News Articles

Scientists know that time passes faster at higher elevations.  It's a curious aspect of Einstein's theories of relativity that previously had to be measured by comparing clocks on the Earth's surface and rockets.But NIST physicists have made it a lot more personal - a scale of about 1 foot - and showed that you even age faster if you are taller than your relative.   The good news is you won't be able to see the difference, that one foot difference in height adds about 90 billionths of a second over a 79-year lifetime.The NIST researchers also observed another aspect of relativity, that time passes more slowly when you move faster, at speeds comparable to a car traveling about 20 miles per hour.

It may seem like a waste of time that young people play video games for hours on end but, at least for some, it may help them in surgery one day.  A new study says reorganization of the brain's cortical network in young men with significant experience playing video games gives them an advantage not only in those games but also with other tasks requiring visuomotor skills.

Water-gel-based solar devices, what researchers liken to "artificial leaves", can act like solar cells to produce electricity, bringing technology a bit closer to solar cells that more closely mimic the efficiency of nature and farther from the disaster of today that advocates want mandated and subsidized for questionable benefit. If it pans out, they will be less expensive and more environmentally friendly than silicon-based solar cells.The bendable artificial leaves are composed of water-based gel infused with light-sensitive molecules – the researchers even used plant chlorophyll in one of the experiments – coupled with electrodes coated by carbon materials, like carbon nanotubes or graphite.

If you get an injury, you might clench your hand.  It turns out there is a brain-related reason for that,  namely a somatosensory body one.   Perception and multisensory interactions at the spinal level.A new report in Current Biology says 'self-touch', like hand clenching, offers significant relief for acute pain under experimental conditions and they used the Thermal Grill Illusion to show it.

New dinosaurs in a long-forgotten world and you've never heard of it?  Don't be alarmed, the "lost continent" of Laramidia was formed when a shallow sea flooded the central region of North America, isolating the eastern and western portions of the continent for millions of years during the Late Cretaceous Period.  It was a swampy, subtropical setting - in Utah.But it wasn't the only thing lost.   Two new species of horned dinosaurs have been found in Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument in southern Utah. 

Energy from the air?  How very Tesla of you!   But unlike America's favorite quirky inventor, this isn't transmitted power and no dogs have to die.    It's using moisture from the air - and the more humidity you have the better.Similar to the way solar cells capture sunlight, hygroelectric collectors would collect moisture and use it to light a house or recharge an electric car.   Bonus: Panels on the rooftops of buildings could prevent lightning strikes - and the technology is already in the early stages of development.

Are you a brilliant student but can't take tests well?   A star athlete in practice but nerves overwhelm you at game time?   It's common but in varying degrees; the line between someone who worries about performance and therefore does even better and someone who 'chokes' under pressure is fuzzy.

Did Neanderthals develop `modern' tools and ornaments solely through contact with Homo sapiens, or could they adapt, innovate and evolve technology on their own?  A new anthropology study challenges a half-century of conventional wisdom that Neanderthals were primitive `cavemen' overrun and out-competed by modern humans arriving in Europe from Africa.

Airlines, hotel companies, anything with a date attached, know they have you on the hook the closer to that date because no one buys airline tickets for tomorrow unless they are desperate, and there are fewer tickets available, so capitalism says you consumers will pay more because they must.But even William Shatner knows the airline seat or hotel room has no value for the corporation either, once it is gone - he works for a corporation that makes money selling last-minute fares and hotel rooms because it is an asset that expires. That can be your advantage also because airlines and others don't want to fly empty so they often have the 'best' prices on a limited number of seats long in advance in order to break even.   Buying in advance makes sense also.

Since you are not Moses, with an omnipotently powerful deity covering your escape, in the situation of a fanatical pharaoh on your trail you may be confused as to how you could part the Red Sea and thus save your People.   Numerical modeling is here to help with some physics.

Tendons connect bones to muscles so if you want to run during a football game or fight a Trojan War, they are important.   If you didn't understand the clever pun in the title, the only vulnerability of Achilles was his calcaneal tendon (tendo calcaneus), because when his mother Thetis dipped him into the magical river Styx to make him invincible, she held him by the heel.Naturally, it was his undoing.   So today that tendon of the posterior leg is called the Achilles tendon and a devastating weakness in an otherwise strong group or person is colloquially called the Achilles Heel (see Death Star - should we close that 2 meter port that leads to the fusion core?) 

Oxytocin (alpha-hypophamine ) is a nine amino acid peptide more commonly known as a neurotransmitter in the brain - a love hormone.There have been many studies trying to discern the impact of oxytocin on things like maternal behavior and sex but researchers at Mount Sinai School of Medicine wanted to find out if oxytocin helped us to 'understanding' other people in ordinary social encounters.Result:  They determined oxytocin selectively improves social cognitive abilities for less socially proficient individuals, but has little effect on those who are more socially proficient.