A new touch-sensitive nerve fibre responsible for the sense of pleasure experienced during stroking has been described at a UK conference today. The nerves tap into a human's reward pathways, and could help explain why we enjoy grooming and a good hug, a neuroscientist has explained.
His team used a stroking machine to reveal the optimal speed and pressure for the most enjoyable caress. The research was presented at the British Association Science Festival. Mothers stroke their children, monkeys groom group members, and we all enjoy a massage, but what is it about stroking and rubbing that we find so enjoyable?
Science & Technology
Harvest Moon: This weekend's full Moon (Sept. 14/15) has a special name--the Harvest Moon. It's the full moon closest to the northern autumnal equinox (Sept. 22). In years past, farmers depended on the light of the Harvest Moon to gather ripening crops late into the night. Post-Edison, we appreciate it mainly for its beauty.
Be alert in the nights ahead for Harvest Moon halos:
Be alert in the nights ahead for Harvest Moon halos:
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| ©David Cartier |
| Halos are not purely daytime happenings. Look for them whenever a bright moon is veiled by thin cirrus cloud. A full or nearly full moon is best.
22º halos often encircle the moon. More rarely, because the moon is relatively dim, it is possible to see moondogs and other halos. Colours are faint or non existent because their light is barely strong enough to excite the colour sensors of our eyes. Much smaller coloured rings sometimes surround the moon. These are not a halo but a corona produced by the diffraction of light by the water droplets of clouds. And of course moonlight creates a rainbow although to the unaided eye it is usually a wan creature devoid of colour. |
Stars without enough mass to turn into exploding supernovae end their lives blowing away most of their mass in a non-explosive, but intense stellar wind. Only a hot stellar core remains in the form of a white dwarf; the rest of the star is dispersed into the interstellar medium, enriching it with chemically processed elements, such as carbon, that is found in all living organisms on Earth.
These elements were cooked in the stellar furnace during a stellar life span covering billions of years. The high-energy radiation from the hot white dwarf makes the blown gas to shine for a short period of time, and the result is one of the most colourful and beautiful astronomical objects: a planetary nebula.
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| ©Howard Bond (STScI), NASA |
| IC 3568 |
These elements were cooked in the stellar furnace during a stellar life span covering billions of years. The high-energy radiation from the hot white dwarf makes the blown gas to shine for a short period of time, and the result is one of the most colourful and beautiful astronomical objects: a planetary nebula.
When the world's land was congealed in one supercontinent 240 million years ago, Antarctica wasn't the forbiddingly icy place it is now. But paleontologists have found a previously unknown amphibious predator species that probably still made it less than hospitable.
The species, named Kryostega collinsoni, is a temnospondyl, a prehistoric amphibian distantly related to modern salamanders and frogs. K. collinsoni resembled a modern crocodile, and probably was about 15 feet in length with a long and wide skull even flatter than a crocodile's.
In addition to large upper and lower teeth at the edge of the mouth, temnospondyls often had tiny teeth on the roof of the palate. However, fossil evidence shows the teeth on the roof of the mouth of the newly found species were probably as large as those at the edge of the mouth.
"Its teeth, compared to other amphibians, were just enormous. It leads us to believe this animal was a predator taking down large prey," said Christian Sidor, a University of Washington associate professor of biology and curator of vertebrate paleontology at the Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture at the UW.
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| ©Christian Sidor |
| Teeth are visible along the edge of this temnospondyl fossil, and also can be seen spaced out across the palate roof about one-third of the way up in the photograph. |
The species, named Kryostega collinsoni, is a temnospondyl, a prehistoric amphibian distantly related to modern salamanders and frogs. K. collinsoni resembled a modern crocodile, and probably was about 15 feet in length with a long and wide skull even flatter than a crocodile's.
In addition to large upper and lower teeth at the edge of the mouth, temnospondyls often had tiny teeth on the roof of the palate. However, fossil evidence shows the teeth on the roof of the mouth of the newly found species were probably as large as those at the edge of the mouth.
"Its teeth, compared to other amphibians, were just enormous. It leads us to believe this animal was a predator taking down large prey," said Christian Sidor, a University of Washington associate professor of biology and curator of vertebrate paleontology at the Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture at the UW.
The impact of Hurricane Ike has reached out into space and delayed the planned Friday arrival of a Russian cargo ship at the international space station.
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| ©Reuters / Stephen Brusatte / Columbia University |
| Crurotarsans skulls |
Thanks to a big stroke of luck 200 million years ago, dinosaurs beat out a fearsome group of creatures competing for the right to rule the Earth, scientists said on Thursday.
