Science News Digest 16th November 2009
In the science news this week, electronic contact lenses, contagious moods, new planet detection methods, the unveiling of the gene for human speech and finally.... the LHC at CERN is almost brown bread!
Eye Robot!
In New Scientist this week, a team of researchers from Washington University have unveiled a new device that could revolutionise the way we see the world.
The gadget, a contact lens that can allow images to be beamed directly into it and appear as if they are floating 50 -100 cm away from the wearer, could have many different applications to facilitate our everyday lives.
The obvious benefits include being able to watch TV and movies without having to worry about the ‘limited field of view’ offered by our measly 42”+ plasma screens at present, but other applications could feature things like subtitles when talking to a foreign language speaker, or sat-nav with actual photographs to guide you along the way.
Of course there were a few hurdles to get past when sorting out the tech-spec of the device, but the team of researchers have developed ingenious methods to overcome these. Issues such as powering the lens and embedding the circuitry have been solved by fitting a loop antenna that picks up power from a nearby radio source, while the actual components were made separately to the lens, as they couldn’t withstand the temperatures involved in microfabrication.
Instead, they were enclosed in biocompatable material and placed into crevices carved into the lens.
Furthermore, the team managed to do this without obscuring the view of the wearer, by integrating the components into the lens.
The University of Washington team is preparing to present their prototype at the Biomedical Circuits and Systems conference at Beijing later this month.
--------------------------------
Mind Flu.
It happens to all of us, watching someone else cry makes us sad, seeing people laugh lifts our mood, but what about being affected by other people’s irrational thoughts as well?
If you’re worried that you might be making a bad decision, people tend to ask for outside advice from friends and family, but research from Northwestern University in the USA reported by ScienceNOW has shown that consulting people who know you or have some kind of affinity with you are more likely to suffer from the same misjudgements that you do, simply because their familiarity will affect their mindset and cloud their judgement.
To prove this theory, the team conducted an experiment where students were split into groups and asked to become the decision makers for people they had never met (mainly because they were fictitious). One group felt some connection with the character, because they were given some minor personal details that matched their own and the other weren’t given any details of the character and therefore remained impartial.
In a fictional auction scenario, the character had a fixed amount of money to bid with. If the participant making the decisions for the character went over this amount and carried on bidding, the money would come directly from the money the participants were given for taking part.
When it came to the bidding threshold, participants armed with the personal information ‘made almost 60% more bids and were more likely to lose money than those who didn't feel a connection.’
Therefore, the researchers believe that in business scenarios, companies trying to reverse the effects of bad decisions should consult ‘true outsiders’ to avoid throwing good money after bad.
---------------------------------
Watch this space.
Our search for new planets may have just become slightly easier thanks to a new technique for identification that has been unveiled by a team of scientists led by Garik Israelian from the Instituto de Astrofisica de Canarias, Tenerife, Spain.
Previous methods have included looking out for the ‘gravitational wobble’ on a parent star caused by a massive planet and monitoring the star to see if anything passes over its face. To date, methods like this have revealed over 420 new planets.
However, this new method looks at the levels of lithium found in each star. The theory holds that the disc of dusty gas that develops around infant stars actually creates new planets, so the researchers have built on this theory to propose that the dust actually alters the spin of the star, mixing the uppers layers into the interior of the star where the contents, such as lithium, can be burned more effectively.
With our own star, the Sun, scientists have always been very intrigued by the lack of lithium in the upper layers and a survey of stars known to contain orbiting planets show that a vast majority are also severely depleted in lithium.
Therefore, in the future search for other planets, the researchers articulate that the hunt could be narrowed by searching around stars that lack lithium in their composition for new planets.
Garik Israelian told BBC News "Those which have a very low abundance of lithium will be the best candidates around which you might find planets,”
----------------------------------
You can talk!
In the Telegraph this week, the gene that controls human speech has been revealed by a team of scientists from the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA).
The FOXP2 gene experienced rapid changes at the same time as language emerged in humans, and the researchers believe it switches on the necessary circuits in the brain for learning speech. The gene has been associated with speech for a while and we already know that people with a mutated or damaged version of the gene struggle with learning languages and how to talk.
To test this theory further, the team looked to our nearest relative, the chimpanzee, to see why we can speak and they can’t.
In this study they revealed that the differences in FOXP2 between the two species were significant, helping to explaining why the ability to communicate differs so widely between humans and chimpanzees.
"Genetic changes between the human and chimp species hold the clues for how our brains developed their capacity for language.” said co-author Dr Genevieve Konopka, from UCLA.
Further applications of this study include sourcing possible treatments for speech conditions such as autism and schizophrenia.
-----------------------------------
Bread Alert
At £4 billion you’d hope the Large Hadron Collider would be able to withstand a lot, but it seems the kit at the CERN particle physics laboratory in Geneva has got a fatal flaw in that it’s very susceptible to aerial strike- especially from chunks of baguette.
The scientists in CERN noticed the temperature of the LHC was rising above its set temperature of 1.9 degrees above absolute zero. Deciding to investigate this further, they noticed that one of the systems cryogenic cooling units was suffering from a strange ailment- a piece of baguette had become wedged in it, paralysing its functionality in the process.
This latest set back comes after a number of delays spanning back to September 2008, where a malfunctioning magnet caused a massive helium leak after just a few days of operating.
A Spokeswoman for CERN said that the appearance of the baguette was somewhat of a mystery, as the plant is protected by high security fences, so the most plausible explanation must be that it was either dropped out of a passing aeroplane of by a bird.
