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Neural Basis Of 'Number Sense' In Young Infants


sciencedaily.com
Sun, 10 Feb 2008 17:37 UTC
Behavioral experiments indicate that infants aged 4½ months or older possess an early "number sense" that allows them to detect changes in the number of objects. However, the neural basis of this ability was previously unknown.

In new research, Véronique Izard, Ghislaine Dehaene-Lambertz, and Stanislas Dehaene provide brain imaging evidence showing that very young infants are sensitive to both the number and identity of objects, and these pieces of information are processed by distinct neural pathways.

The authors recorded the electrical activity evoked by the brain on the surface of the scalp as 3-months-old infants were watching images of objects. The number or identity of objects occasionally changed.

cerebral pathways
©Izard V, Dehaene-Lambertz G, Dehaene S
Distinct cerebral pathways for object identity and number have been identified in the brain of human infants.
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Einstein

Listening For The Cosmic Symphony: Supercomputer Will Help Scientists Listen For Black Holes


sciencedaily.com
Sun, 10 Feb 2008 17:17 UTC
Scientists hope that a new supercomputer being built by Syracuse University's Department of Physics may help them identify the sound of a celestial black hole. The supercomputer, dubbed SUGAR (SU Gravitational and Relativity Cluster), will soon receive massive amounts of data from the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) that was collected over a two-year period at the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave

Duncan Brown, assistant professor of physics and member of SU's Gravitational Wave Group, is assembling SUGAR. The department's Gravitational Wave Group is also part of the LIGO Scientific Collaboration (LSC), a worldwide initiative to detect gravitational waves. Brown worked on the LIGO project at Caltech before coming to SU last August.

keplers supernova remnant
©NASA, ESA, R. Sankrit and W. Blair (Johns Hopkins University)
Kepler's supernova remnant. Gravitational waves are produced by violent events in the distant universe, such as the collision of black holes or explosions of supernovas. The waves radiate across the universe at the speed of light.
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Ladybug

Birds, Bats And Insects Hold Secrets For Aerospace Engineers


Science Daily
Sun, 10 Feb 2008 01:24 UTC


Hummingbird and flower
©Stockphoto/Steve Byland
Flapping flight is inherently unsteady, but that's why it works so well. Birds, bats and insects fly in a messy environment full of gusts traveling at speeds similar to their own. Yet they can react almost instantaneously and adapt with their flexible wings.

Natural flyers like birds, bats and insects outperform man-made aircraft in aerobatics and efficiency. University of Michigan engineers are studying these animals as a step toward designing flapping-wing planes with wingspans smaller than a deck of playing cards.
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Sherlock

Tooth scan reveals Neanderthal mobility

Elena Becatoros
Associated Press
Sat, 09 Feb 2008 03:39 UTC
ATHENS - Analysis of a 40,000-year-old tooth found in southern Greece suggests Neanderthals were more mobile than once thought, paleontologists said Friday.

Analysis of the tooth - part of the first and only Neanderthal remains found in Greece - showed the ancient human had spent at least part of its life away from the area where it died.
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Monkey Wrench

Futuristic toy car runs on tap water

Lewis Smith
The Times
Thu, 07 Feb 2008 18:46 UTC


H2GO
©Unknown
The new hydrogen fuel cell powered radio controlled car from Corgi

A remote-control car produced by the toymaker Corgi is the first household item to be powered by hydrogen fuel cell technology.
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Evil Rays

Beatles space broadcast 'risks alien attack'

Roger Highfield
The Daily Telegraph
Fri, 08 Feb 2008 06:29 UTC
Fears that malevolent aliens will tune into this week's broadcast of The Beatles' song "Across the Universe" have been voiced by scientists.

©Unknown
The transmission raises questions about what we would want aliens to learn about our world
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Bulb

New Thoughts On Language Acquisition: Toddlers As Data Miners


Science Daily
Fri, 08 Feb 2008 03:08 UTC
Indiana University researchers are studying a ground-breaking theory that young children are able to learn large groups of words rapidly by data-mining.
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Attention

Skies dim for British astronomers

Jonathan Amos
BBC
Sat, 26 Jan 2008 20:58 UTC
UK astronomers will lose access to two of the world's finest telescopes in February, as administrators look to plug an £80m hole in their finances.

Observation programmes on the 8.1m telescopes of the Gemini organisation will end abruptly because Britain is cancelling its subscription.

It means UK astronomers can no longer view the Northern Hemisphere sky with the largest class of telescope.
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Bulb

Genetic 'telepathy'? A bizarre new property of DNA


Physorg
Thu, 07 Feb 2008 19:52 UTC
Scientists are reporting evidence that intact, double-stranded DNA has the "amazing" ability to recognize similarities in other DNA strands from a distance. And then like friends with similar interests, the bits of genetic material hangout or congregate together. The recognition - of similar sequences in DNA's chemical subunits - occurs in a way once regarded as impossible, the researchers suggest in a study scheduled for the Jan. 31 issue of ACS' Journal of Physical Chemistry B.
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Info

Organic Solar Cells: Electricity From A Thin Film


sciencedaily.com
Thu, 07 Feb 2008 17:32 UTC
Teams of researchers all over the world are working on the development of organic solar cells. Organic solar cells have good prospects for the future: They can be laid onto thin films, which makes them cheap to produce.

Established printing technologies should be employed for their production of the future. In order to achieve this goal of suitable solar cell architecture as well a coating materials and substrates have to be developed. "This method permits a high throughput, so the greatest cost is that of materials," says Michael Niggemann, a researcher at ISE.

©Fraunhofer ISE
The flexible solar module is as small as the page of a book.
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