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 Wind energy converter inspired by ancient boats By Amy Pollock and Mohamed Haddad A bladeless wind energy convertor inspired by the sailing boats of Ancient Carthage is set to breeze past traditional turbines in terms of efficiency, according to its Tunisian developers. A Tunisian start-up has taken inspiration from the sailing boats of Ancient Carthage to develop a bladeless, non-rotating wind energy convertor that is more efficient than traditional turbines as well as safer and quieter, according to the developers. Tunis-based Saphon Energy says the aerodynamic bowl-shaped sail on its turbine is capable of capturing twice as much wind energy over the same swept area as a conventional turbine. Read More »Astronaut runs marathon in space -- but slower than on earth Read More » Spectacular Auroras Captured in Dramatic New Time-Lapse Video Read More » Oldest Viking Crucifix Uncovered in Denmark Read More » Lap Dinos? Gigantic Sauropods Started Out Chihuahua-Size Read More » How Jet-Black Metal Converts Sunlight to Steam Power Steam power, once a major force behind the Industrial Revolution, could be coming back into fashion, after Chinese researchers designed the world's "darkest metal" that converts sunlight to steam at roughly 90 percent efficiency. Despite being made from gold, the so-called "plasmonic absorber" is jet black as it absorbs 99 percent of light in the visible to mid-infrared spectrum. Its designers say this is a dramatic improvement over previous metal absorbers and comparable to the world's darkest material, carbon-nanotube (CNT) arrays. Read More »Levitating Sled Sets New World Speed Record Read More » Bizarre Ant Life Rafts Have Assigned Seating Read More » Drug Overdose Deaths Increased 70-Fold in These US Counties Some U.S. counties have seen a 70-fold increase in drug overdose deaths in the last few decades, a new study finds. However, the areas with the highest increases in drug overdose deaths are not always the places with the most drug trafficking, as identified by the government, the study found. This suggests that drugs are passing through some high-trafficking counties without affecting death rates of the people in those regions, but are causing problems in other parts of the country, the researchers said. Read More »Woman's Paranoia Had an Unusual Cause The 43-year-old woman in Turkey had become suddenly suspicious of her husband's infidelity, and had started looking through his phone and personal belongings, the doctors who treated her wrote in their report of her case, published in March in the journal BMJ Case Reports. The woman came to see doctors in January 2015, seeking medical help for her paranoia about her husband's behavior, said Dr. C. Onur Noyan, a psychiatrist at NPIstanbul Neuropsychiatry Hospital in Istanbul who treated the woman and was the lead author of the case report. The doctors conducted a detailed psychiatric evaluation and concluded that the woman had experienced a brief psychotic attack, Noyan said. Read More »Why Some 'Unhealthy' Eating Behaviors Might Not Be That Bad Dining out or eating canned foods might not actually be so bad for your waistline, a new study from Spain suggests. People who said they ate while watching TV at least two times a week, or didn't plan how much to eat before they sat down to a meal, were more likely to gain weight, compared with people who didn't report engaging in these unhealthy eating behaviors. But many other behaviors that are typically thought of as unhealthy — including eating pre-cooked or canned foods, buying snacks from a vending machine, and eating at fast food restaurants more than once a week — were not linked to weight gain. Read More » | ||||
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Monday, April 25, 2016
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Saturday, April 23, 2016
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| Volatile Sakurajima Volcano is a Lightning Laboratory Read More » For Social Work to Work, People Need to Know They Belong (Op-Ed) Belonging is a psychological lever that has broad consequences for people's interests, motivation, health and happiness, suggests Gregory Walton, a psychologist at Stanford University in California who has published a series of studies on the subject. In social work, it's just as important to help vulnerable clients build meaningful relationships and increase their sense of community as it is to deliver direct services, like food and shelter. When social service agencies fill basic needs for the impoverished, unemployed or lonely, progress is usually measured in meals served, people sheltered or jobs placed. Read More »Healthy Eating Trick: Use Tech to Order Food In a third experiment, researchers asked students to choose between a Twix and a banana for a snack. When students made their choice out loud, 62 percent chose the Twix. In comparison, when the students chose by pushing a button, 35 percent chose the Twix, and when they wrote down their choice, 43 percent chose the Twix. Read More »Zap! Sparking the Brain Stimulates Creativity That spark of creativity you crave might begin with a tiny zap. Results showed an in increase in creative thinking after the zaps, demonstrating for the first time that electrical stimulation can enhance creativity, the researchers said. But before you try the DIY route by licking your finger and sticking it in a socket, the researchers warned that they are in the early stages of understanding how electrical stimulation may enhance thought. Read More »This Look Makes Candidates More Electable Researchers found that Americans preferred to vote for candidates who appeared more competent, according to the study, published today (April 21) in the journal Social Psychological and Personality Science. Chinese participants, on the other hand, valued candidates who appeared to have better social skills, the researchers found. It turned out that the appearance of competence, or the ability to complete certain goals, was more important to American participants, while the appearance of "social competence," or the ability to navigate social situations and be sensitive to the needs of others, played a greater role in the decision for Chinese participants. Read More »How Your Diet Affects Your Risk of Colon Polyps Eating foods known to promote inflammation may increase a person's risk of developing polyps in the large intestine, or colon, a new study finds. "Inflammation is very consistently associated with [a person's] risk of colon cancer," said Dr. Roberd Bostick, a professor of epidemiology at Emory University in Georgia and the senior author on the study that was presented here Tuesday (April 19) at the American Association for Cancer Research's annual meeting. In the study, the researchers used a "food-based inflammation" score that they had developed in a previous study. Read More » | ||||
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Friday, April 22, 2016
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| Huge long-necked dinosaurs had big, precocious babies Read More » AstraZeneca taps gene pioneer Venter for huge drug-hunting sweep Read More » Robot monk blends science and Buddhism at Chinese temple Read More » AstraZeneca taps gene pioneer Venter for huge drug-hunting sweep Read More » Building for Egypt's First Female Pharaoh Discovered Read More » Dinosaur Decline Started Long Before Asteroid Impact Read More » Faster Than Light! Incredible Illusion Makes Images 'Time Travel' Taken together, the results finally prove a century-old prediction made by British scientist and polymath Lord Rayleigh. Lord Rayleigh — the brilliant British physicist who discovered the noble gas argon and explained why the sky is blue — also made a bizarre prediction about sound waves nearly a century ago. Rayleigh reasoned that, because the speed of sound is fixed, an object traveling faster than that while spewing out sound would result in sound waves that would seem to travel in the opposite direction of the object and thus seem to be reversed in time orientation. Read More »Dutch fountain runs on sunshine and air A Dutch sculpture presented on Earth Day spouts water 6 meters high without using conventional water or power sources in what creators hope will inspire new ways to ease resource shortages in drought-prone climates. The Solar Fountain, which took Dutch inventor Ap Verheggen six years to develop, produces around 2 liters (4.2 pints) of water per day using an ordinary dehumidifier, two 250-watt solar panels and a rechargeable battery pack. "We present the sculpture with technology that's off the shelves," Verheggen said. Read More »Sci-Tech Visionaries Gather for 'Future Is Here' Festival This weekend, hundreds of scientists, tech visionaries and industry leaders will flock to the nation's capital for Smithsonian magazine's "Future Is Here" festival, a three-day event that explores research and innovations at the intersection of science and science fiction. "It's an explosion of creativity — it's really a unique program," said Michael Caruso, editor in chief of Smithsonian magazine, which is hosting the event. "The theme of the whole thing is science meets science fiction. Read More »108-Year-Old Message in a Bottle Is Oldest Ever Found Read More » | ||||
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