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Researchers from Waseda University have teamed up with Kyushu-based robot manufacturer tmsuk to develop a humanoid robot that uses its entire body to express a variety of emotions.
The stares of strangers endured by Connie Culp, recent face transplant recipient, might have little to do with cruelty or lack of empathy. These responses are likely a result of neurologic, biologic and evolutionary factors.
Prior to her operation, the center of Culp's face was blank skin traversed by a single raw scar where she once had a nose, upper lip and cheeks. The disfigurement made her the target of something perhaps even less fixable: millions of years of evolutionary uncouth. When she went out in public, people gaped at her. After her operation, her face still looks unusual and the stares continue.
"We stare. Even if you don't want to, even if your better judgment tells you 'I need to be nice to this person. They've obviously suffered a tragedy,' there's something so alien and uncomfortable - it just doesn't look like us," said facial expression expert Erika Rosenberg, who focuses on evolution at UC Davis' Center for the Mind and Brain. "It goes back to a very primal thing."
© UnknownSchematic of Culp's transplant procedure
"We stare. Even if you don't want to, even if your better judgment tells you 'I need to be nice to this person. They've obviously suffered a tragedy,' there's something so alien and uncomfortable - it just doesn't look like us," said facial expression expert Erika Rosenberg, who focuses on evolution at UC Davis' Center for the Mind and Brain. "It goes back to a very primal thing."
© NASA / JPL / HST / David JamesThe location of the brown-dwarf binary 2MASS J05352184-0546085 in the Orion Nebula, the closest big, hot star nursery. The two closely-orbiting objects appear as a single point in these infrared images
Just as sociologists and biologists study twins to understand how people with the same origin can differ, astronomers study binary and multiple stars knowing that they formed at the same time and place. The most valuable binary stars are eclipsing binaries. As the stars cross each other, the depths, shapes, period, and colors of their eclipses, combined with spectroscopy showing the stars' radial velocities, can give very accurate readings of the stars' masses, temperatures, surface brightnesses, and physical sizes.
Rabat -- A Moroccan-French archaeology team has discovered the rear part of a human mandible that dates back to the prehistoric Acheulian phase, local MAP news agency reported on Monday.
The mandible, which belongs to a young human, holds a premolar and a molar, the report said.
The fossil was uncovered on May 14 in the Thomas I quarry site in Casablanca, along with stone tools "that characterize the Acheulian civilization" and remnants of gazelles, antelopes, warthogs, bears, monkeys, said the report.
The mandible, which belongs to a young human, holds a premolar and a molar, the report said.
The fossil was uncovered on May 14 in the Thomas I quarry site in Casablanca, along with stone tools "that characterize the Acheulian civilization" and remnants of gazelles, antelopes, warthogs, bears, monkeys, said the report.
Novalja, Croatia - In the Caska Bay on the Island of Pag, near Novalja, an ancient sewn ship over 2,000 years old was found. This is the result of research done by the city of Novalja and the Zadar University, in cooperation with the French institute for scientific research (CNRS-CCJ University in Marseille) and numerous other foreign associates.
Archaeologists have found a ancient sewn ship more than 2000 years old in Pag's Caska Bay, reports ezadar.hr.
Archaeologists have found a ancient sewn ship more than 2000 years old in Pag's Caska Bay, reports ezadar.hr.
© Carol DehlerThis is an exposure of the Chuar Group in Carbon Canyon, Grand Canyon.
By analyzing microfossils in rocks from the bottom of the Grand Canyon, the authors have challenged the view that has been generally assumed to be correct for the widespread die-off of early life on Earth.
"Snowball Earth" is the popular term for glaciations that occurred between approximately 726 and 635 million years ago and are hypothesized to have entombed the planet in ice, explained co-author Susannah Porter, assistant professor of earth science at UCSB. It has long been noted that these glaciations are associated with a big drop in the fossil diversity, suggesting a mass die-off at this time, perhaps due to the severity of the glaciations. However, the authors of the study found evidence suggesting that this drop in diversity occurred some 16 million or more years before the glaciations. And, they offer an alternative reason for the drop.
© Marek Nikodem
Only one day older and a few percent wider, the crescent Moon will be back again this evening.
© Quintus Oostendorp
On May 22nd, Dutch amateur astronomer Quintus Oostendorp watched a flare through his backyard telescope. A movie he recorded using his Canon 1000D shows what happened.
A space storm has been observed exploding from a central point in Earth's upper atmosphere for the first time. The result could one day lead to better predictions of the storms, which can harm satellites and power grids on the ground.
The energy that powers space storms comes from clouds of plasma hurled at Earth by the sun. These clouds stretch our planet's magnetic field like a rubber band, storing energy in a long magnetic tail behind our planet.
The energy released when the field snaps back into place creates the ethereal glow of auroras (see a gallery of the light shows). It also floods the space around our planet with radiation that can incapacitate satellites and sicken astronauts, and can trigger electric currents on Earth capable of knocking out power grids.
Now, scientists have obtained the clearest view yet of the energy that was released in the magnetic tail arriving and initiating a disturbance in Earth's upper atmosphere, or ionosphere.
The energy that powers space storms comes from clouds of plasma hurled at Earth by the sun. These clouds stretch our planet's magnetic field like a rubber band, storing energy in a long magnetic tail behind our planet.
The energy released when the field snaps back into place creates the ethereal glow of auroras (see a gallery of the light shows). It also floods the space around our planet with radiation that can incapacitate satellites and sicken astronauts, and can trigger electric currents on Earth capable of knocking out power grids.
Now, scientists have obtained the clearest view yet of the energy that was released in the magnetic tail arriving and initiating a disturbance in Earth's upper atmosphere, or ionosphere.
Most of the data relates to the central question of the role water might have played in the planet's past, and a new paper in Science, describing Opportunity's exploration of Victoria Crater in Meridiani Planum, a plain near the equator, is no exception.
The paper, by Steven W. Squyres, a Cornell astronomer, and more than 30 colleagues, summarizes information that has been released over the past several years, and can itself be summarized in two words - wet and windy. As in, water and wind have altered the terrain around the crater as they have done elsewhere, suggesting that the processes are regional in scope.
The paper, by Steven W. Squyres, a Cornell astronomer, and more than 30 colleagues, summarizes information that has been released over the past several years, and can itself be summarized in two words - wet and windy. As in, water and wind have altered the terrain around the crater as they have done elsewhere, suggesting that the processes are regional in scope.
