PaPeRo, the New Robot Nanny

 Posted on April 10, 2023  |  2 minutes  |  329 words  |  Patria Henriques

PaPeRo robot nanny is the latest in a series of robots for the home; NEC and telecommunications giant NTT came together to offer this one to a nation's children. PaPeRo has a built-in mobile phone; parents can call it and order the 'bot to find the kids and play with them. Parents can also talk to children directly or with text messages via PaPeRo. "PaPeRo" is short for Partner-type Personal Robot; it uses a camera in each eye to navigate and has image recognition capabilities to track and identify individual children. [Read More]

The World's Most Powerful Atom Smasher Restarts With a Big Bang

 Posted on April 10, 2023  |  3 minutes  |  613 words  |  Trudie Dory

The world's most powerful atom smasher, the Large Hadron Collider, which provides a window into the universe just milliseconds after the Big Bang, came back to life this morning, after more than two years of maintenance and upgrade work, and it's stronger than ever. At 10:41 a.m. local time near Geneva, Switzerland (4:41 a.m. ET), a proton beam zipped around the 17-mile-long (27 kilometers) ring-shaped structure. Then at 12:27 p.m. Geneva time, another proton beam trekked around the ring in the opposite direction, officials at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) reported today (April 5). [Read More]

Time Travel Is Possible — But Only If You Have an Object With Infinite Mass

 Posted on April 10, 2023  |  5 minutes  |  928 words  |  Trudie Dory

The concept of time travel has always captured the imagination of physicists and laypersons alike. But is it really possible? Of course it is. We're doing it right now, aren't we? We are all traveling into the future one second at a time. But that was not what you were thinking. Can we travel much further into the future? Absolutely. If we could travel close to the speed of light, or in the proximity of a black hole, time would slow down enabling us to travel arbitrarily far into the future. [Read More]

U.K.'s first human case of H5N1 avian flu detected in man with pet ducks

 Posted on April 10, 2023  |  3 minutes  |  508 words  |  Fernande Dalal

A 79-year-old man named Alan Gosling, who kept pet ducks at his home in Devon, England, recently became the first U.K. resident to catch the H5N1 strain of bird flu, DevonLive reported(opens in new tab). A flock of more than 100 ducks lived outside on Gosling's property in Buckfastleigh, and after feeding the animals for some time, Gosling brought 20 of the ducks into his home to keep as pets. In December 2021, a few of the ducks in the outdoor flock fell ill, Gosling noticed. [Read More]

What's Behind Our Love of Curvaceous Cars

 Posted on April 10, 2023  |  3 minutes  |  617 words  |  Arica Deslauriers

A person's preference for BMW, Audi or Alfa Romeo may be more primal than sophisticated, new research suggests. Our human instincts draw us to either curvy models or those with sharp angles. And carmakers cater to one or the other, depending on the era, the study shows. And if one cognitive psychologist is right, the 2010s might be a decade of boxy cars. Why we like curves Consumers' car preferences come down to two basic human habits, said study researcher Claus-Christian Carbon of the University of Bamberg in Germany. [Read More]

2 of Darwin's famous notebooks, including iconic 'Tree of Life' sketch, are missing

 Posted on April 9, 2023  |  3 minutes  |  550 words  |  Mittie Cheatwood

A thief may have stolen two of Charles Darwin's notebooks, including one containing his iconic 1837 "Tree of Life" sketch, according to Cambridge University Library in England. The books were last seen in fall 2000, when they were taken from the uber-secure Special Collections Strong Rooms at Cambridge University Library for a photo shoot. During a routine check in January 2001, however, curators discovered that the small blue box holding the books was missing. [Read More]

5 Wacky Ways to Quantify Happiness

 Posted on April 9, 2023  |  4 minutes  |  722 words  |  Patria Henriques

Quantifying HappyIf you're happy, you may know it, but measuring that joy tends to be tricky. Happiness is subjective, after all, and what makes one person beam may barely register for another person. Scientists tackle this problem of measuring happiness in a number of ways, from asking people about their moment-to-moment moods to surveys on overall life satisfaction, health and other big-picture factors. Other attempts to investigate happiness get more creative — and sometimes quite odd. [Read More]

7 Ways to Cheat a Hangover

 Posted on April 9, 2023  |  3 minutes  |  566 words  |  Trudie Dory

For most people who don't have the lucky hangover-resistant genes, drinking at parties and celebrations comes with an inevitable hangover the next day. But the pounding headaches and upset stomachs don't always have to be the aftermath of an alcohol-filled New Year's Eve outing. Here are seven wise tricks to ward off a brutal hangover. (Of course, the best way to avoid a hangover is to not down too much booze the night before. [Read More]

Coffee to Maggots: Top 10 Bad Things That Are Good For You

 Posted on April 9, 2023  |  4 minutes  |  850 words  |  Mittie Cheatwood

Top 10 Bad Things That Are Good For YouBeer quells heart disease and chocolate staves off cancer? Though often tagged with a disclaimer, studies that tell us to eat, inhale and generally indulge in "bad stuff" is music to our ears. So go ahead and enjoy these bad-for-you remedies-everything in moderation, as they say-until the next study inevitably overturns the research. SexScientists have found that the benefits of sex go beyond immediate, ahem, gratification and satisfying the goal of procreation. [Read More]

Do Third-Party Candidates Ever Win?

 Posted on April 9, 2023  |  2 minutes  |  415 words  |  Patria Henriques

Today's Tea Party seems to challenge the dominance of the Democrat and Republican Parties. And while third-party candidates can find success in local elections, they have almost always failed to win the presidency. But that doesn't mean they can't play kingmaker or otherwise influence a presidential election. Today's two-party system has its roots in the early 20th century. Prior to that, in the 1800s, a large number of parties dotted the American political landscape, said Alex Keyssar, a professor of history and social policy at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government. [Read More]