She went onto say; “Obviously this was slightly surprising. Within the team there was some amusement once they had relaxed after initial concerns.”
Read more in The Times.
Eye Robot!
In New Scientist this week, a team of researchers from Washington University have unveiled a new device that could revolutionise the way we see the world.
The gadget, a contact lens that can allow images to be beamed directly into it and appear as if they are floating 50 -100 cm away from the wearer, could have many different applications to facilitate our everyday lives.
The obvious benefits include being able to watch TV and movies without having to worry about the ‘limited field of view’ offered by our measly 42”+ plasma screens at present, but other applications could feature things like subtitles when talking to a foreign language speaker, or sat-nav with actual photographs to guide you along the way.
Of course there were a few hurdles to get past when sorting out the tech-spec of the device, but the team of researchers have developed ingenious methods to overcome these. Issues such as powering the lens and embedding the circuitry have been solved by fitting a loop antenna that picks up power from a nearby radio source, while the actual components were made separately to the lens, as they couldn’t withstand the temperatures involved in microfabrication.
Instead, they were enclosed in biocompatable material and placed into crevices carved into the lens.
Furthermore, the team managed to do this without obscuring the view of the wearer, by integrating the components into the lens.
The University of Washington team is preparing to present their prototype at the Biomedical Circuits and Systems conference at Beijing later this month.
--------------------------------
Mind Flu.
It happens to all of us, watching someone else cry makes us sad, seeing people laugh lifts our mood, but what about being affected by other people’s irrational thoughts as well?
If you’re worried that you might be making a bad decision, people tend to ask for outside advice from friends and family, but research from Northwestern University in the USA reported by ScienceNOW has shown that consulting people who know you or have some kind of affinity with you are more likely to suffer from the same misjudgements that you do, simply because their familiarity will affect their mindset and cloud their judgement.
To prove this theory, the team conducted an experiment where students were split into groups and asked to become the decision makers for people they had never met (mainly because they were fictitious). One group felt some connection with the character, because they were given some minor personal details that matched their own and the other weren’t given any details of the character and therefore remained impartial.
In a fictional auction scenario, the character had a fixed amount of money to bid with. If the participant making the decisions for the character went over this amount and carried on bidding, the money would come directly from the money the participants were given for taking part.
When it came to the bidding threshold, participants armed with the personal information ‘made almost 60% more bids and were more likely to lose money than those who didn't feel a connection.’
Therefore, the researchers believe that in business scenarios, companies trying to reverse the effects of bad decisions should consult ‘true outsiders’ to avoid throwing good money after bad.
---------------------------------
Watch this space.
Our search for new planets may have just become slightly easier thanks to a new technique for identification that has been unveiled by a team of scientists led by Garik Israelian from the Instituto de Astrofisica de Canarias, Tenerife, Spain.
Previous methods have included looking out for the ‘gravitational wobble’ on a parent star caused by a massive planet and monitoring the star to see if anything passes over its face. To date, methods like this have revealed over 420 new planets.
However, this new method looks at the levels of lithium found in each star. The theory holds that the disc of dusty gas that develops around infant stars actually creates new planets, so the researchers have built on this theory to propose that the dust actually alters the spin of the star, mixing the uppers layers into the interior of the star where the contents, such as lithium, can be burned more effectively.
With our own star, the Sun, scientists have always been very intrigued by the lack of lithium in the upper layers and a survey of stars known to contain orbiting planets show that a vast majority are also severely depleted in lithium.
Therefore, in the future search for other planets, the researchers articulate that the hunt could be narrowed by searching around stars that lack lithium in their composition for new planets.
Garik Israelian told BBC News "Those which have a very low abundance of lithium will be the best candidates around which you might find planets,”
----------------------------------
You can talk!
In the Telegraph this week, the gene that controls human speech has been revealed by a team of scientists from the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA).
The FOXP2 gene experienced rapid changes at the same time as language emerged in humans, and the researchers believe it switches on the necessary circuits in the brain for learning speech. The gene has been associated with speech for a while and we already know that people with a mutated or damaged version of the gene struggle with learning languages and how to talk.
To test this theory further, the team looked to our nearest relative, the chimpanzee, to see why we can speak and they can’t.
In this study they revealed that the differences in FOXP2 between the two species were significant, helping to explaining why the ability to communicate differs so widely between humans and chimpanzees.
"Genetic changes between the human and chimp species hold the clues for how our brains developed their capacity for language.” said co-author Dr Genevieve Konopka, from UCLA.
Further applications of this study include sourcing possible treatments for speech conditions such as autism and schizophrenia.
-----------------------------------
Bread Alert
At £4 billion you’d hope the Large Hadron Collider would be able to withstand a lot, but it seems the kit at the CERN particle physics laboratory in Geneva has got a fatal flaw in that it’s very susceptible to aerial strike- especially from chunks of baguette.
The scientists in CERN noticed the temperature of the LHC was rising above its set temperature of 1.9 degrees above absolute zero. Deciding to investigate this further, they noticed that one of the systems cryogenic cooling units was suffering from a strange ailment- a piece of baguette had become wedged in it, paralysing its functionality in the process.
This latest set back comes after a number of delays spanning back to September 2008, where a malfunctioning magnet caused a massive helium leak after just a few days of operating.
A Spokeswoman for CERN said that the appearance of the baguette was somewhat of a mystery, as the plant is protected by high security fences, so the most plausible explanation must be that it was either dropped out of a passing aeroplane of by a bird.
She went onto say; “Obviously this was slightly surprising. Within the team there was some amusement once they had relaxed after initial concerns.”
Read more in The Times.
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