attention from software and material en ...read more
Flu season in the U.S. typically peaks in February, but this year’s outbreak is already one of the worst on record. As of Jan. 6, 20 children have died from the flu, and overall mortality caused by the flu is already double that of last year’s.
One reason the flu is so severe this season is that the dominant strain is H3N2, which has an impressive ability to mutate and is particularly aggressive against Americans over 50.
Making the threat worse is the fact that most of the IV sali ...read more
It's January again, which means many people are trying to lose weight. Previous studies have shown that you are likely to eat more if you are dining with an overweight companion. But what if you are at a restaurant and it's your server who is overweight? In this study, the researchers observed almost 500 interactions between diners and servers in 60 restaurants. They found that diners waited on by someone a high BMI (body mass index) were four times more likely to order dessert, a ...read more
Just what is a second, exactly? The question has been open to interpretation ever since the first long-case grandfather clocks began marking off seconds in the mid-17th century and introduced the concept to the world at large.
The answer, simply, is that a second is 1/60th of a minute, or 1/360th of an hour. But that's just pushing the question down the road a bit. After all, what's an hour? That answer is related to the best means of time-keeping ancient civilizations had — the ...read more
Earlier this week, an international team of geologists and climate scientists parked their ship off the coast of West Antarctica and started drilling. Their mission: To find out why glaciers here melted millions of years ago and what that can tell us about what’s happening today.
Over the next couple months, their ship, the International Ocean Discovery Program’s JOIDES Resolution, will drill at least five core samples reaching thousands of feet below the Ross Sea. These cores will ...read more
What’s easier for you: identifying what color something is, or identifying a smell from a source you cannot see? If you’re like most people, color comes more easily.
That, however, isn’t the case for all humans. According to a new study published Thursday in Current Biology, those who practice a hunter-gatherer lifestyle have an edge when it comes to naming a particular funk.
Evolving at the Speed of Smell
So why are people often better at describing what they see ve ...read more
Alcohol affects everyone a bit differently—some people take a few sips of beer and they’re stumbling all over, while others can ingest far more and still walk straight. You see, consuming alcohol affects the brain, which can impact your coordination and ability to think clearly—both of which are important to safely operating vehicles of all kinds, including drones.
As of Monday, it is illegal in New Jersey for people to fly drones under the influence of drugs or alcohol, ...read more
The eye may not be the window to the soul in the conventional sense, but it is a window into the intricate workings of the mind.
The pupil of the eye fluctuates and varies a lot in humans and many mammals. If tracked during the day, the pupil will not only respond to changes in external stimuli such as light, but also to internal conditions such as attention and emotional states. It is a signifier of what goes on in a person’s head and is linked to brain activity. Does this revelatory beh ...read more
If you feel like this year’s flu season is a rough one, that’s because it is.
CBS News recently reported that this year’s flu virus is dominated by a particularly nasty strain, H3N2, which has reached almost every corner of the country, causing prolonged illness in many and in some instances, death. The very young and the elderly are particularly vulnerable, and this year’s vaccine may only be about 30% effective because H3N2 tends to mutate quickly.
Citizen scientists ...read more
To find out just how your relaxed vacuuming schedule is affecting your baby's airway, researchers built a slightly frightening robotic infant.
This legless, metallic baby crawled across five wool rugs from real people's homes in Finland. (The grounded aluminum tape covering the robot helped to minimize static during its 25 crawling sessions of 20 minutes each.) Researchers had asked the people sharing their rugs not to vacuum for two weeks beforehand. As the robot crawled, advanc ...read more