Dinosaurs appeared about 230 million years ago, during the Triassic Period, and competed for 30 million years with a group of reptiles called crurotarsans, cousins of today's crocodiles that grew to huge sizes and looked a lot like dinosaurs.
European researchers have developed technology enabling robots to obey Asimov's golden rules of robotics: to do no harm to humans and to obey them.
In Abraham Stroock's lab at Cornell, the world's first synthetic tree sits in a palm-sized piece of clear, flexible hydrogel -- the type found in soft contact lenses.
Stroock and graduate student Tobias Wheeler have created a "tree" that simulates the process of transpiration, the cohesive capillary action that allows trees to wick moisture upward to their highest branches.
The researchers' work, reported in the Sept. 11 issue of the journal Nature, bolsters the long-standing theory that transpiration in trees and plants is a purely physical process, requiring no biological energy. It also may lead to new passive heat transfer technologies for cars or buildings, better methods for remediating soil and more effective ways to draw water out of partially dry ground.
Of course, the synthetic tree doesn't look much like a tree at all. It consists of two circles side by side in the gel, patterned with evenly spaced microfluidic channels to mimic a tree's vascular system.
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| ©Abraham Stroock and Tobias Wheeler |
| A transparent sheet of pHEMA, 1 millimeter thick, is etched with 80 parallel channels of varying lengths arranged to form a circle and connected by a single channel. The inset shows an optical micrograph of the cross-section of one microchannel. |
Stroock and graduate student Tobias Wheeler have created a "tree" that simulates the process of transpiration, the cohesive capillary action that allows trees to wick moisture upward to their highest branches.
The researchers' work, reported in the Sept. 11 issue of the journal Nature, bolsters the long-standing theory that transpiration in trees and plants is a purely physical process, requiring no biological energy. It also may lead to new passive heat transfer technologies for cars or buildings, better methods for remediating soil and more effective ways to draw water out of partially dry ground.
Of course, the synthetic tree doesn't look much like a tree at all. It consists of two circles side by side in the gel, patterned with evenly spaced microfluidic channels to mimic a tree's vascular system.
Astronomers from around the world combined data from ground- and space-based telescopes to paint a detailed portrait of the brightest explosion ever seen. The observations reveal that the jets of the gamma-ray burst called GRB 080319B were aimed almost directly at the Earth.
GRB 080319B was so intense that, despite happening halfway across the Universe, it could have been seen briefly with the unaided eye (ESO 08/08). In a paper to appear in the 11 September issue of Nature, Judith Racusin of Penn State University, Pennsylvania (USA), and a team of 92 co-authors report observations across the electromagnetic spectrum that began 30 minutes before the explosion and followed it for months afterwards.
"We conclude that the burst's extraordinary brightness arose from a jet that shot material almost directly towards Earth at almost the speed of light - the difference is only 1 part in 20 000," says Guido Chincarini, a member of the team.
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| ©Unknown |
GRB 080319B was so intense that, despite happening halfway across the Universe, it could have been seen briefly with the unaided eye (ESO 08/08). In a paper to appear in the 11 September issue of Nature, Judith Racusin of Penn State University, Pennsylvania (USA), and a team of 92 co-authors report observations across the electromagnetic spectrum that began 30 minutes before the explosion and followed it for months afterwards.
"We conclude that the burst's extraordinary brightness arose from a jet that shot material almost directly towards Earth at almost the speed of light - the difference is only 1 part in 20 000," says Guido Chincarini, a member of the team.
Memories of highly charged events such as the July 7 bombings can be totally inaccurate and too unreliable to use in court, a psychologist has found.
More than a third of people questioned in a survey about one of the London terror incidents claimed to have seen footage which does not exist.
Dr James Ost, of the University of Portsmouth, said people create false memories which can pose problems for police investigating major crimes, social workers investigating families where abuse is suspected, adults who believe they have "recovered" memories from childhood trauma and for the courts where witness testimony is relied upon. He told the BA Festival of Science in Liverpool many people can be persuaded they have seen things which never happened.
His findings were based on a study carried out over a two-week period in October 2005, three months after the attacks on the Underground and a bus in central London.
More than a third of people questioned in a survey about one of the London terror incidents claimed to have seen footage which does not exist.
Dr James Ost, of the University of Portsmouth, said people create false memories which can pose problems for police investigating major crimes, social workers investigating families where abuse is suspected, adults who believe they have "recovered" memories from childhood trauma and for the courts where witness testimony is relied upon. He told the BA Festival of Science in Liverpool many people can be persuaded they have seen things which never happened.
His findings were based on a study carried out over a two-week period in October 2005, three months after the attacks on the Underground and a bus in central London.
