We're bombarded with information at all times, so much that if we had to try and process it all times, we'd be paralyzed. Our cerebellum does information damage control by filtering out what changes. Evolution made it possible for us to conserve energy while still processing anomalies quickly.
A team of scholars recently looked at what emotional effects - if any - eating different yogurts had on people.
Their article in Food Research International claims that being pleasantly surprised or disappointed with a food product can actually change a person's mood, at least based on emotional responses. Eating vanilla yogurt made people feel happy, and that yogurt with lower fat content gave people a stronger positive emotional response. Yogurt with different fruits did not show much difference in their emotional effect.
An international team of scientists has discovered the first oceanic microplate in the Indian Ocean--helping identify when the initial collision between India and Eurasia occurred, leading to the birth of the Himalayas.
Although there are at least seven microplates known in the Pacific Ocean, this is the first ancient Indian Ocean microplate to be discovered. Radar beam images from an orbiting satellite have helped put together pieces of this plate tectonic jigsaw and pinpointed the age for the collision, whose precise date has divided scientists for decades.
Reported in Earth and Planetary Science Letters, the team of Australian and US scientists believe the collision occurred 47 million years ago when India and Eurasia initially smashed into each other.
New research shows how past abrupt climatic changes in the North Atlantic propagated globally. The study, led by researchers from Centre for Ice and Climate at the University of Copenhagen's Niels Bohr Institute, shows how interaction between heat transport in the ocean and the atmosphere caused the climatic changes to be expressed in different ways across the Southern Hemisphere. The results shows how forcing the climate system into a different state can trigger climate variations that spread globally and have very different impacts in different regions of Earth. This is important now, where rising atmospheric CO2 levels lead to global warming and may trigger abrupt climatic changes. The results have been published in the scientific journal Nature Geoscience.
RIVERSIDE, Calif. - Aerosols, tiny solid and liquid particles suspended in the atmosphere, impact the environment by affecting air quality and alter the Earth's radiative balance by either scattering or absorbing sunlight to varying degrees. What impact does climate change, induced by greenhouse gases (GHGs), have on the aerosol "burden"--the total mass of aerosols in a vertical column of air?
Genetic mutations in a gene called REST have been shown to cause Wilms tumour, a rare kidney cancer that occurs in children.
Wilms tumour affects about 1 in 10,000 children, but fortunately is curable in about 90% of them.
A study led by researchers at The Institute of Cancer Research, London, identified mutations in the REST gene in 16 children with Wilms tumour.
Nine of the children were the only members of the family to develop Wilms tumour, but in four families more than one child had developed the cancer.
It was the clustering of cases of this rare cancer that alerted the researchers that a hereditary genetic cause was likely. They estimate that REST mutations cause about 10% of familial Wilms tumour.
A new study from Sweden's Karolinska Institutet shows that the 'grammar' of the human genetic code is more complex than that of even the most intricately constructed spoken languages in the world. The findings, published in the journal Nature, explain why the human genome is so difficult to decipher -- and contribute to the further understanding of how genetic differences affect the risk of developing diseases on an individual level.
Sixty percent of Australians have been the target of online harassment and abuse, with women and young adults most likely to report being sexually harassed online. One in 10 adults said someone had shared a nude or semi-nude image of them without their consent.
The results reveal victims of online harassment and abuse are both male and female, with women twice as likely to be targeted by male offenders and men also twice as likely to be the perpetrators of digital abuse.
More than name calling or offensive remarks, digital abuse included sexual harassment, threats and cyber stalking.
Research provides first ever weather map of a planet outside our solar system and it finds wind hurtling at speeds 20x faster than ever recorded on Earth - and seven times the speed of sound.
The researchers measured the velocities on the two sides of HD 189733b and found a strong wing moving at over 5400mph blowing from its dayside to its night side. The velocity was measured using high resolution spectroscopy of the Sodium absorption featured in its atmosphere. As parts of HD 189733b's atmosphere move towards or away from the Earth the Doppler effect changes the wavelength of this feature, which allows the velocity to be measured.
It may feel like old age is slowing you down, but that is not the case for everyone. A new research program found that age is no obstacle to performing well. Even as well as elite cyclists.
The Department of Biomedicine and the Center for Healthy Aging at the University of Copenhagen examined how seniors convert energy when exposed to maximal physical exertion. Six men, aged 46-71 years, cycled 2,700 km, from Copenhagen to the North Cape, in two weeks, and the researchers examined them along the way. The resulting study shows that the seniors expended 4.0 times the basal metabolism. During Tour de France cyclists typically expend 4.3 times the basal metabolism.
Some people throw salt over their shoulder, some wear a particular shirt when their favorite sports team is playing, while some believe food grown using one process rather than another will mean better nutrition.
Even smart, educated, emotionally stable people engage in superstitions that they recognize are unreasonable.
Researchers have discovered a new SARS-like virus that can jump directly from its bat hosts to humans without mutation.
Good news for space travelers on medication - expiration dates aren't different in the low orbit of the International Space Station (ISS).
While the ISS is regularly resupplied with medicines to replace those which have passed their expiry date, this may not be possible on exploration missions that travel to more distant points. On Earth, medicines degrade over time, particularly when exposed to light, oxygen, or humidity. Although temperature and humidity conditions on board the ISS are generally within ideal ranges for medicine storage on Earth, until now, there has been little evidence of how medicines might react to factors unique to spaceflight, such as microgravity and constant exposure to elevated radiation levels.
