Incredible Technology: How to Map a Lightning Strike
Posted on September 11, 2022
| 6 minutes
| 1125 words
| Fernande Dalal
Some scientists literally spend their time waiting for lightning to strike.
Lightning is the second highest cause of annual weather-related deaths in the United States, according to the National Weather Association. It starts fires, causes power outages and wreaks havoc on electronics systems.
The science of lightning detection has improved dramatically since Ben Franklin flew his kite in a thunderstorm in 1752. Researchers can now predict conditions that precede a bolt from the blue, and track the location and strength of a strike while it's occurring.
[Read More]Peace or War? How Early Humans Behaved
Posted on September 11, 2022
| 5 minutes
| 969 words
| Fernande Dalal
Depending on which journals you've picked up in recent months, early humans were either peace-loving softies or war-mongering buffoons.
Which theory is to be believed?
A little bit of both, says one archaeologist, who warns against making generalizations when it comes to our long and varied prehistory.
The newest claim concerns Australopithecus afarensis, who lived approximately five million years ago and is one of the first hominids that can be linked directly to our lineage with some certainty.
[Read More]Strange Experiments Create Body-Swapping Experiences
Posted on September 11, 2022
| 4 minutes
| 645 words
| Patria Henriques
Scientists now have manipulated people’s perceptions to make them think they have swapped bodies with another human or even a "humanoid body," experiencing the sensations that the other would feel and giving the illusion of being inside the other's body. The bizarre achievement hearkens to body swaps portrayed on numerous TV shows and movies such as "Freaky Friday" and "All of Me." In real life, the cognitive neuroscientists at the Swedish medical university Karolinska Institutet succeeded in making subjects perceive the bodies of mannequins and other people as their own.
[Read More]What Is Salmonella?
Posted on September 11, 2022
| 6 minutes
| 1092 words
| Fernande Dalal
Salmonella is a group of bacteria that commonly cause a foodborne illness called salmonellosis. Every year, about 1.2 million people are infected with Salmonella, with 23,000 individuals hospitalized due to the infection and 450 dying from it, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Most people who get infected with Salmonella get the bacteria from contaminated food or water.
There are more than 2,300 types of bacteria in the Salmonella genus, according to the U.
[Read More]Why Music Moves Us
Posted on September 11, 2022
| 3 minutes
| 631 words
| Trudie Dory
Universal emotions like anger, sadness and happiness are expressed nearly the same in both music and movement across cultures, according to new research.
The researchers found that when Dartmouth undergraduates and members of a remote Cambodian hill tribe were asked to use sliding bars to adjust traits such as the speed, pitch, or regularity of music, they used the same types of characteristics to express primal emotions. What's more, the same types of patterns were used to express the same emotions in animations of movement in both cultures.
[Read More]13 Freaky Facts About Friday the 13th
Posted on September 10, 2022
| 4 minutes
| 779 words
| Patria Henriques
Does Friday the 13th freak you out? If so, hold on to your rabbit's foot extra tight, because there are three of these supposedly unlucky dates in 2012, though perhaps luckily, this Friday (July 13) is the last of them. Though, there's always some fear to be had next year, 2013.
Read on for 13 strange facts about this day of superstition.
1. This year is a special one for Friday the 13ths: There are three of them: Jan.
[Read More]Ants Lead the Way on Earthquake Prediction
Posted on September 10, 2022
| 2 minutes
| 302 words
| Fernande Dalal
Ants with the world's worst taste in real estate seem to sense earthquakes before they strike, according to research presented today (April 11) at the European Geosciences Union annual meeting in Vienna.
Active faults, fractures where the Earth violently ruptures in earthquakes, are the preferred housing site for red wood ants in Germany. Researcher Gabriele Berberich of the University Duisburg-Essen in Germany has counted more than 15,000 red wood ant mounds lined up along Germany's faults, like candy drops on a conveyor belt.
[Read More]Big Blobs Change View of Evolution
Posted on September 10, 2022
| 2 minutes
| 262 words
| Arica Deslauriers
On a submersible dive off the Bahamas, Mikhail V. Matz of the University of Texas at Austin and several colleagues were seeking big-eyed, glowing animals adapted to darkness.
Yet as they cruised above the seafloor, the team was distracted by hundreds of bizarre, sediment-coated balls the size of grapes. Each sat at the end of a sinuous track in the seafloor ooze. Indeed, the balls appeared to have made the tracks; some even seemed to have rolled upslope.
[Read More]Cause of Polar Bear Knut's Death Found
Posted on September 10, 2022
| 4 minutes
| 787 words
| Mittie Cheatwood
The culprit of the sudden death of famed polar bear tot Knut has been found, says an international team of scientists. An exhaustive analysis shows a viral form of encephalitis, or brain swelling, led to the seizures and untimely death.
"After a detailed necropsy and histology that took several intense days to perform, the results clearly suggested that the underlying cause of Knut's seizures was a result of encephalitis, most likely of viral origin,"
[Read More]Disney's 'Magic Bench' Puts You in the Picture with Animated Figures
Posted on September 10, 2022
| 3 minutes
| 526 words
| Trudie Dory
A new "Magic Bench" designed by Disney Research lets you interact with endearing animated characters — and no special glasses or headsets are required.
Instead, the complete environment — the seat, the sitter and the cartoon humanoid animals — is mirrored on a screen opposite the bench, making it possible for others to watch the scene unfold.
How does the illusion work? A camera and sensor capture images and gather depth information about physical objects — the bench and the person — that algorithms integrate with the 3D animations, the researchers wrote in a study.
[Read More]