Science

The Brain's Musical Expectation

#275
Researchers from Trinity College Dublin used EEG monitors to scan the brain of musicians while they listened to a piece of music and imagined a piece of music they knew. The study found that the brain's electrical activity for listened music and imagined or expected music was the same except for being of opposite voltage. When the listened music matched the expected music in the brain, the positive and negative signals cancel each other out.
Music
Science

Faster Than Wind Travel

#274
A former aerospace engineer turned YouTuber Rick Cavellero designed a land yacht that harnesses the power of the wind to propel itself faster than said wind. After online disagreements with physics professors, one who bet him $10,000 that it wasn't possible according to the laws of perpetual motion, he built the real thing and won the bet!
Innovation
Science

Harnessing Your Inner Crowd

#274
The Atlantic published an interesting article about how considering the opposite viewpoint when making a decision can lead to better decision making. The piece describes how research about the wisdom of crowds has evolved to demostrate that a change in mindset can help you to harness the power of your inner crowd, which on average leads to better decision outcomes.
Life
Science

Mushroom Markets

#272
Researchers at Rice Unievrsity have observed networks of fungi demostrate economic market principles of Walrusian equilibrium when they negotiate the exchange of carbon & nutrients with host organisms. Manipulating these interactions may allow the organisms to sequester even more carbon, on top of the 5 billion tonnes of carbon they already secure per year.
Environment
Science

Faces In Things

#271
Researchers at the University of Sydney found that when the brain sees faces in objects, known as face pareidolia, the same areas of the brain's face detection network are used as when seeing people's faces. They also found a bias link between the emotion the brain perceives in a face and evaluation of emotion in subsequent faces.
Science

Podcast of the Week: NPR Shortwave on Vegetables Not Being Real!

#270
Vegetables aren't real! At least in a botanic sense. In this informative and mind blowing NPR Shortwave episode, I learned that vegetables are just a culinary designation and not a scientific classification. Brocolli, cauliflower, kale - all the same plant. Listen on later in the episode where we are told that strawberries aren't even berries!
Podcast
Science

Cholera Rice Vaccine

#270
Scientists at the University of Tokyo have developed a vaccine for Cholera that is delivered using genetically modified rice, which has successfully completed phase 1 human trials. The edible Cholerea vaccine hides in the membranes of fat in protein droplets within the rice cells, protecting it from the digestive system.
Innovation
Science

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