Built in 1928, Eric was the UK’s first robot – a talking, moving automaton that was created by Captain Richards and AH Reffell less than a decade after the word robot was first used. But after wowing crowds in Europe and the US, he mysteriously disappeared. Now, with the help of 861 backers on Kickstarter, …
Babies are vulnerable to the cold, because they are small and can’t move themselves out of draughts or the wet. Evolution has compensated by giving them brown adipose tissue, or BAT (it’s often called ‘brown fat’ but it’s actually more like muscle). BAT generates heat by metabolising fat in a deliberately inefficient way. About 5 …
1. Almost all the gold present in Earth’s crust today was delivered by asteroid impacts four billion years ago. Since hen, it has been buried under lava flows and other rock strata. 2. Gold is one of the least reactive elements, but it will dissolve very slightly in water. There are about 20g of gold …
There is still no comprehensive list of genome sequences of all life forms. But from what is available, it looks like the Japanese canopy plant is currently the biggest, with 50 times more DNA than the human genome. Of the animals, the marbled lungfish’s genome (Protopterus aethiopicus) weighs in at 44 times ours. But while size matters for biodiversity studies and understanding the evolution of …
Almost everything we do changes the physical structure of our brains, including what we think about. Each time you recall a memory, for instance, you are effectively strengthening the connections between brain cells. Skilled activities, like playing musical instruments or playing chess, are associated with larger changes to the size of specific brain regions. For example, violinists have more brain …
Can Experience Change the Actual Structure of Our Brain? Read More »
This picture shows a bloom of algae that occurred in Utah Lake, Utah last summer. The lake covers an area of 385km2, and nearly all of it was covered by the bloom. The proliferation of algae was probably caused by warm weather, low water levels and run-off of pollutants from the neighbouring land. Some samples …
A cat’s characteristic ‘moustache’ of vibrissae, made up of 24 or so mobile hairs, is accompanied by other less apparent whiskers above the eyes, on the chin and the back of the front paws (the carpal whiskers). These thickened hairs are alive with deep-rooted nerves that help our feline friends literally feel their way through …
Biometric technologies are designed to recognise you, acting like a password to give you access to a computer system or pass through a security system. Some listen to your voice or examine your signature, some read fingerprints or measure faces, some examine retinas or study your brainwaves, some even measure the geometry of your hands …
What is the Most Accurate Type of Biometric Identification? Read More »
The Universe is expanding at a rate of around 75,000km/h for every million light-years distance, on average. That might sound a lot, but it’s only apparent over galactic distances, where gravity no longer dominates. Everyday objects don’t take part in the cosmic expansion; if they did, there’d be no cosmic expansion, as our standard ‘yardsticks’ …
Is Everything in the Universe Expanding at the Same Rate? Read More »
1. When you first meet people, try to notice their eye color while also smiling at them. It might be because you look for a second or two longer, but all I can tell you is that people really respond to it. 2. Pay attention to people’s feet. If you approach two people in the …
21 Psychological Hacks that Will Help You Deal With Different Social Situations Read More »
Creating a new species is not as easy as it may appear on the surface. DNA testing tells us that the fashionably named ‘coywolf’ is in fact just a variation of a coyote living across eastern Canada and the US. These adaptive ‘super predators’ carry genes from the coyote, wolf and domestic dog that differ in ratio depending …
At least two already have. In March 2004, Sony’s QRIO robot – a 58cm high humanoid bot that’s also rather good at dancing – conducted the Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra for a performance of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony. A few years later in 2008, Honda’s Asimo conducted the Detroit Symphony Orchestra performing Impossible Dream. The results sounded rather good, …
Mastitis, which causes breast tissue to become sore and inflamed, is most common in breastfeeding women. Despite patchy scientific evidence, mums all over the world swear that slipping cabbage leaves in the bra can work wonders. Furthermore, a recent study at a Cairo maternity hospital suggests that cold leaves reduce the engorgement that can lead …
An adult head weighs between 5kg and 6.3kg. Your neck muscles could cope with more weight, but an abnormally large head is usually a sign that something else is wrong. Proteus syndrome, for example, is caused by an extremely rare mutation in the AKT1 gene, right at the start of embryonic development. This causes excessive bone and tissue growth, and depending …
Warm milk may be soothing, but the jury is out on its soporific qualities. Milk contains a protein called alphalactalbumin, a source of the amino acid tryptophan. This forms serotonin, a neurotransmitter that helps to regulate mood and sleep. Consuming alpha-lactalbumin increases blood levels of tryptophan. However, research shows that a large dose is required to give enough tryptophan for the desired effect. Milk also contains a bioactive peptide, casein hydrolysate, which …
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