Follow Your Nose: Sniff Controller Gives the Severely Disabled a New Way to Communicate and Move
Assistive technology that helps severely paralyzed people navigate the world and communicate with others often taps into whatever abilities the disabled retain, such as blinking or moving the mouth and tongue. Now, for the first time, researchers have invented a device that allows the paralyzed to write, surf the Web and [...] Read more »
More Education Delays Dementia Signs–But Not Damage
Education has been liked to decreased risk for dementia for decades, but researchers behind a new study opened up the brains of hundreds of people who had died with the disease to try to find out why this correlation exists. [More] Dementia [...] Read more »
Origins: Going Back to Where the Story Really Starts (preview)
We are always telling stories about the world, the universe, ourselves. It helps to make sense of things. But sometimes, through familiarity or neglect, we get lost. We forget where a story really starts, losing sight of where it’s headed. What is biodiversity? Are electric cars new? Even the well-worn tale of human origins is [...] Read more »
Social Ties Boost Survival by 50 Percent
A long lunch out with co-workers or a late-night conversation with a family member might seem like a distraction from other healthy habits, such as going to the gym or getting a good night’s sleep. But more than 100 years’ worth of research shows that having a healthy social life is incredibly important to staying [...] Read more »
The Willpower Paradox
Willingness is a core concept of addiction recovery programs–and a paradoxical one. Twelve-step programs emphasize that addicts cannot will themselves into healthy sobriety–indeed, that ego and self-reliance are often a root cause of their problem. Yet recovering addicts must be willing. That is, they must be open to the possibility that the group and its [...] Read more »
Skeleton Key: Bone Cells May Play a Part in Regulating the Body’s Metabolism
Insulin , the well-known blood sugar hormone, may have a newly discovered function in the body that will rattle your bones–regulating skeletal growth and breakdown. Two new studies published online July 22 in Cell show that insulin stimulates both bone building and breakdown in mice through the hormone’s effects on two [...] Read more »
Frans de Waal on the human primate: Make love, not war
Editor’s Note: This post is the last in a four-part series of essays for Scientific America n by primatologist Frans de Waal on human nature, based on his ongoing research. (The first post, on our sense of fairness, can be read here ; a second post, on the impact of crowding, is [...] Read more »
The New Normal?: Average Global Temperatures Continue to Rise
Hot summers (and balmier winters) may simply be the new normal , thanks to carbon dioxide lingering in the atmosphere for centuries. [More] Carbon dioxide – Atmosphere – Environment – Carbon Cycle – Earth Science Read The Full Article…The New Normal?: Average [...] Read more »
Two Sides of the Same Coin: Gym-bots and Obese People May Share the Same Brain Pathway
The runner tethered to the treadmill and the couch potato gripping a bag of chips may seem like polar opposites, but new research suggests that a single alteration in the brain’s reward system could cause both obsessions. More than one third of regular gym-goers show signs of exercise dependence, continuing to exercise even when sick [...] Read more »
A Change of Heart: Portable Power Source Lets Cardiac Patients Await a Permanent Donor at Home
They say home is where the heart is, but until recently patients who had suffered biventricular failure could survive only with the help of an artificial heart tethered to large, immobile driver system to maintain blood circulation while they awaited a heart transplant. [More] [...] Read more »
