Humans use imagination a lot, whether it be thinking about what's for dinner later tonight or trying to imagine what someone else on the other side of the world may be experiencing after reading the news. As situations become farther away from reality and more distal, imagining a situation becomes more difficult. The limits to distal imagination are known to lead to many biases, such as empathy gaps for people unlike us and difficulty saving money for a future that feels very far away. Yet, new work from a collaborative study led by Dartmouth College and Princeton University researchers finds that creativity may help us surmount these barriers to distal imagination. The results demonstrate that people with creative expertise are better at imagining distant experiences than others with otherwise similar demographics (age, education level, etc). The study also found that creative experts switch on a different neural system when imagining situations far beyond the present, which may help explain why they are better at stretching their imagination. The findings are published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.
* This article was originally published here
Wednesday, 8 May 2019
Soaking up pharmaceuticals and personal care products from water
Medications excreted in the urine or dumped into the toilet can end up in the water supply, just like lotions or cosmetics that wash off the body and go down the sink or shower drain. Unfortunately, conventional wastewater treatment cannot completely remove pharmaceuticals and personal care products (PPCPs). Now, researchers reporting in ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces have developed an adsorbent membrane that they say could be used to purify water contaminated with PPCPs.
* This article was originally published here
* This article was originally published here
Researchers create 'impossible' nano-sized protein cages with the help of gold
Researchers from an international collaboration have succeeded in creating a "protein cage"—a nanoscale structure that could be used to deliver drugs to specific places of the body, and which can be readily assembled and disassembled, but also withstands boiling and other extreme conditions. They did this by exploring geometries not found in nature reminiscent of "paradoxical geometries" found in Islamic art.
* This article was originally published here
* This article was originally published here
Box of Pain: A new tracer and fault injector for distributed systems
In computer science, distributed systems are systems with components located on different devices, which communicate with one another. While these systems have become increasingly common, they are typically filled with bugs.
* This article was originally published here
* This article was originally published here
Two-thirds of world's longest rivers throttled by mankind: study
Almost two in three of Earth's longest rivers have been severed by dams, reservoirs or other manmade constructions, severely damaging some of the most important ecosystems on the planet, researchers said Wednesday.
* This article was originally published here
* This article was originally published here
Mining microbial treasures from toxic sites
Filled with a noxious brew of copper, cadmium and arsenic, with a pH rivaling that of sulfuric acid, Montana's Berkeley Pit seems inhospitable to life. Nonetheless, scientists have discovered microorganisms in this abandoned copper mine and other human-made noxious sites. These extreme environments induce microbes to synthesize potent, never-before-seen molecules that could find uses in human medicine, according to an article in Chemical & Engineering News, the weekly newsmagazine of the American Chemical Society.
* This article was originally published here
* This article was originally published here
UN shifts response as Ebola outbreak in DR Congo drags on
The United Nations is stepping up its response to the deadly Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo, now in its 10th month, and needs additional resources, Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said Wednesday.
* This article was originally published here
* This article was originally published here
U.S. improves emergency readiness, but gaps persist
(HealthDay)—The United States' ability to deal with major health emergencies quickly has improved significantly in recent years, researchers say.
* This article was originally published here
* This article was originally published here
VisiBlends, a new approach to disrupt visual messaging
Visual blends, which join two objects in an unusual, eye-catching way, are an advanced graphic design technique used in advertising, marketing, and the media to draw attention to a specific message. These visual marriages are designed to precipitate an "aha!" moment in the viewer who grasps one idea from the union of two images. For instance, blending an image of an orange with an image of the sun could convey a beverage with Vitamin C.
* This article was originally published here
* This article was originally published here
Road test proves adaptive cruise control can add to traffic jam problem
A new, open-road test of adaptive cruise control demonstrated that the feature, designed to make driving easier by continuously adjusting a vehicle's speed in response to the car ahead, doesn't yet solve the problem of phantom traffic jams.
* This article was originally published here
* This article was originally published here
"Classical ways of conserving nature are insufficient"
Earlier this week, the Global Assessment on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services was been published by IPBES, the science-policy platform that serves under the flag of the United Nations. In the assessment major concerns are raised on the state and trends of biodiversity. The way currently deal with the loss of nature will not suffice in turning the tide, the researchers state. But what should be done? Wieteke Willemen, who is an associate professor at the ITC Faculty of Geo-information Science and Earth Observation of the University of Twente, reflects on the global decline in biodiversity.
* This article was originally published here
* This article was originally published here
Drones to deliver incessant buzzing noise, and packages
A sister company of Google, Alphabet's Wing Aviation, just got federal approval to start using drones for commercial delivery. Amazon's own drone-delivery program is ready to launch as well. As drones take flight, the world is about to get a lot louder – as if neighborhoods were filled with leaf blowers, lawn mowers and chainsaws.
* This article was originally published here
* This article was originally published here
Researchers identify previously unknown bacterial strain
Clinicians at the Department of Neurology of MedUni Vienna/Vienna General Hospital identified muscle weakness and severe fatigue in a previously healthy patient, to the extent that he was soon confined to a wheelchair. These symptoms were indicative of the autoimmune disease myasthenia gravis. However, the treating neurologist, Matthias Tomschik, found other symptoms, which were not typical of this condition: "Laboratory tests revealed raised inflammation and liver values and the patient had a fever. These results pointed to an infection, so we had to look at this case more closely." Two experts contributed, Inga Koneczny from the Institute of Neurology and Mateusz Markowicz from the Institute of Hygiene and Applied Immunology, undertaking more detailed investigations.
* This article was originally published here
* This article was originally published here
Google's AI Assistant aims to transcend the smart speaker
When Google launched its now distinctive digital assistant in 2016, it was already in danger of being an also-ran.
* This article was originally published here
* This article was originally published here
Researchers discover new pathway for improving metabolic health
Blocking the action of an enzyme involved in protein digestion may improve metabolic health, according to a new study published ahead of print in the American Journal of Physiology—Gastrointestinal and Liver Physiology. The paper was chosen as an APSselect article for May.
* This article was originally published here
* This article was originally published here
Google's privacy promises don't sway many experts (Update)
Google announced new privacy tools Tuesday intended to give people more control over how they're being tracked on the go or in their own home, part of a broader effort by big tech companies to counter increasing scrutiny of their data collection practices..
* This article was originally published here
* This article was originally published here
Could adding minerals to drinking water fight high blood pressure?
If you have high blood pressure, chances are you've been told to cut back on salt. You might even be taking medication. These are good strategies, as nearly half of all adults in the United States work to keep hypertension at bay.
* This article was originally published here
* This article was originally published here
US regulators under scrutiny as they look to punish Facebook
Federal privacy regulators are under scrutiny in Congress as they negotiate a record fine with Facebook to punish the company for alleged violations of its users' privacy.
* This article was originally published here
* This article was originally published here
New space race to bring satellite internet to the world
Anxiety has set in across the space industry ever since the world's richest man, Jeff Bezos, revealed Project Kuiper: a plan to put 3,236 satellites in orbit to provide high-speed internet across the globe.
* This article was originally published here
* This article was originally published here
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)