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- Category: Science & Technology
Our decisions to trust people with our money are based more on how they look then how they behave, according to new research from the University of Warwick.
In a paper recently published in the PLoS One journal, researchers from Warwick Business School, the University College London and Dartmouth College, USA, carried out a series of experiments to see if people made decisions to trust others based on their faces.
They found people are more likely to invest money in someone whose face is generally perceived as trustworthy, even when they are given negative information about this person's reputation.
- Category: Science & Technology
Attention, college students cramming between midterms and finals: Binging on soda and sweets for as little as six weeks may make you stupid.
A new UCLA rat study is the first to show how a diet steadily high in fructose slows the brain, hampering memory and learning -- and how omega-3 fatty acids can counteract the disruption. The peer-reviewed Journal of Physiology publishes the findings in its May 15 edition.
- Category: Science & Technology
Having natural habitat in farming areas that supports ladybugs could help increase their abundance in crops where they control pests and help farmers reduce their costs, says a Michigan State University study.
Ladybugs and other predatory insects eat crop pests, saving farmers an estimated $4.6 billion a year on insecticides. Non-crop plants provide these predatory insects with food and shelter, helping them to survive and thrive in areas where they are needed. In an attempt to increase benefits from predatory insects, researchers have often planted strips of flowers along the edges of crop fields.
- Category: Science & Technology
While we often think of memory as a way of preserving the essential idea of who we are, little thought is given to the importance of forgetting to our wellbeing, whether what we forget belongs in the "horrible memories department" or just reflects the minutia of day-to-day living.
Despite the fact that forgetting is normal, exactly how we forget -- the molecular, cellular, and brain circuit mechanisms underlying the process -- is poorly understood.
Now, in a study that appears in the May 10, 2012 issue of the journal Neuron, scientists from the Florida campus of The Scripps Research Institute have pinpointed a mechanism that is essential for forming memories in the first place and, as it turns out, is equally essential for eliminating them after memories have formed.
- Category: Science & Technology
The progressive disappearance of seed-dispersing animals like elephants and rhinoceroses puts the structural integrity and biodiversity of the tropical forest of South-East Asia at risk. With the help of Spanish researchers, an international team of experts has confirmed that not even herbivores like tapirs can replace them.
"Megaherbivores act as the 'gardeners' of humid tropical forests: They are vital to forest regeneration and maintain its structure and biodiversity," as was explained by Ahimsa Campos-Arceiz, the lead author of the study that was published in the 'Biotropica' journal and researcher at the School of Geography of the University of Nottingham in Malaysia.
- Category: Science & Technology
A Queen's University researcher has created a Star Trek-like human-scale 3D videoconferencing pod that allows people in different locations to video conference as if they are standing in front of each other.
"Why Skype when you can talk to a life-size 3D holographic image of another person?" says professor Roel Vertegaal, director of the Human Media Lab.
- Category: Science & Technology
Greater purpose in life may help stave off the harmful effects of plaques and tangles associated with Alzheimer's disease, according to a new study by researchers at Rush University Medical Center.
The study is published in the May issue of the Archives of General Psychiatry.
"Our study showed that people who reported greater purpose in life exhibited better cognition than those with less purpose in life even as plaques and tangles accumulated in their brains," said Patricia A. Boyle, PhD.
Screening for Breast Cancer Without X-Rays: Lasers and Sound Merge in Promising Diagnostic Technique
- Category: Science & Technology
X-ray mammography is an important diagnostic tool in the fight against breast cancer, but it has certain drawbacks that limit its effectiveness. For example, it can give in false positive and negative results; it also exposes women to low doses of ionizing radiation, which -- while accepted as safe -- still carry some risk.
In the first phase of clinical testing of a new imaging device, researchers from Netherlands' University of Twente and Medisch Spectrum Twente Hospital in Oldenzaal used photoacoustics -- light-induced sound -- rather than ionizing radiation to detect and visualize breast tumors. The team's preliminary results, which were conducted on 12 patients with diagnosed malignancies and reported today in the Optical Society's (OSA (http://www.osa.org)) open-access journal Optics Express (http://www.opticsinfobase.org/oe), provide proof-of-concept support that the technology can distinguish malignant tissue by providing high-contrast images of tumors.
- Category: Science & Technology
When you "lose yourself" inside the world of a fictional character while reading a story, you may actually end up changing your own behavior and thoughts to match that of the character, a new study suggests.
Researchers at Ohio State University examined what happened to people who, while reading a fictional story, found themselves feeling the emotions, thoughts, beliefs and internal responses of one of the characters as if they were their own -- a phenomenon the researchers call "experience-taking."
They found that, in the right situations, experience-taking may lead to real changes, if only temporary, in the lives of readers.
- Category: Science & Technology
Researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have developed a prototype bioreactor -- a device for culturing cells to create engineered tissues -- that both stimulates and evaluates tissue as it grows, mimicking natural processes while eliminating the need to stop periodically to cut up samples for analysis. Tissue created this way might someday be used to replace, for example, damaged or diseased cartilage in the knee and hip.
Conventional methods for evaluating the development and properties of engineered tissue are time-consuming, destructive and need to be repeated many times. By using ultrasound to monitor tissue during processing without destroying it, the novel bioreactor could be a faster and less expensive alternative.
