Beau Lotto’s color games puzzle your vision, but they also spotlight what you can’t normally see: how your brain works. This fun, first-hand look at your own versatile sense of sight reveals how evolution tints your perception of what’s really out there.
[via justrealized]
Upon listening to a special ringtone by Japanese (but of course) researcher who specializes in cognitive sciences, the lady increased her breasts size by not 1, not 2 but 3 centimeters. Rei is now a proud owner of a 82.5 cm chest all thanks to the unusual ringtone.
Discovery channel reports the breast enhancement techniques. Now the researcher intends to create special sounds that would encourage hair growth and stimulate love at first sight.
The Independent concludes (not too independently) that men are the weaker sex. Pollution has been identified as the cause. Article author’s gender is still unknown.
It’s official: Men really are the weaker sex
The male gender is in danger, with incalculable consequences for both humans and wildlife, startling scientific research from around the world reveals.
Backed by some of the world’s leading scientists, who say that it “waves a red flag” for humanity and shows that evolution itself is being disrupted, the report comes out at a particularly sensitive time for ministers. On Wednesday, Britain will lead opposition to proposed new European controls on pesticides, many of which have been found to have “gender-bending” effects.
It also follows hard on the heels of new American research which shows that baby boys born to women exposed to widespread chemicals in pregnancy are born with smaller penises and feminised genitals.
“This research shows that the basic male tool kit is under threat,” says Gwynne Lyons, a former government adviser on the health effects of chemicals, who wrote the report.
At the other end of the world, hermaphrodite polar bears – with penises and vaginas – have been discovered and gender-benders have been found to reduce sperm counts and penis lengths in those that remained male. Many of the small, endangered populations of Florida panthers have been found to have abnormal sperm.
Professor Lou Gillette of Florida University, one of the most respected academics in the field, warned that the report waved “a large red flag” at humanity. He said: “If we are seeing problems in wildlife, we can be concerned that something similar is happening to a proportion of human males”
Communities heavily polluted with gender-benders in Canada, Russia and Italy have given birth to twice as many girls than boys, which may offer a clue to the reason for a mysterious shift in sex ratios worldwide. Normally 106 boys are born for every 100 girls, but the ratio is slipping. It is calculated that 250,000 babies who would have been boys have been born as girls instead in the US and Japan alone.
…Britain has long sought to water down EU attempts to control gender-bender chemicals and has been leading opposition to a new regulation that would ban pesticides shown to have endocrine-disrupting effects. Almost all the other European countries back it, but ministers – backed by their counterparts from Ireland and Romania – are intent on continuing their resistance at a crucial meeting on Wednesday. They say the regulation would cause a collapse of agriculture in the UK… (Source: The Independent)
I’m been hearing that developed countries typically has lesser men than women. I guess this explains.
Seems like someone is clearly mistaken:
<omega> i like star trek because it’s actually pretty realistic. the technology is fiction, but it follows real physics
<Kuiper> In Star Trek, whenever there are torpedoes or phaser fire hitting a ship, you can hear the explosions even though they’re in space. How is that “real physics?”
<omega> in space, explosions are actually louder
<omega> because there is no air to get in the way
<omega> dumbass (Source)
Imagine a film trying to be realistic and offer absolutely no sound effect in space. Probably made a pretty boring film that could’ve belong to the silent film era.
Grad student accidentally discovers ultra-efficient white-light LED.
White Light, Less Heat
An accidental discovery at Vanderbilt University may well be the key to making light-emitting diodes the dominant lighting technology of the century. Up until very recently, the only way to make “white” light was to add yellow phosphors to bright blue LEDs. It wasn’t quite right, though, as even the best “white” LED retained a blue tint. This week, we got the news that a chemistry grad student at Vanderbilt has stumbled on a way to make broad-spectrum white LEDs using quantum dots — and in doing so, he may well have kicked off a revolution. (Source: WorldChanging)
I hope they get this into production real soon.
Ontario high school junior Daniel Burd wanted to try to figure out if there was a way to get plastic bags to decompose faster. As it stands, it takes thousands of years for the wasteful objects to disintegrate. But by using bacteria, he figured out how to make it happen in a mere three months.
WCI student isolates microbe that lunches on plastic bags
Daniel Burd’s project won the top prize at the Canada-Wide Science Fair in Ottawa. He came back with a long list of awards, including a $10,000 prize, a $20,000 scholarship, and recognition that he has found a practical way to help the environment.
He knew plastic does eventually degrade, and figured microorganisms must be behind it. His goal was to isolate the microorganisms that can break down plastic — not an easy task because they don’t exist in high numbers in nature.
Vilayanur Ramachandran explains what actually happens in the brain and it’s actually easy enough to understand. And he’s quite humorous too. I wish my science lecturers are half as entertaining.
In a wide-ranging talk, Vilayanur Ramachandran explores how brain damage can reveal the connection between the internal structures of the brain and the corresponding functions of the mind. He talks about phantom limb pain, synesthesia (when people hear color or smell sounds), and the Capgras delusion, when brain-damaged people believe their closest friends and family have been replaced with imposters.
Neurologist V.S. Ramachandran looks deep into the brain’s most basic mechanisms. By working with those who have very specific mental disabilities caused by brain injury or stroke, he can map functions of the mind to physical structures of the brain.
